Chapter 9
And the postcode darlin’. Vocative variation in service
encounters on the telephone in Northern England
The chapter presents the results of an investigation of
vocative use in telephone service encounters in the British housing market.
The investigation is based on 300+ “mystery shopping” telephone calls placed
with real estate agents servicing four socio-economically different areas of a
city in northern England. The results show how the contrastiveness inherent in the address system is put to use in context-specific decisions about relationship and transaction management in telephone service encounters: Vocative use is nonreciprocal and restricted to estate agents. The
frequency of vocative use as well as choice of vocative type by estate
agents (first name, last name, honorific, endearment) is socio-economically
stratified and sensitive to socio-ethnic group membership projected through
callers’ accent and name. Variation in vocative type within individual calls
allows the agent to explicate an asymmetrical role relationship for the
purpose of transaction control.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Vocatives
- 2.1Forms and semantic meaning
- 2.2Pragmatic-communicative functions
- 2.3Addressing and naming
- 2.4Addressing and naming in telephone service encounters
- 3.Data and analysis
- 4.Results
- 4.1Vocative types and variation (frequencies)
- 4.2Endearments
- 5.Conclusion
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Notes
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References
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Appendix