Face and identity management in negotiation

This dissertation reports on a comparative study of the verbal behaviour of experienced negotiators (professionals) and inexperienced negotiators (students), negotiating in a lingua franca (English). The study centred around two corpora of speech data generated in a series of intercultural sales negotiations (simulated). The focus of the analyses was on the general verbal behaviour of the negotiators, and more specifically on verbal behaviour aimed at rapport management. The data were analysed on the basis of Brown and Levinson's taxonomy of verbal politeness strategies (Brown and Levinson 1987) and Stiles' taxonomy of Verbal Response Modes (Stiles 1992). The results indicate that the inexperienced negotiators used a significantly greater degree of face-threatening verbal behaviour than the professionals, and significantly fewer rapport-managing strategies aimed at creating a condusive negotiation climate. In terms of verbal politeness, both groups used comparable degrees of negative politeness, but the professionals made significantly greater use of positive politeness. Furthermore, the professionals frequently engaged in small talk throughout their negotiations, while the students used small talk sporadically, and only in the initial and final stages. Finally, by underusing 'institutional we' (relative to the professionals) and formulating (counter)proposals and refusals almost exclusively from a subjective perspective ('I'), the students seemed less successful at maintaining 'professional distance' and thus at creating a professional identity within the negotiation event