Managing rapport in lingua franca sales negotiations: A comparison of professional and aspiring negotiators

English for Specific Purposes 24 (2005) 381–400

ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES www.elsevier.com/locate/esp

Managing rapport in lingua franca sales negotiations: A comparison of professional and aspiring negotiators Brigitte Planken Business Communication Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen, P.O. Box 9103, 6500 HD Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Abstract This article presents selective findings from a study that investigated how facework is used to achieve interpersonal goals in intercultural sales negotiations. The article reports on linguistic analyses of what Spencer-Oatey has termed ‘‘rapport management’’ which, in a negotiation context, is aimed primarily, but not exclusively, at building a working relationship [SpencerOatey, H. (2000a). Analysing rapport management in intercultural encounters: a linguistic framework. In D. Lynch & A. Pilbeam (Eds.), Proceedings of the Sietar Europa congress 1998: Heritage and progress (pp. 429–437). Bath: LTS Training and Consulting; SpencerOatey, H. (2000b). Rapport management: a framework for analysis. In H. Spencer-Oatey (Ed.), Culturally Speaking: managing rapport through talk across cultures (pp. 11–46). New York: Cassel Academic]. The analyses were comparative, centring around two corpora of quasi-natural negotiation discourse, produced by professional negotiators and aspiring negotiators (students of international business communication). The negotiators were all lingua franca speakers of English for specific business purposes. I investigated the occurrence of interactional (safe) talk, and of personal pronouns, which I regarded as indicators of the negotiator relationship. Overall, the findings indicate that whereas professionals frequently initiate safe talk throughout their negotiations, aspiring negotiators engage in safe talk sporadically, and only in the initial and final stages of a negotiation. Furthermore, the findings suggest that by underusing institutional ÔweÕ and formulating potentially face-threatening discourse from a

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subjective perspective, aspiring negotiators seem unsuccessful at maintaining professional distance, and thus, at creating a professional identity within the negotiation event. Ó 2005 The American University. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction: face concerns and rapport management in negotiation Language is not used exclusively to convey information and achieve concrete objectives relating to the transactional dimension of communication. Language is also used to attain interpersonal goals that relate to the interactional (or relational) dimension of communication (Brown & Yule, 1983). Such interactional speech reflects presuppositions and opinions about the situational characteristics of an exchange, and about the participants and their relationship. Interactional speech is aimed primarily at managing social relations, as it allows interlocutors to build their relationship and create an agreeable communication climate. By constructing a conducive setting, interlocutors simultaneously create circumstances that can contribute to the effectiveness of their transactional communication. As such, interactional speech can help to achieve relational as well as transactional goals. Within the specific context of negotiations, Spencer-Oatey has referred to the interactional dimension of communication as Ôrapport managementÕ (Spencer-Oatey, 2000a, 2000b). Managing rapport is perhaps reflected most strongly in face-saving and face-giving behaviour, collectively referred to as facework (Scollon & Wong Scollon, 2001). Face, the social recognition of the otherÕs positive self-image, and the speakerÕs own need to be respected, are salient in any type of communication, but particularly in settings that are potentially conflictive (Goffman, 1972). Sales negotiations constitute such a setting, as participants typically set out with diverging and common interests, and will need to employ facework to attain both the interactional and transactional goals of the exchange. Facework in such settings will be aimed at building the participantsÕ relationship on the one hand, and at preventing or diffusing conflict resulting from disagreements regarding concrete negotiation goals on the other. In short, facework refers to the linguistic manifestations of face-maintaining behaviour. Politeness theory, and the conceptualisation of positive politeness in particular, is highly relevant for the study of rapport management. Positive politeness is associated with language between intimates and is ‘‘used as a kind of metaphorical extension’’ of intimate relationships, in which approval, shared wants, needs and knowledge, and ‘‘implicit claims to reciprocity of obligations or reflexivity of claims are routinely exchanged’’ (Brown & Levinson, 1987, p. 103). As a result, politeness has been defined, amongst other things, as a means to ‘‘maintain the social equilibrium and friendly relations which enable us to assume that our interlocutors are being cooperative in the first place’’ (Leech, 1983, p. 82). However, politeness is more than etiquette, as it ‘‘presupposes [a] potential for aggression as it seeks to disarm it, and makes possible communication between potentially aggressive parties’’ (Brown & Levinson, 1987, p. 1). From this perspective, politeness is regarded as the way

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language is used to minimise the risk of confrontation, to maintain smooth relationships, and ultimately, to prevent communication breakdown. Inherent to the above definitions is the acknowledgement that politeness is a mechanism that is clearly linked to rapport management. Spencer-Oatey (2000a, 2000b) has proposed a framework of five interrelated domains to describe relational management. The framework neatly locates the concept of politeness in the illocutionary domain of rapport management,1 separating it from other aspects of interactional communication. Thus, the framework allows for a more complete consideration of the concept of facework, which Spencer-Oatey defines as any behaviour (verbal or non-verbal) aimed at accommodating or damaging face (Spencer-Oatey, 2000b). By creating a framework that is broader than a consideration of politeness used to counter face-threatening acts (FTAs) only, Spencer-Oatey creates room to clarify those occurrences of facework – including facework used in contexts other than FTA contexts and facework that Brown and LevinsonÕs rational Model Person would not be predicted to use on the basis of the Politeness Model, e.g., defensive facework – that fall beyond the scope of politeness theory. Next to the illocutionary domain which concerns the expression of FTAs, Spencer-Oatey (2000b, pp. 19–20) distinguishes four further domains of rapport management. Firstly, the discourse content domain concerns the organisation and sequencing of interactional content, incorporating topic content, switch, transition, and the inclusion or exclusion of topics. Secondly, the participation domain concerns procedural aspects, such as turn-taking, the inclusion or exclusion of parties in discussions, and the [non-]use of back-channels. Thirdly, the stylistic domain involves choice of register, choice of tone, and level of deference. Finally, the non-verbal domain relates to aspects such as proxemics, gestures, etc. If a harmonious atmosphere is to be maintained, all the above aspects need to be managed appropriately (Spencer-Oatey, 2000b). The present article reports selective findings from an investigation into facework and identity management in intercultural negotiations (Planken, 2002). An initial consideration of the negotiation discourse in the larger study showed that an analysis of facework on the basis of Brown and LevinsonÕs framework, although successful for describing the illocutionary domain of rapport management, could not account sufficiently for other face-related mechanisms that seemed to manifest themselves in the discourse. Therefore, it seemed worthwhile to extend the scope of the analysis by incorporating other domains of rapport management, in order to throw light on facework in non-FTA contexts, and facework employed to strengthen a participantÕs ‘‘professional face’’ (Charles, 1996). I investigated the following aspects of verbal rapport management in negotiation communication: 1. The initiation of interactional (safe) talk (facework in the discourse content domain): (categories of) safe topic, and frequency and locus of occurrence.

