A Study Of Customer Service Agent’s Pragmatic Identity Construction In Complaint Responses

Identity construction in verbal communication has been widely studied by researchers.For a long time,identity has been considered to be fixed.As people’s understanding of identity shifts from essentialism to social constructivism,many researchers have made an in-depth investigation of identity and thus brings a revolution in the theory of identity.Although many scholars have studied identity construction in different contexts based on social constructivism,few have paid attention to identity construction in complaint responses.In view of this,this study intends to investigate the customer service agent’s pragmatic identity construction in complaint response calls.Based on Spencer-Oatey’s rapport management theory,this study intends to address these three research questions:(1)What types of pragmatic identities do the customer service agents construct in complaint response calls?(2)How are these pragmatic identities constructed through rapport management strategies?(3)What interpersonal functions do these pragmatic identities perform?A total of 42 complaint handling recordings are collected from the customer care center of a domestic airline company and then transcribed as the main data for analysis.By adopting a qualitative research method,this study has found that the agents mainly construct three default identities(considerate agent,accountable agent and powerless agent)and one deviational identity(layperson)in complaint response calls by employing nine rapport management strategies from four rapport management domains.Considerate agent identity is constructed mainly through the rapport management strategies of acknowledging problems,making suggestions and making apologies.Accountable agent identity is constructed mainly through the rapport management strategies of making commitments and offering explanations.Powerless agent identity is constructed mainly through the rapport management strategies of making apologies,changing topic and making repetition.Layperson identity is constructed mainly through the rapport management strategies of making identity reference.These different pragmatic identities mainly perform three kinds of interpersonal functions: support face needs,support sociality rights and obligations,and support interactional goals.This study investigates the customer service agent’s pragmatic identity construction in complaint response calls from a new perspective,which further validates the feasibility of rapport management theory in the study of identity construction,and provides new ideas for future study on identity construction in institutional communications.