Alan Firth

The study of negotiation has attracted considerable scholarly attention in recent decades, yet rarely have discourse analysts applied their particular concerns and interests to the phenomenon. Although a fundamental characteristic of negotiation is linguistic action, the detailed study of negotiation as a communicative, discourse activity is in its infancy. In the first collection of its kind, Alan Firth has brought together 14 original studies of negotiation discourse. Drawing on insights and methodologies from discourse and conversation analysis, pragmatics, ethnography and ethnomethodology, the book examines negotiations in a wide range of workplaces, including the US Federal Trade Commission, management-union meetings, doctors' surgeries, travel agencies, international trading houses in Denmark, Belgium and Australia, Swedish social welfare offices, and consumer helplines. Collectively, the book explores the notion of negotiation both as a formal encounter and as a gloss for more informal decision-making activities. Questions specifically addressed include: what is the interactional character of negotiation? How are negotiations related to the work context? And how are negotiations undertaken linguistically - as discourse-based activities? Answers are sought by utilising transcripts of real-life instances of negotiation. This allows for finely-detailed descriptions of the observed activities, providing important insight into the discourse-context relationship, the interactional bases of work acitivities, and the communicative processes of negotiation.

Studies of Language in the Workplace

The Discourse of Negotiation

Carolyn Baker

Michael Emmison

Telephone helplines have become one of the most pervasive sites of expert-lay interaction in modern societies throughout the world. Yet surprisingly little is known of the in situ, language-based processes of help-seeking and help-giving behavior that occurs within them. This collection of original studies by both internationally renowned and emerging scholars seeks to improve upon this state of affairs. It does so by offering some of the first systematic investigations of naturally-occurring spoken interaction in telephone helplines. Using the methods of Conversation Analysis, each of the contributors offers a detailed investigation into the skills and competencies that callers and call-takers routinely draw upon when engaging one another within a range of helplines. Helplines in the US, the UK, Australia, Scandinavia, The Netherlands, and Ireland, dealing with the provision of healthcare, emotional support and counselling, technical assistance and consumer rights, tourism and finance, make up the studies in the volume. Collectively and individually, the research provides fascinating insight into an under-researched area of modern living and demonstrates the relevance and potential of helplines for the growing field of institutional interaction. This book will be of interest to students of communication, applied linguistics, discourse and conversation, sociology, counselling, technology and work, social psychology and anthropology.

Alan Firth

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