1 Spencer-Oatey (2000b) uses the term ‘‘illocutionary domain’’ to refer to work on politeness that has used AustinÕs (illocutionary) speech act as a central unit of analysis (Austin, 1975).

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2. The use of personal pronouns as indicators of the negotiator relationship (facework in the participation domain): use of pronouns ÔyouÕ (indicator of other-orientedness) and inclusive ÔweÕ (indicator of cooperativeness) versus use of exclusive, institutional ÔweÕ (indicator of professional distance) and use of ÔIÕ (indicator of self-orientedness). The results of the analyses of these two aspects of rapport management are reported below.

2. Data collection and participants The study centred on discourse from new-relationship sales negotiations that were conducted in lingua franca English. The negotiations were generated on the basis of an adaptation of the Kelley negotiation game (Kelley, 1966). In this game, two participants (a buyer and a seller) negotiate the price of three related products (sleeping bags, tents, and backpacks). Their brief is to agree on the price of a package deal for the three products and to maximise own profits; all other aspects of the order (size, product colours, etc.) have already been agreed on. The instructions for each negotiator include the brief, background information about the deal, the companies and the participants, and a price matrix. The adapted version (van der Wijst, 1996) takes into account potential losses as well as profit levels in the price matrices and simulates an intercultural negotiation. The game allows for distributive bargaining aimed at maximising own profit, but also encourages collaborative bargaining. In earlier studies on negotiations, the roleplay and its variations have been shown to be reliable data collection instruments containing all the elements of real negotiations (e.g., Campbell, Graham, Jolibert, & Meissner, 1988; Li, 1999; Pruitt, 1981; van der Wijst, 1996). Two groups of negotiators were involved in the study. Eighteen professional negotiators of different nationalities with between five and 30 years of professional negotiation experience in English as a lingua franca held nine dyadic ÔprofessionalÕ negotiations, and 10 students of international business communication, regarded for this study as aspiring negotiators, generated five dyadic ÔstudentÕ negotiations. The group of professional negotiators (all males) consisted of four native speakers of English, nine native speakers of Dutch, two native speakers of French, an Italian, a Japanese and a German who were all employed in the sales departments of small to medium-sized export companies at the time of the study. The 10 aspiring negotiators, five males and five females, were all Dutch speakers of English for specific business purposes at the beginning of their second year in the International Business Communication Studies programme at what is now the Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. At the time, roughly a third of the courses students followed within this four-year programme were geared to ESP (business English) and aspects of intercultural communication. Prior to university, these students had all followed the highest level of pre-university secondary education, which, at the time, still incorporated six years of English as a foreign language.

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The negotiation simulations were scripted as intercultural (between two negotiators with different nationalities), involved a new relationship (the negotiators had not met before) and were conducted either face-to-face (in participantsÕ offices or in the university language lab) or over the telephone. The professional negotiations lasted between 17 and 71 min, with an average of 38 min. The aspiring negotiators yielded negotiations lasting between 7 and 18 min, with an average of 14.7 min. The audio recordings of the negotiations were transcribed verbatim. Pauses, repetitions, laughter, etc. were marked in the transcripts. As the study set out to investigate the verbal behaviour of lingua franca speakers of English, the speech material produced by the four native speakers of English in the professional negotiations was subsequently not used. For purposes of analysis, all the lingua franca speech material produced in the nine negotiations between the professionals (by 14 non-native speakers of English) was considered as one single corpus of professional negotiation discourse. In the same way, the negotiation data produced in the five negotiations involving the aspiring negotiators (10 speakers) was regarded as a second corpus of negotiation discourse. Each corpus contained the relevant negotiatorsÕ complete contributions to the negotiations. Thus, I had at my disposal two corpora of quasinatural lingua franca negotiation discourse from the two groups. Subsequent analyses and comparisons were carried out at the corpus and individual negotiator level. In the remainder of this article, longer excerpts from the corpora have been numbered (1–10). Contributors are referred to as follows: ÔIBÕ and ÔISÕ refer to ÔInexperienced (aspiring) BuyerÕ and ÔInexperienced (aspiring) SellerÕ, respectively (excerpts from the student corpus), while ÔPBÕ and ÔPSÕ refer to ÔProfessional BuyerÕ and ÔProfessional SellerÕ (excerpts from the professional corpus).

3. Facework in the discourse content domain: the occurrence of safe talk Relationally oriented talk was regarded as any talk in the negotiations that was ÔsafeÕ to the extent that it was not directly related to or relevant for the primary transactional goal being negotiated, namely the price package of the three products. Within the context of the study, it could, for example, constitute talk about public information, common knowledge and everyday topics such as match results, non-controversial news events, the state of the traffic on the way in, etc. It could also be talk about potentially business-related, but general aspects of the real world negotiation context such as the state of the economy, the Euro, politics, etc. The analysis focused on where and to what extent safe talk occurred and on categorising the topics that were introduced. To this end, the transcripts of the negotiatorsÕ contributions were marked for instances of safe talk. Only instances where safe talk was initiated by a negotiator were noted; subsequent reciprocal talk on the same topic by the other party was not marked as a new instance. In this way, frequency, locus and category of topic were established for each individual negotiator and for the two corpora as a whole. Table 1 shows the findings regarding categories of safe topic. The categorisation partly overlaps with a taxonomy of small talk strategies

