Browsing by Author "Holmes, Janet"

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Analysing interpersonal relations in call-centre discourse
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2014) Hui, Sai Y.; Holmes, Janet; Marra, Meredith
In the late twentieth century, call centres began to play what is now perceived as an essential role in the provision of customer services. Their birth and growth owes much to the rapid advancement of telecommunications and computer technologies that make it not only feasible, but also economical, to centralise customer services. Verbal communication is an integral component of these call-centre operations; customer service representatives (CSRs) primarily interact with customers by telephone. The quality of the exchanges between customers and CSRs directly influences organisational efficiency, customer satisfaction and professional reputation. Finding the best ways to interact with customers can therefore bring tremendous benefits to organisations. However, little research has yet been undertaken to study the language used in this new type of workplace. This thesis investigates interpersonal relations in call-centre discourse from three perspectives: first, through the exploration of the structure of calls and the functions of the components of calls; secondly, by examining the way in which CSRs and their callers establish, build, and maintain rapport throughout the course of their exchanges; and thirdly, by analysing the construction of social identities and enactment of power that emerges within the interactions. Analysing over one hundred calls from a New Zealand call centre, the study focuses on the discourse features and language used in authentic telephone exchanges between CSRs and their customers. The call data, totalling 770 minutes of telephone exchanges, was supplemented by ethnographic data including fieldnotes, training materials, and interview recordings, using a range of data collection methods. Analysis of the transactional dimension of calls identified a distinctive four-stage generic structure: opening, request for assistance, solution negotiation, and closing, with obligatory and optional elements at each stage. While there is not much variation in the largely routinised opening and closing stages, considerable variation was evident in the request for assistance and solution negotiation stages. On the relational front, rapport-building strategies are present in all stages. The analysis suggests that CSRs adapt their interactional responses to the caller’s style and the various requirements of the call. These strategies are categorised as: initial rapport-building, cooperative meaning-making, engagement, and exceeding customers’ expectations. Some of these strategies are common to conversational interactions, but some pertain specifically to the call-centre context. In spite of the wide range of strategies, the outcomes can all be analysed as appealing to the caller’s quality face and respecting their association rights; the transactional objectives of the callers are thereby met, and simultaneously good rapport is established, built and maintained throughout the exchange. The enactment of power through social identity is also evident in interactions. The most relevant forms of identity are institutional and professional identity, and these are typically achieved by indexing an organisation, or displaying institutional or professional knowledge. The undercurrent driving force for these constructions of identity and enactments of power seems to be the contextual demands and interactional goals of the call-centre interaction. Hence, these facets of identity and associated power dynamically change as the interactions unfold, adding a further degree of complexity to the interpersonal relationships in call-centre discourse. Overall, this thesis contributes to research on telephone interactions, relational work, power and identity construction, and professional discourse. The research outcomes have the potential to inform the development of academic and professional training courses and curriculum design.
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LING221: Linguistics: Sociolinguistics
(Victoria University of Wellington, 2005) Holmes, Janet
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"The only problem is finding a job": Multimodal analysis of job interviews in New Zealand
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2013) Kuśmierczyk, Ewa; Marra, Meredith; Holmes, Janet
The job interview is a crucial stage in the decision-making process for employment. Research has shown that establishing trust with the interviewer (Kerekes, 2006) and constructing a believable identity (Campbell & Roberts, 2007; Roberts & Campbell, 2006) are crucial elements that promote positive outcomes. These features are closely related to the establishment of mutual understanding, which has been found to facilitate positive evaluation of the candidate (Kerekes, 2003, 2006; Roberts & Campbell, 2006). Most research investigating this issue within discourse analysis has focused on speech as the key conduit of the above features. However, speech is only one of many resources available to the participants – modes such as gesture and gaze, as well as written text all intersect with speech in meaning-making, and thus are also fundamental in shaping the outcomes of the job interview. This thesis identifies elements of the interview interaction that facilitate positive evaluation of the candidate by taking an approach that combines Multimodal Interaction Analysis (Norris, 2004a, 2011) and notions of identity within a social constructionist framework (Bucholtz & Hall, 2005). This methodology allows for a detailed observation of components such as mutual understanding and trust as they emerge within interaction viewed as a sequence of actions realised through a variety of communicative resources. The data in this study consist of audio-video recordings of job interview interactions in two settings in New Zealand - a mock encounter between graduates and employers at a local university careers centre, and job interviews with highly experienced professionals at a large recruitment agency. The first stage of data analysis uses Multimodal Interaction Analysis to investigate how candidates and interviewers establish mutual understanding through actions structured by various modes. Based on the features identified during this phase, initial background presentations and self-promotion styles become the focus of analysis in the second part of the thesis, where multimodal aspects of believable identity production are examined. Findings demonstrate how candidates and interviewers negotiate mutual understanding through embodied conduct, which promotes trust and thus increases the chances of positive evaluation. Constructing a convincing image of oneself as a suitable candidate relies on mutual understanding throughout the interview, but the initial stage of the encounter, the candidate’s background presentation in particular, becomes a crucial site of believable identity production and trust establishment. Furthermore, the candidates produce their identities by means of different self-promotion styles. The interpretation of these styles as renditions of a more or less believable identity is examined in terms of how they link to wider socio-cultural ideologies as well as local behavioural and interactional norms. Overall, this thesis contributes to the field of sociolinguistic research on institutional interaction by taking a multimodal approach that provides an extended view of how interview dynamics are shaped, and advances the field by providing some methodological solutions that can facilitate future multimodal analyses. Secondly, it expands on the current interest in the notion of trust by observing how it functions in gatekeeping encounters.
