Disattending Another's Complaints in Nick Witby's "The Complaint": A Pragmatic Study of Disaffiliation in Interaction | ||||
| مجلة کلية التربية . جامعة طنطا | ||||
| Article 12, Volume 72, Issue 4, October 2018, Page 457-488 PDF (823.79 K) | ||||
| Document Type: المقالة الأصلية | ||||
| DOI: 10.21608/mkmgt.2018.180355 | ||||
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| Author | ||||
| Hanaa Mohamed Helmy El-Gindy | ||||
| Lecturer of Linguistics in the Faculty of Education Dept. of Foreign Languages Mansoura University | ||||
| Abstract | ||||
| Complaining is a common human feeling. Most of us have gone through situations where we found ourselves in need of complaining. Heinman and Traverso (2009: 2383) stated that a complaint is “any type of comment with even the slightest negative valence”. People to whom complaints are offered perform one of two options: 1) attending the complaint of the other and thus showing affiliation in interaction with him; or 2) disattending it and hence showing disaffiliation in interaction. Complaints are not always against individuals. Sometimes, they are against Institutional Administrations in the Society. This later case is the subject of this research paper. Whenever people complain, they always expect their interlocutors to attend or take up their complaint and consequently mitigate it. But what happens if this complaint is disattended or not taken up. This research paper offers a study of disattending another’s complaints in Nick Witby’s ‘The Complaint’. It deals with disaffiliation in interaction from a pragmatic point of view. It shows that disaffiliation results from various interactional processes, e.g. disattending complaints between the co-participants in interaction. It claims that disattending another’s complaint can be done through subtle or blatant disattending. It also shows that disaffiliation results from the face threatening acts of questioning and assessment. The research helps people to notice disaffiliation in interaction in order to remain on good terms with each other | ||||
| Keywords | ||||
| Complaints; subtle disattending of complaints; blatant disattending; pragmatic disaffiliation; second assessment; polar questions; echo questions; Nick Witby; and ‘the Complaint’ | ||||
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