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Table 1 Safe talk in the corpora: categories and topics Professional corpus Categories 1. Initiator

7. Invitation 8. Non-business

Greeting; enquiry after well-being; introduction; business card exchange; personal work history Pre-negotiation contact; history of corporate relationship Future cooperation; future dealings Markets; target groups; competitors; the economy; EU Product characteristics; manufacturing information; product range; delivery Management; company history; core activities; distribution, promotion, personnel, or pricing policy Lunch; drinks; coffee; company/factory visit (business); private visit Travel; sports; news; culture; language; hobby; holiday; family

Student corpus Categories 1. Initiator 2. Business relationship 3. Future business 4. Business environment 5. Product information 6. Corporate information 7. Invitation 8. Non-business

Greeting; enquiry after well-being Pre-negotiation contact Future cooperation – – – Lunch; drinks Hobby

2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Business relationship Future business Business environment Product information Corporate information

that was developed to investigate rapport management in Chinese-British business meetings (Xing, 2000). Table 1 shows that eight categories of safe topic could be distinguished in the negotiation discourse. Three categories that occurred in the professional corpus, business environment, product information, and corporate information, did not occur in the student corpus. Category 1, initiator, consisted mostly of simple InitiateSatisfy pairs (Edmondson & House, 1981) in the initial stages of the negotiations, and comprised greetings (IS: ‘‘Good morning, Mr. X.’’ IB: ‘‘Good morning.’’), enquiries after well-being (PB: ‘‘How are you today’’ PS: ‘‘Fine, thank you.’’), introductions (PS: ‘‘Good morning, X is the name.’’ PB: ‘‘Nice to meet you. My name is Y.’’), business card exchanges (PS: ‘‘Let me present you my business card.’’ PB: ‘‘Thank you. HereÕs mine’’), and giving information about current position or work history (PS: ‘‘You are not at Sports & Travel a couple of months ago, what was it, seven or eight months ago or something like that? So what have you done before you entered Sports & Travel?’’ PB: ‘‘I represented a firm that was more in the sports articles like tennis rackets and table tennis bats.’’). As Table 1 shows, Category 1 occurred in both corpora. Although the negotiators in both groups exchanged initial greetings, the aspiring negotiators did not always do so or failed to do so adequately, the other party in three cases failing to reciprocate [see Dow (1999) for similar findings regarding inexperienced negotiators]. Similarly, the aspiring negotiators failed to reciprocate enquiries after well-being (IS: ‘‘IÕm X. How are you today?’’ IB: B. My name is X and I am here today to talk about. . .’’).

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Category 2, business relationship, which occurred in both corpora, incorporated longer sequences about pre-negotiation contact between participantsÕ companies or the history between companies. Excerpt 1 is an example from the professional corpus: Excerpt 1 PS: You have been a good customer of ours for many years and we would like to continue that. You are our entry into France and the French market. PB: Uhuh. Well, we would be happy to assist you of course. Category 3, future business, again occurred in both corpora. It incorporated talk about future cooperation or business deals, although not necessarily with the counterpartÕs organisation. The following is an example from one of the professional negotiations: Excerpt 2 PS: PB: PS: PB: PS:

Promotion. We we (.) you know we have to promote to make more publicity. Yeah. In the magazines. Uhuh. And there were already talks between both our organisations to do it jointly. I think that is als erm one of the elements we should erm discuss tomorrow at least erm this week erm how we can do it jointly in the future. PB: Uhuh. PS: Because that might also spare a certain amount of money erm for both. . .

Category 4, business environment, occurred in the professional corpus, but not in the student corpus. It incorporated any general talk about the market, target groups, competitors, or the economy. The following excerpt is from the professional corpus: Excerpt 3 PB: I will tell you though that quality-wise itÕs a very good standard and gives us a chance to compete against erm the big department stores who get a lot of equipment from Singapore and Korea and those places. Well it has been mentioned that the quality isnÕt European standard. There have been complaints. We have our information from these places and as our shops are specialising in these things a person who wants good articles would come to us rather than go PS: Yeah. PB: to the department stores. PS: Uhuh. Product information, Category 5, occurred in the professional corpus but not in the student corpus. This category incorporates any general talk about product delivery terms, product ranges or features and manufacturing procedures. Excerpt 4 includes an example:

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Excerpt 4 PS: The tents are made of first-class textile and a big part of the price is of course is the material. The labour cost is very low because we have highly automated our production process. PB: Uhuh. PS: And in the old days and not so long ago most tents as I explained were made in cheap labour countries. PB: Uhuh. PS: But for this type of tents has no sense anymore. This is typically a European product for a European market. . . Category 6, corporate information, occurred in the professional corpus, but, again, not in the student corpus. It incorporated any talk about management, corporate history, core activities, or general background on corporate policy (e.g., pricing, distribution, personnel, promotion). Excerpt 5 contains an example: Excerpt 5 PS: Uhuh. Do you have to sell your marketing erm sales policy? Because before you were selling to wholesalers I suppose? PB: No, we were always a chain of stores. PS: Uhuh. PB: Highly specialised and quite known I think from erm all the consumers erm the young people PS: Uhuh. PB: that travel and go camping. Category 7, invitation, occurred in both the student and professional corpora, usually in the closing stages of a negotiation. Excerpt 6 provides an example from the student corpus: Excerpt 6 IS: IB: IS: IB:

It was nice doing business with you. Yes. We will draw up a contract later on but now, are we going to have a drink? Yes. OK. Good idea.

As was observed to be the case with a number of initial greeting exchanges (Category 1), the aspiring negotiators also tended to respond to leave taking routines inadequately. Excerpt 6 provides an example, in that IB does not adequately reciprocate the social good given by IS in the first turn. Rather than responding with a simple ÔYesÕ (perhaps inadvertently suggesting: ‘‘Yes, it was nice doing business with me, wasnÕt it?’’) the response would have reflected greater reciprocity if it had been formulated as ‘‘Yes, likewise’’ or ‘‘Yes, thank you for coming all the way to [. . .]’’. This example was not an isolated case in the student corpus.