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Pre and Post Migration: Identity, Language Use and Attitudes among the Wellington Iraqi Community
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2017) Tawalbeh, Ayman Ziad; Marra, Meredith; Holmes, Janet
There has been a considerable amount of research on language maintenance and shift (LMLS) in New Zealand in the last four decades. However, most of this research has focused on investigating immigrants‘ experiences and attitudes in their host countries only. In addition, the analysis of LM has generally focused on the macro level without exploring the dynamics of LMLS at the micro-level where language is used and negotiated. This thesis addresses this gap by investigating LM dynamics among the Wellington Iraqi refugees within a ̳spatio-temporal‘ framework (Blommaert 2006, 2010; Hatoss 2013) and by employing a mixed methods approach in which quantitative and qualitative data were collected and analysed. The majority of the Iraqi community in New Zealandare refugees who fled or were evacuated to New Zealandbeginning in the mid-eighties. Iraqis comprise diverse ethnic groups (e.g., Assyrians, Chaldeans, Kurds, Arabs), religions (e.g., Islam, Christianity) and languages (e.g., Arabic, Assyrian, Kurdish). The analysis in this thesis centres on the two largest Iraqi ethnic groups in Wellington: the Muslim Iraqi Arabs and the Christian Assyrians. The investigation adopted a "spatio-temporal" framework (Blommaert 2010; Hatoss 2013) that takes into account the complexity and mobility of modern-day communities and their languages. Spatio-temporality recognises that LM involves complex interrelationships between space—whether geographic (physical) or symbolic (social) (Blommaert 2010)—and time (past, present and future). These frames are said to interact with each other and influence refugees‘ patterns of language use, attitudes and identities. Before settling in their new host countries, refugees experience a range of spaces which are filled with linguistic norms and expectations that inevitably influence language proficiency, practices, attitudes and identity construction. This investigation therefore focuses not only on post-migration experiences and (imagined) future spaces of language use but also on transit experiences and pre-migration attitudes. In order to obtain a rich analysis of transit experiences and pre-migration attitudes, I collected data from Iraqi refugees in Jordan, a major transit centre, who were preparing to move to New Zealand or had applied for refugee status in New Zealand. This phase involved semi-structured interviews with 14 Iraqi participants. Post-migration data was also collected from Wellington Iraqis using four methods: questionnaire, participant observation, semi-structured interviews and three extensive sets of home recordings. Analysisof the pre-migration data suggests the significance of transit experiences in explaining the variations in Iraqis‘ linguistic preferences and competencies and elucidates differences in language ability, use and attitude between older and younger generations. The analysis also indicates that pre-migration attitudes offer an understanding of Iraqis‘ attitudes towards LM before arrival, thus identifying factors that may enhance or hinder language use in New Zealand. The post-migration quantitative data demonstrates general trends in Iraqis‘ reported language proficiency, use patterns, and attitudes once settled in New Zealand. Iraqis possess high proficiency in their ethnic languages; however, there is a (slow) regression among the younger generation, with attrition in reading and writing abilities greater than in speaking and understanding abilities. Self-report language use patterns suggest that Iraqis‘ ethnic languages are often used and maintained in bonding (i.e. religion and interaction with Iraqi friends/neighbours) and translocal spaces (i.e. communication with Iraqis‘ in the homeland and diaspora) as well as in homes. The data also indicates that Iraqis typically construct positive attitudes towards ethnic LM, with the older generation sometimes reporting more positive attitudes than the younger generation. The analysis of the qualitative data provides insights into the complexities of language use at the micro-level and the multifaceted relationship between attitude, language use, religion and identity. It also demonstrates the heterogeneity within the Iraqi community and its impact on language use and maintenance. This is evident in Assyrian churches and Iraqi Arab homes where ethnic language, identity and religion -a core value for the majority of Iraqis -are negotiated and constructed differently, with consequences for the degree of investment in ethnic LM and learning. Overall, this thesis attempts to shift LM research towards a dynamic, multi-perspective approach. It recognises the heterogeneity of current-day migrant communities and the need to redefine traditional methods and incorporate fresh perspectives into LM research. The research bridges the micro-and the macro-level, and addresses the interplay of 'here and now‘ and 'there and then‘.
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Workplace Language and Power : Directives, Requests and Advice
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2001) Vine, Bernadette; Holmes, Janet
This thesis investigates power in the interactions of four women and their workplace colleagues. Power is explored by examining the forms used to express "control acts", i.e., directives, requests and advice, and through investigation of the way control acts pattern in the discourse and whether they are mitigated. A Speech Act Theory approach is used as the starting point, with insights from other analytical approaches such as Conversation Analysis also being drawn on where relevant. Almost all of the control acts are mitigated. There are differences, however, in the mitigation patterns of Managers as opposed to those of their staff. Whereas Managers tend to provide internal or external modification based on how much a topic has been discussed, lower level staff always provide both internal and external mitigation when dealing with their Managers... The roles of the two interactants are also evident in the large number of control acts in the speech of the Managers compared to that of lower level staff, but are less obvious in other aspects of their discourse. Managers frequently use "consultative" power, for instance in the way they involve their staff in the decision making process. They also empower their staff by acknowledging their staffs' skills and expertise; recognising their "expert" power. Both Managers are seen to have an interactive "participative" style of management. They more often minimise rather than exert power and they pay attention to their interlocutor's face needs.