Discourse Analysis of the Commercial Transaction in the Local Community: the Spoken Language betw
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- Category: English Language and Literature
- Published: Saturday, 05 May 2012 03:00
- Written by Asim Khresheh
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Discourse Analysis of the Commercial Transaction in the Local Community:the Spoken
Language between Customers and Shop Assistants.
Asim Khresheh
Mu'tah University 2007
The purpose of this study is to identify the types of communication strategies and linguistic patterns followed by customers and shop assistants in their use of the language of commercial transactions. This study was conducted in the local community of the participants in Al-Mazar Al-Janoubi in Jordan so as to reveal the participants’ cultural norms about commercial transactions. Customers were divided according to their ages, sexes, and educational backgrounds whereas shops assistants who were all male were divided according to their ages and educational backgrounds. The analysis shows that the communication strategies and the linguistic patterns followed by the customers are different from those followed by the shop assistants. Moreover, certain groups of the participants are more apt than others to employ certain strategies and patterns. That is, female and male customers from the middle age group (36-59) and old age group (60-75) employ more follow-up strategies than male and female customers from the young age group (25-35). Also, female customers particularly from the old age group (60-75) and middle age group (36-59) employ a strategy of persuasion more than male customers from all age groups. The study also shows that some strategies and patterns were used by shop assistants in response to those used by customers. That is, when a strategy of persuasion is employed by semi-illiterate female customers from the middle and old age group, shop assistants often use swearing or oath words to employ a strategy of apologizing. Additionally, when customers ask more questions about the commodities, young shop assistants often resort to the use of technical terms related to these commodities.