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Finally, the category non-business included any talk on non-business topics, including travel, culture, language, sports, holidays, family, or current affairs. Excerpt 7 provides an example. Excerpt 7 PB: I would like to thank you for coming and having travelled such a long time. Maybe in a few years time you will have the possibility of erm travelling high speed train? PS: High speed train? PB: From Amsterdam to Paris will be two hours maybe. PS: I heard so but PB: (Laughs) If erm projects are realistic. PS: I donÕt think PB: I donÕt know on the Dutch side erm how erm how far are the erm (.) PS: It? IÕm living not so far from the airport. . . Table 2 presents overall frequencies of safe talk in both corpora, and in the three negotiation stages (opening, bargaining or closing). The aspiring negotiators initiated safe talk in only very few instances. Relative frequencies for each professional speaker are considerably higher. All of the professionals initiated safe talk in their contributions, compared to 8 of the 10 aspiring negotiators. Furthermore, it can be seen in Table 2 that the professionals initiated safe talk in all three stages of their negotiations, while the aspiring negotiators only did so in the opening and closing stages, restricting themselves to very short sequences. An analysis of the topics of safe talk in the corpora shows that both groups engaged relatively infrequently in safe talk on topics more generally regarded, but rarely explicitly defined or described (Tracy & Naughton, 2000), as characteristic, socially oriented small talk on topics such as the weather, family, personal interests, etc. (Category 8, non-business). In fact, the safe talk topics initiated in both corpora, and by the professionals in particular, largely constituted business-related content in the sense that they could be seen as further instances of professional talk. However, such talk was clearly different from the purely transaction-related professional talk that these encounters mostly generated (long sequences of offers and Table 2 Safe talk in the corpora: locus and overall frequency (per corpusa) Professional corpus: negotiation stages (locus) Stage Opening Bargaining Total 114 57

Closing 21

Frequency 192

Student corpus: negotiation stages (locus) Stage Opening Total 6

Closing 6

Frequency 12

a

Bargaining –

The professional corpus was larger than the student corpus (4210 vs. 1757 utterances), but even if we take this proportional difference into account, the overall difference in the occurrence of safe talk is still striking.

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counter-offers/rejections/acceptance). In general, then, the negotiators, and the professionals in particular, did not seem to engage much in talk that was wholly external to the context of their professional role as a constituent negotiator, or that was completely unrelated in content to the main transactional goal of the exchange.

4. Interculturalness as a safe topic Safe talk sequences about the intercultural context of the negotiation were initiated in seven of the nine professional negotiations. These involved brief discussions about language difficulties, experience with the otherÕs culture, cultural idiosyncracies (of own or otherÕs culture) and cultural comparisons (Category 8, non-business). Excerpt 8 involves a Dutch negotiator discussing the undesirable influx of Dutch tourists in France with his French counterpart, while Excerpt 9 involves an Italian and a Dutch negotiator contemplating the awkwardness of using English as a lingua franca. Excerpt 8 PS: So actually I donÕt know whether itÕs a plus here with a French company because we know our Dutch campers are not always so loved in certain parts of France. PB: Yes. PS: We come with too many of us so PB: Excuse me? PS: We come with too many in certain parts of France. PB: Oh yes. PS: Those campers so PB: Right. Erm I donÕt know that French people donÕt like to receive Dutch tourists. PS: Yes, but we know that certain parts of France are crowded with tourists. PB: Yes, Ardeche and Bordeaux. (Laughs) PS: Right. (Laughs). . . Excerpt 9 PB: Could you repeat that? Actually this is really strange. I am Italian, you are Dutch and we are speaking in English. It would be difficult for everybody. PS: Yes, it would be fine for me if we could do it in Dutch. (Laughs) PB: (Laughs) IÕm sure. OK, so you were saying. . . There were no instances of safe talk on interculturalness in the student corpus. This discrepancy between the two groups might be due to the fact that the aspiring negotiators were ÔplayingÕ at being from different cultures, while the professional participants really had different nationalities. Also, some of the professionals had at one time taken part in courses on intercultural business communication. They may have been sensitised to the potential effects of cross-cultural differences on international encounters

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and may as a result have initiated this topic as a source of safe talk more readily than if they had not followed such a course. However, it should be noted that the professionals who had not taken such a course also initiated safe talk about interculturalness.

5. Tacit bargaining episodes ÔFeeling out proceduresÕ (Pruitt, 1981, p. 5) constitute discussing aspects at the start of a negotiation that bypass the main issues: in this case, negotiating the price of a package deal. During such procedures, participants state preferences, set limits and make an effort to show interest in the other partyÕs preferences. Pruitt (1981) suggests two reasons for pre-bargaining episodes, which both reflect a reluctance to embark on ÔrealÕ negotiation. On the one hand, parties may be afraid that the conflict inherent in a competitive situation will disrupt their short term relationship. On the other hand, Pruitt suggests that competitive relationships are subject to a ‘‘procedural norm for mutual responsiveness’’ by which parties are constrained to be attentive to one anotherÕs needs (Pruitt, 1981, p. 6). For example, one party may imply that their needs are real by providing a series of arguments. In doing so, they effectively constrain the other party to agree. Over time, as this procedure is repeated in subsequent encounters, both partiesÕ greatest needs are eventually rewarded and mutually beneficial outcomes are ensured in the long run. Thus, the reasons for feeling out procedures appear to be motivated largely by concerns underlying rapport and face management. ÔFeeling outÕ allows both parties to tacitly weigh up their demands against those of the other party, on a reciprocal (face-giving) basis. Thus, such procedures can be regarded as expected, pre-bargaining behaviour, aimed not directly at reaching agreement, but at creating rapport through mutual responsiveness in the pre-negotiation stages. In general, the aspiring negotiators spent little time on pre-bargaining talk, usually restricting themselves to greetings, introductions and enquiries after well-being. As a result, their transitions from the initial to the central bargaining phase were abrupt, and usually signalled by their launching head-on into a first offer, having proffered some sort of procedural question (e.g., IS: ‘‘Shall I go first or you?’’). In contrast, the professionals, following longer safe talk exchanges, invariably also spent time on feeling out procedures. Excerpt 10 is an example from a (French– Dutch) professional negotiation. It follows an initial safe talk phase. The excerpt begins with the Dutch seller who checks whether both participants are agreed on all other aspects of the deal, leaving a potential opening for the French buyer to move on to the main bargaining phase and the negotiation of prices. The French buyer, however, elects instead to introduce a new topic and the Dutchman reciprocates. Excerpt 10 PS: You have at the moment no further questions about the erm design, the execution of the products, the erm delivery time or whatsoever? PB: I think PS: ThatÕs all been cleared with Mr. de Vries.

