Power And Solidarity In Sales Talk

The theory of power and solidarity,which takes its root in sociolinguistics,has drawn a lot of attention in different academic fields.It is generally concluded that power usually indicates the controlling force on others' behaviors,while solidarity shows the closeness and familiarity.This study,aimed at finding out how the sellers and buyers construct solidarity and/or power relations in order to achieve their goals,conducts an empirical research to explore,from the perspective of functional linguistics and critical discourse analysis,the language features and linguistic strategies they adopted.The phonological,lexical and semantic analyses reveal:(1)both the sellers and buyers often lower their voice,adjust their accent,and use pseudo kinship terms,compliment terms,positive evaluative words and heteroglossic strategy to shorten the distance in order to construct solidarity;(2)they often raise their voice,refuse to adjust their accent,use the zero terms and negative evaluative words to keep distance in order to construct power;(3)when there is no chance to negotiate,the relationship between the sellers and buyers transform from solidarity to power,which means power and solidarity are changeable and can co-exist;(4)sometimes,power relations can better promote sales transaction than solidarity relations.It is concluded that(1)sellers,compared to buyers,prefer to build the relation of solidarity;(2)sellers in food markets need to employ abundant strategies to conclude the transaction and construct solidarity;(3)sellers and buyers keep a dynamic relationship and sales talk is a discursive struggle in which solidarity is constructed.The significance of this study lies in two ways.Theoretically,the new linguistic perspective it takes extends the research scope of power and solidarity.Practically,the case study enriches the exploration in Chinese sales talk,deepens the understanding of markets and reveals the existence of power structure in markets.