Politeness Strategies in Making Requests in Jordanian Call-Centre Interactions

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine politeness strategies employed in the interactions between Jordanians and the employees of the call-centre-customer service (CCCS) of a major telecommunications company in Jordan. It focuses on their linguistic behaviours upon requesting taking into account the variables of gender, and reasons for calling that may affect the choice of selecting an appropriate strategy. The data were collected from 20 participants through recording of naturally-occurring interactions. The theoretical framework of this study is based on Brown and Levinson’s (1987) model of politeness. The results of the study have shown that negative-politeness strategies dominate the scene in making requests as they were the most frequent ones which may indicate the preference of Jordanians for these strategies to other strategies. Furthermore, the results have shown that in certain cases gender variation had an impact on the choice of particular strategies.