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PB: I think itÕs erm that it was ok. PS: Okay. Good. (. . .) PB: For backpacks especially we wanted some really special types of backpacks. Erm IÕll tell you maybe later what we want because itÕs very erm erm itÕs maybe one product where we could sell – sale a lot more sales PS: Uhuh. PB: because it can erm be linked with the behaviours consumer behaviours or users simply PS: /Ja/. PB: They erm just going and camping so erm this was the most interesting products, we found. PS: You can say if you have erm for two people you have two backpacks but still thereÕs one tent. I mean in quantities. We talk in quantities. PB: Yeah thatÕs right. ThatÕs right. PS: /Jajaja/Although the tents can of course be a more interesting item erm as far as erm financial results are concerned (.) PB: Yes erm yes but you know that all depends on the margin. PS: Uhuh /Ja/. PB: And of course usually these these kinds of products in the range and the presentation that we picked suits our population I think our targets. The difference is not erm erm so much on the amount that is spent itÕs erm itÕs actually the same kind PS: Uhuh. PB: of erm of range of margins for us you see. PS: Uhuh. And the sleeping bags? How does that come out? (.) For for among these three items? PB: Sleeping bags itÕs usually itÕs erm erm less less – the turnover on erm on the stock of the sleeping bags is erm less than erm on erm the tents. PS: /Jaja/. PB: I donÕt mean the amount of sales but really the turnover on the on the shelves or so and thatÕs erm yeah thatÕs erm PS: /Ja/. PB: quite a problem for us. . . In this excerpt, which is only the beginning of a longer feeling out phase, the negotiators implicitly set limits and indicate which of the products would be more lucrative (or not) for them, ahead of the main bargaining phase. It is only in the next phase that the negotiators begin to articulate offers explicitly.

6. Facework in the participation domain: indicators of the negotiator relationship I investigated the degree of solidarity and involvement, as expressed in the negotiatorsÕ verbal behaviour, by analysing the use of first and second personal pronouns (ÔIÕ and ÔyouÕ), and the use of the third personal plural pronoun (inclusive vs. exclusive

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or institutional) ÔweÕ. The assumption was that degree of involvement with the other participant is reflected in the use of ÔyouÕ (indicating other-orientedness), and inclusive ÔweÕ (signalling interdependence and cooperativeness). ‘‘You-attitude’’ has become a generally acceptable axiom in business communication. In business writing, you-attitude is regarded as ‘‘speaking directly to the reader (ÔyouÕ) in order to establish the desired connection between the authorÕs information and the readerÕs wants’’ (Brockman & Belanger, 1993; cited in Shelby & Lamar Reinsch, 1995, p. 306). Intuitively, the assumption underlying you-attitude is that it can make (written) messages more persuasive. Inclusive ÔweÕ, on the other hand, is assumed to be closely linked to the concept of ÔsolidarityÕ. When used in combination with positive comments and suggestions, inclusive ÔweÕ (as opposed to ÔIÕ) reflects the fact that the speaker somehow wishes to be identified, or identifies, with the other, or wants to appear to do so, in order to convey solidarity between interlocutors (Brown & Gilman, 1960). Instances of ÔIÕ and its derivative forms ÔmyÕ and ÔmineÕ, ÔyouÕ (singular and plural, and its derivative forms ÔyourÕ and ÔyoursÕ), inclusive ÔweÕ (and derivative forms ÔusÕ, ÔourÕ, and ÔoursÕ), and exclusive or institutional ÔweÕ (and derivative forms ÔusÕ, ÔourÕ, and ÔoursÕ) were marked in the transcripts. Idiosyncratic forms, such as ‘‘Your company and mines’’ and ‘‘You and I’’ (regarded as inclusive ÔweÕ), or direct references to a company name (regarded as a form of institutional ÔweÕ), were also included. In this way, indicators of four aspects of the negotiator relationship were taken into account: solidarity (inclusive ÔweÕ), other-orientedness (ÔyouÕ), self-orientedness (ÔIÕ), and Ôprofessional distanceÕ (exclusive ÔweÕ). Again, analyses and comparisons were carried out at the corpus and individual negotiator level. Because it was frequently hard to distinguish unmarked ÔyouÕ from Ôinstitutional youÕ (referring to the ÔcollectiveÕ behind the addressee) in many instances I encountered, all instances of ÔyouÕ and its derivatives were regarded in further analyses as a single category (of indicators of other-orientedness). Mann– Whitney U tests (part of the standard SPSSÓ package) were carried out to test for the significance of any differences in proportional frequencies found for the two groups. The results of these tests, where relevant, are reported below. Frequencies for each pronoun, per negotiator and for the corpora as a whole, are presented in Table 3 (aspiring negotiators) and Table 4 (professionals). The proportion of total instances to absolute contribution (in number of utterances2) is provided in brackets. Table 3 shows that all the aspiring negotiators used inclusive ÔweÕ, indicating solidarity: proportions range from 0.04 to 0.09. With respect to exclusive ÔweÕ, regarded as an indicator of professional distance, the proportions per student range from 0.01 to 0.24. Nine of the aspiring negotiators used exclusive ÔweÕ; only one student (negotiator 6) did not use exclusive ÔweÕ at all. 2 In the larger study (Planken, 2002), the overall verbal behaviour of the negotiators was investigated on the basis of the StilesÕ Verbal Response Mode Taxonomy (Stiles, 1992). For VRM analysis, all speech data must first be unitized into distinct utterances. Thus, I obtained an overall quantification of speech produced (in number of units or VRMs) for each of the negotiators. These quantifications of negotiatorsÕ overall contributions were subsequently used to calculate proportions of personal pronoun use for each individual negotiator.

