Complaints: Research Notes

Themes (Boxer, 1993a)

• Self (Oh, I'm so stupid.) - 7%
• Other (...is still the worst manager.) - 27%
• Situation (I feel, in a way, boxed in, you know?/Why did they have to raise tuition?) - 66%

Responses to Indirect Complaint (Boxer, 1993a, 1996)

• Nothing or topic switch - 10%
  • Such responses function to either minimize or terminate an exchange.
  • The addressee may be tired of listening to a chronicle complainer.
  • There may be either intimacy or a high degree of social distance coupled with status inequality.
  • Minimal responses or indications of listening often terminate a complaint exchange.
    
• Question - 12%
  • Such responses take the form of either simple clarification requests, challenge questions questioning the validity of the complaint, or request elaboration
    
• Contradiction - 15%
  • Contradiction responses indicate that the complaint is not accepted or approved of.
  • The majority involves either intimates or status-unequals with large social distance.
    
• Joke/teasing - 6%
  • Frequent among strangers and in service encounters serving as self-presentation
  • Intended to make light of the situation
    
• Advice/lecture - 14%
  • Advice was offered in retrospect or before solving a problem.
  • Likely to be given from those of higher social status
    
• Commiseration - 44%
  • The most common response to a complaint
  • Commiseration responses offer agreement or reassurance to make the speaker feel better.
  • Such responses include: straightforward agreement with the speaker, elaboration of the speaker's complaint, or confirmation of the validity of the complaint. Some take the form of exclamations signaling commiseration; some even finish the speaker's sentence.

Outcomes of Indirect Complaint Exchanges (Boxer, 1993a)

• Non-supportive exchanges - 18%
• Neutral Exchanges - 8%
• Supportive Exchanges - 74%

Strategies

Native speakers of Hebrew preferred the central strategy, explicit complaints, as seen below (Olshtain & Weinbach, 1985).

1. Explicit complaints (45%)
2. Warning (23%)
3. Disapproval (15%)
4. Below reproach (14%)
5. Threat (3%)

References

Boxer, D. (1993a). Complaining and commiserating: A speech act view of solidarity in spoken American English. NY: Peter Lang.

Boxer, D. (1996). Ethnographic interviewing as a research tool in speech act analysis: The case of complaints. In S.M. Gass & J. (Eds.), Speech acts across cultures: Challenges to communication in a second language (pp. 217-239). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Olshtain, E. & Weinbach, L. (1985). Complaints : A study of speech act behavior among native and nonnative speakers of Hebrew. In J. Verschueren & M. Bertuccelli-Papi (Eds.), The Pragmatic Perspective : Selected Papers from the 1985 International Pragmatics Conference (pp, 195-208). Amsterdam/Philadelphia : John Benjamins Publishing Company.