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Table 3 Student corpus: absolute (and proportional) frequency of pronoun use Negotiator 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Total

Inclusive we 7 14 11 9 15 18 5 5 14 15

0.04 0.06 0.07 0.08 0.05 0.07 0.09 0.08 0.09 0.08

113

Exclusive we

I

17 12 9 9 2 0 13 6 7 8

37 53 45 37 99 104 14 20 54 60

0.09 0.05 0.05 0.08 0.01 – 0.24 0.09 0.04 0.04

83

You 0.20 0.23 0.27 0.31 0.34 0.38 0.26 0.31 0.34 0.32

523

16 28 14 21 51 52 8 10 27 31

0.09 0.12 0.09 0.18 0.17 0.19 0.15 0.17 0.17 0.17

258

Table 4 Professional corpus: absolute (and proportional) frequency of pronoun use Negotiator 1 (Dutch) 2 (Dutch) 3 (Dutch) 4 (Dutch) 5 (Dutch) 6 (French) 7 (Dutch) 8 (French) 9 (Dutch) 10 (German) 11 (Dutch) 12 (Italian) 13 (Dutch) 14 (Japanese) Total

Inclusive we 8 32 95 31 18 8 51 27 36 32 25 52 15 8 448

0.07 0.10 0.16 0.13 0.06 0.03 0.12 0.07 0.14 0.15 0.10 0.24 0.08 0.03

Exclusive we 15 23 89 19 50 39 26 110 21 21 16 61 45 26 572

0.14 0.07 0.15 0.08 0.16 0.15 0.06 0.28 0.08 0.10 0.07 0.28 0.23 0.10

I

You 24 70 135 73 84 53 113 120 84 48 67 86 59 79

1126

0.22 0.23 0.23 0.30 0.27 0.20 0.26 0.30 0.32 0.22 0.28 0.39 0.30 0.31

16 26 90 56 69 56 67 102 62 32 52 60 73 53

0.15 0.08 0.15 0.23 0.22 0.21 0.15 0.26 0.24 0.15 0.21 0.27 0.37 0.21

827

In the student corpus, proportions of ÔIÕ, regarded as an indicator of self-orientedness, range from 0.20 to 0.38. Raw frequencies of ÔIÕ in the student corpus are consistently higher for each of the negotiators than frequencies of inclusive and exclusive ÔweÕ. Finally, with respect to the use of ÔyouÕ (an indicator of other-orientedness), the proportions for the aspiring negotiators range from 0.09 to 0.19. The raw frequencies of ÔyouÕ are consistently lower for each of these negotiators than frequencies of ÔIÕ. Table 4 presents personal pronoun use in the professional corpus. The proportions calculated per negotiator for inclusive ÔweÕ (indicator of solidarity) range from 0.03 to 0.24. Eight of the 14 professionals used a higher proportion of inclusive ÔweÕ than any of the aspiring negotiators (see Table 3). With regard to the use of exclusive ÔweÕ (indicator of professional distance), Table 4 shows that the proportions for the professionals range from 0.07 to 0.38. Nine

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professionals used a higher proportion of exclusive ÔweÕ than nine of the aspiring negotiators (only student negotiator 7 used a proportion of exclusive ÔweÕ that falls within the medium range noted for the professionals). The remaining five professionals used a proportion of exclusive ÔweÕ similar to that found for the majority (nine out of ten) of aspiring negotiators. The difference in use of exclusive ÔweÕ by the two groups was highly significant (Mann–Whitney: Z = 2.583, p < 0.01). With respect to ÔIÕ (indicator of self-orientedness), Table 4 shows that the proportions of use for the professionals range from 0.20 to 0.39. This is very similar to the range found for the aspiring negotiators (0.20–0.38). Again, as was the case for the aspiring negotiators, the professionals used a consistently higher frequency of ÔIÕ than exclusive ÔweÕ. Finally, Table 4 shows that the proportions of ÔyouÕ (indicator of other-orientedness) for the professionals range from 0.08 to 0.37. Nine professionals used a higher proportion of ÔyouÕ than any of the aspiring negotiators. Table 4 shows that the remaining five professionals used proportions of ÔyouÕ that fell within, and in one case below, the range calculated for the aspiring negotiators (see Table 3). The difference in use of ÔyouÕ by the student and professional negotiators was found to be significant (Mann–Whitney: Z = 0.2128, p < 0.05).

7. Pronoun use in context: negotiator perspectives Closer inspection of the negotiation discourse revealed that differences between the two groups in pronoun use, particularly in the bargaining phase, seemed to affect the perspective (objective vs. personalized) from which they communicated. This was caused not so much by differences between the two groups in overall frequencies of pronoun use, but by differences in the way in which pronouns were used. The most striking differences will be discussed below. With respect to ÔyouÕ, the professionals often (re)framed proposals and suggestions from the otherÕs perspective (ÔyouÕ – perspective), in such a way as to emphasise the benefits for their counterpart (e.g., PS: ‘‘If you were to take this offer on the backpacks this time, your management would surely be happy. It really is the best solution for you.’’). Perhaps framing proposals in this way was a tactical negotiation strategy to make their discourse more persuasive. In contrast, the aspiring negotiators rarely did this. Instead, they were found to consistently formulate potentially face-threatening communication using ÔyouÕ, which made them come across as very direct (e.g., IB: ‘‘You will have to give me a D on that product.’’; IB: ‘‘You have asked too much.’’). The professionals tended to use exclusive ÔweÕ or impersonal formulations in such contexts (e.g., PB: ‘‘We would have to say ÔnoÕ and go up on the backpacks then.’’; PI: ‘‘In that case, prices are simply too high.’’). With respect to ÔIÕ, although both groups of negotiators used comparable proportions, the aspiring negotiators again used ÔIÕ in potentially face-threatening discourse such as (counter)proposals, suggestions and rejections (e.g., IS: ‘‘I have a proposition.’’; IB: ‘‘This is my last offer.’’; IB: ‘‘IÕd like you to make me a proposal.’’; IB: ‘‘I want to hear all three before I can make my decision.’’; IS: ‘‘I cannot accept your

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proposal.’’). This contrasts with the professionals who consistently used exclusive ÔweÕ in such contexts (PB: ‘‘We would need to move prices up on the tents then.’’; PS: ‘‘If that is a problem, we could look again at our backpacks and do something there’’; PS: ‘‘We cannot find a way to do that.’’). Another difference between the two groups is that the aspiring negotiators presented argumentation in support of rejections, if they did so at all, largely from an I-perspective (e.g., IS: ‘‘I canÕt. If I donÕt get this price, my management will do X to me’’ or IS: ‘‘I donÕt want to go back to my company with this price level. It will mean the end for me.’’). The professionals tended to depersonalise such reasoning, providing more neutral arguments relating to the business or economic environment in general (e.g., PS: ‘‘We just canÕt do that. You know how it is. The Euro is coming and cheap labour is not so cheap nowadays /he`/? The result is prices go up. ItÕs survival.’’). On the rare occasions when personalised arguments were used, these were more often than not meant to provide light relief (PS: ‘‘If we would accept this deal, I would be severely punished back home (laughs).’’). In sum, by using direct references (‘‘I’’ and singular ‘‘you’’) in certain discourse contexts in the bargaining phase, the aspiring negotiators produced highly subjective discourse in potentially the most conflictual and face-threatening negotiation phase. In contrast, the professionals tended to avoid references to self and the other party in similar discourse contexts in the central bargaining phase, by using distancers like exclusive ÔweÕ and impersonal constructions (see examples above). In fact, overall, the professionals were seen to clearly shift away from a personalised perspective in the pre-negotiation phase (while still engaged in safe talk), to a depersonalised and objective perspective in the bargaining phase, finally returning to a personalised focus again in safe talk in the closing phase. In contrast, the aspiring negotiators maintained a largely personalised perspective throughout their negotiations. As a result, the latter group came across as emotional and subjective, that is, unprofessional rather than businesslike, in their negotiations.

8. Discussion and conclusions The findings from the present study indicate that interactional safe-talk was an important constituent of the professional negotiatorsÕ discourse. Overall, the aspiring negotiators engaged in safe talk less frequently than the professionals. Whereas the professionals engaged in safe talk in all three negotiation phases, the aspiring negotiators only did so in the opening and closing stages, if at all. The aspiring negotiatorsÕ safe talk sequences were considerably shorter than those produced by the professionals, usually consisting of complementary pairs only. It was also noted that the aspiring negotiatorsÕ transitions from the relational pre-bargaining stage to the transactional and potentially conflictive central bargaining phase were very abrupt, as they engaged in very little relationally oriented safe talk in the initial stages of their negotiations. With regard to topic, it was found that the negotiators rarely talked about subjects generally regarded in social everyday encounters as ÔcharacteristicÕ safe topics,

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such as the weather, personal interests, sports, etc. Instead, the topics identified, in the professional corpus in particular, are essentially further instances of professional talk, albeit of a different nature than transaction-related professional talk. With few exceptions, the negotiators, and particularly the professionals, did not engage in talk that was clearly external to the business context of their professional role as a constituent negotiator, or clearly unrelated to the transactional goal of the exchange. As such, it is doubtful whether this type of Ôprofessional safe talkÕ is aimed at maintaining rapport, or whether it serves to embed and develop the clearly transactional communication at the centre of this type of encounter. In other words, the question is whether this talk is aimed at rapport-building (largely other face-supportive) or at reinforcing a negotiatorÕs professional identity (own face-protective). However, the two scenarios need not be mutually exclusive. By maintaining and reinforcing their professional identities, negotiators effectively emphasise their professional commonalities, which may contribute to the feeling of solidarity between them. A final observation regarding topics of interactional talk relates to ÔinterculturalnessÕ as a safe talk topic. It would seem that by pointing out and acknowledging cultural differences, participants try to create a temporary in-group of (fellow) nonnatives, whose common ground is the fact that they differ culturally. Most of the professional negotiations included sequences about the intercultural context of the negotiation. These were clearly aimed at rapport-building: negotiators promoted solidarity by pointing out how similar they were in their non-nativeness, or attended the otherÕs positive (social as opposed to professional) face by discussing good experiences with the otherÕs culture. In some instances, they distanced themselves from their cultural identities by jocularly criticising aspects of their respective cultures. Effectively, they were taking on the temporary role of ‘‘outlaws’’ whose common ground is created by the fact that they ‘‘occupy a no-manÕs-land (. . .) and whose successful creation is the focus of mutual appreciation and laughter’’ (Aston, 1993, p. 238). The analysis of pronoun use in the corpora pointed out a number of similarities and differences between the aspiring negotiators and professionals. Inclusive ÔweÕ, regarded as an indicator of involvement and cooperativeness, was used by both groups, but the majority of professionals used higher proportions than the aspiring negotiators. With regard to the use of ÔyouÕ (indicating other-orientedness), the professionals were found to have used significantly higher proportions than the aspiring negotiators. In addition, the aspiring negotiators seem to have used this pronoun in other, potentially face-threatening, discourse contexts than the professionals, suggesting hostility rather than reflecting the no-nonsense, businesslike approach that they might have been aiming for. It was assumed in this study that degree of concern with own interests would be reflected in the degree of use of ÔIÕ and institutional ÔweÕ. Proportions of ÔIÕ were found to be similar for both groups. As was the case for ÔyouÕ, however, the aspiring negotiators used ÔIÕ in other discourse contexts than the professionals. In contrast, the professionals seem to have used institutional ÔweÕ in these situations. This is reflected to a large extent in the significant difference that was found in the use of exclusive ÔweÕ between the two groups. Furthermore, given the professionalsÕ more consistent use of institutional ÔweÕ throughout their negotiations, exclusive ÔweÕ would seem to

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have functioned as a distancing device with a broader scope, aimed not only at locally distancing the speaker from an FTA, but also at reinforcing the negotiatorÕs professional face as an autonomously operating company representative, by emphasising distance from the ongoing negotiation event as a whole. In conclusion, two findings from the present study indicate areas of pragmatic competence that seem to be problematic for aspiring negotiators learning to use English as a lingua franca in negotiations. I will restrict the discussion to areas that relate to pragmatic (and to some extent strategic) competence and ability, as the professionals were clearly seen to surpass the aspiring negotiators in this domain (see above). With respect to linguistic competence, I can only observe – as I did not measure participantsÕ linguistic competence – that the professionals were able to deploy a linguistic repertoire that appears to have been as limited as that of the aspiring negotiators (a limited vocabulary set, a large degree of ungrammaticality, etc.) to greater tactical effect, at least within the specific genre under study. In short, I have assumed in my conclusions that the differences in aspects of the verbal behaviour of the two groups were caused by the differences between them in pragmatic (and strategic) competence, rather than in linguistic competence. The two findings I will discuss relate exclusively to the interactional element of negotiation communication, which is linked directly to rapport management. Firstly, the use of safe talk, an important source of rapport-building in the professional negotiations, was rarely present in the student negotiations, occurring briefly in the opening and closing phases only. Routine communication such as greetings, enquiries after well-being, and leave-taking were mostly dealt with inadequately, in that the aspiring negotiators either reciprocated half-heartedly or worse, failed to do so altogether. Although these latter observations may not relate specifically to Business English for Specific Purposes (since such routines are as relevant in everyday communication), they are nevertheless pertinent to the focus of the present study. The relative under-use of safe talk in general contributed to the aspiring negotiators failing to structure their lingua franca negotiations into clearly separate, but, judging by the structure of the professional negotiations, apparently obligatory phases, with clearly separate functions (relational vs. transaction-oriented). Effectively, the student negotiations consisted of a single bargaining phase. In this area, there would seem to be a particular need to make aspiring negotiators aware that there is more to negotiation discourse than transactional talk. Aspiring negotiators need to be sensitised to how negotiators make the transition from one phase to the next, and particularly from the pre-bargaining, relationally oriented phase to the central, transactional phase [see Dow (1999) for similar recommendations]. Secondly, the aspiring negotiators, in contrast to the professionals, communicated from a highly personalised perspective in their discourse. This contrast between the two groups was observed particularly in the central bargaining phase. The professionals shifted between discourse perspectives as they moved through the different phases of their negotiations. Judging by the professionalsÕ behaviour, the perspective that seems to be appropriate in these (new-relationship) negotiations reflects a negotiatorÕs professional rather than their private persona. Projecting a professional identity seems to be particularly important in the central bargaining phase, which is

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geared towards attaining the main goal (forging an agreement), and thus involves largely transactional communication (proposals, rejections or acceptance, and argumentation). Although the professionals communicated from a personalised perspective at various points during their negotiations and particularly in the opening and closing stages, they nevertheless stayed in professional character throughout. As was suggested earlier, by emphasising their professional commonalities, negotiators can in fact promote a feeling of solidarity between themselves and the other negotiator(s). In other words, establishing and reinforcing a professional identity might in fact also be a source of building rapport. Aston (1993) has suggested that, in intercultural settings in particular, interactional speech can act as a ‘‘facilitator’’ for transactional speech, as it ‘‘puts into operation the Ôbenevolence principleÕ whereby eventual understanding failures are more likely to be interpreted as errors rather than offences.’’ (p. 229). According to Aston then, creating and maintaining rapport would seem to be particularly important in situations where a lingua franca is used. Judging by the findings of the present study, aspiring negotiators using English as a lingua franca in intercultural negotiation contexts, in comparison to professionals, seem to underuse potential rapport-building sources (safe talk) in the discourse content domain of rapport management. Furthermore, they appear to be unable to manage appropriately, that is, like professionals, certain aspects of facework in the participation domain of rapport management. Therefore, it would seem that a consideration of rapport management and how it is manifested in English as a lingua franca in relevant intercultural business communication settings deserve to be important components of business communication teaching in general and of ESP teaching in international business programmes in particular.

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Leech, G. (1983). Principles of pragmatics. New York: Longman. Li, X. (1999). Chinese–Dutch business negotiations: insights from discourse. Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopi B.V. Planken, B. (2002). Face and identity management in negotiation. Nijmegen: Nijmegen University Press. Pruitt, D. (1981). Negotiation behavior. New York: Academic Press. Scollon, R., & Wong Scollon, S. (2001). Intercultural communication (2nd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Publications. Shelby, A., & Lamar Reinsch, N. (1995). Positive emphasis and You-attitude. The Journal of Business Communication, 32(4), 303–326. Spencer-Oatey, H. (2000a). Analysing rapport management in intercultural encounters: a linguistic framework. In D. Lynch & A. Pilbeam (Eds.), Proceedings of the Sietar Europa congress 1998: Heritage and progress (pp. 429–437). Bath: LTS Training and Consulting. Spencer-Oatey, H. (2000b). Rapport management: a framework for analysis. In H. Spencer-Oatey (Ed.), Culturally speaking: Managing rapport through talk across cultures (pp. 11–46). New York: Cassel Academic. Stiles, W. (1992). Describing talk: A taxonomy of verbal response modes. Newbury Park: Sage Publications. Tracy, K., & Naughton, M. (2000). Institutional identity-work: a better lens. In J. Coupland (Ed.), Small talk (pp. 62–83). Edinburgh: Pearson Education Limited. van der Wijst, P. (1996). Politeness in requests and negotiations. Dordrecht: ICG Printing B.V. Xing, J. (2000). Rapport management in Chinese–British business meetings: a study of communication accommodation strategies. In D. Lynch & A. Pilbeam (Eds.), Proceedings of the SIETAR Europa Congress 1998: Heritage and progress (pp. 440–451). Bath: LTS Training and Consulting. Brigitte Planken teaches courses in ESBP and business communication at the Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Her research interests include rapport management in intercultural negotiations, ESBP teaching methodology, the impact of ICT on business communication, and the use of English as a lingua franca.