Coding scheme

According to Trosborg (1995), the criteria used for establishing the degree of directness of a complaint strategy include: propositional content (complainable), complainer, and the accused (complainee). The complaint utterances which contain both the complainable and complainee are more direct than those which contain complainable only. Based on Trosborg’s criteria⁵, six strategies can be identified which ranged from the least direct to the most direct, as shown in Table 3.9.

Table 3.9 Composition of complaint strategies in terms of complainer, complainable and complainee

Strategies Complainer Complainable Complainee

Opting out (OP) - - -

Indirect complaint (IC) + +/- -

Indirect accusation (IA) + + +

Direct complaint (DC) + + +

5 Trosborg (1995: 315) pointed out the factors which determine the directness level of a complaint in terms of complainable, complainer and complainee. The least direct complaint occurs when the complainable is or is not expressed directly in the propositional content. Second, the complainer’s negative evaluation of the propositional content is implicitly or explicitly expressed. Third, the involvement of the complainee is implicitly or explicitly expressed. Fourth, the complainer’s negative evaluation of the complainee’s behaviors is implicitly or explicitly expressed. Finally, the most direct complaint occurs when the complainer’s negative evaluation of the complainee as a person is implicitly or explicitly expressed.

Request for repair (RR) + Request for complainable

+

Threat (TH) + Sanctions against

complainable

+

Note: The symbol “+” means that the specific criterion exists in the strategy, while the symbol

“-“ means that the specific criterion does not exist in the strategy.

The researcher coded every meaning unit⁶, each of which was specified or tagged through one strategy. Opting out is used when the speaker does not say anything in cases where issuing a complaint is a socially acceptable act.

Indirect complaint may occur with or without complainable.⁷ It consists of two functions. The first function is to give general remarks. The second function is for the speaker to show annoyance, dislike or bad consequences caused by the offense. It is generally expressed in the form of a simple statement beginning with “I”, “My + noun phrase”, “We” or “Our + noun phrase”. This strategy is similar to Trosborg’s expression of disapproval, which shows annoyance or consequences.⁸

Indirect accusation mentions both the complainable and the complainee. It is used when the speaker presupposes that the hearer is guilty of offense and questions the hearer about the offense. It is usually expressed in question forms, which include wh-questions and yes/no questions. This strategy is similar to Trosborg’s category of accusation.⁹ Direct complaint also mentions the complainable and complainee. By using this strategy, the speaker accuses the hearer of having committed the offense. It

6 Each meaning unit generally corresponds syntactically to an independent clause.

7 Form our preliminary investigation, indirect complaint may occur with or without complainable when giving general remarks. The expressions with complainable in English include “It’s ok”, “Don’t worry about it” or “Accidents happen”. In Chinese, the most typical expression to give general remarks is “meiguanxi”, which does not contain complainable, but it is functionally equivalent to the English expressions.

8 Trosborg (1995: 319) classified two strategies for the category of expression of disapproval. The first strategy is annoyance, whose examples include “There’s a horrible dent in my car” and “Oh, dear, I’ve just bought it”. The second strategy is consequence, whose examples include “How terrible! Now I won’t be able to get to work tomorrow” and “Oh, damn it, I’ll lose my insurance bonus now.”

9 In Trosborg’s study, the category of accusation includes two strategies: indirect and direct. The example for indirect accusation is “You borrowed my car last night, didn’t you?” The example for direct accusation is “Did you happen to bump into my car”? (Trosborg, 1995: 319).

is generally expressed in the form of a simple statement beginning with “You” or

“Your + noun phrase”. This strategy is similar to Trosborg’s category of blame.¹⁰ Request for repair consists of two functions. The first function is compensation, with which the speaker expects the hearer to make up for the offense. The second function is behavior change, with which the speaker expects the hearer to stop offense or prevent repetitions of the offense. The linguistic forms of request for repair in the present study were categorized according to the request forms identified in the CCSARP (Cross-cultural Speech Act Realization Project) (Blum-Kulka, House &

Kapser, 1989). Finally, threat occurs when the speaker attempts to attack the hearer openly by stating potential consequences caused by the offense. The linguistic form is generally realized by an if-clause. Trosborg did not include request for repair and threat as major categories, but regarded them as directive acts, which appear subsequent to a complaint. However, the present study involved these two as major strategies. It is because when making complaints, the complainer may threaten the hearer’s positive face want by showing dissatisfaction, or may threaten the hearer’s negative face want by imposing a request (Brown & Levinson, 1987). In addition, threat was considered originally as one of the complaint strategies in Olshtain &

Weinbach’s (1987, 1993) studies. Therefore, for the convenience of classification, these two strategies were included as the major strategies in the present study.

Table 3.10 shows the complete coding scheme of complaint strategies used in the present study. The examples were taken from the privacy scenario in the American performances.

10 Trosborg (1995) classified blame into three major strategies: modified blame (e.g. You should take more care with other people’s cars”, explicit blame (behavior) (e.g. How on earth did you manage to be so stupid?) and explicit blame (person) (e.g. You really are thoughtless.)

Table 3.10 The coding scheme of complaint strategies

Complaint strategy Functions Examples

Opting out (OP): The

complainee. Describing annoyance My letter was opened.

Indirect accusation (IA):

The complainer questions the complainee about the offense.

Interrogating Why did you open my letter?

Compensating Could I have some privacy?

Request for repair (RR):

The complainer requests that the complainee make up for the complainable or stop the complainable

Changing behavior Will you please stop opening my letter? strategy within a conversational turn, as shown in Table 3.11.

Table 3.11 Comparisons of frequencies for one-strategy use, two strategy use, three strategy use and four strategy use in NS-A, NS-C, NNS-H and NNS-L productions

In this table, two-strategy use occupied about half of the performances across the four groups of subjects (NS-A: 53.37%, NS-C: 58.49%, NNS-H: 47.56%, NNS-L:

50.65%). One-strategy use had the second highest frequency of occurrence, followed by three- or four-strategy use. Since two-strategy patterns had the greatest numbers in the subjects’ performances, the present study examined how these patterns were used in the subjects’ performances. Six patterns were identified, which included indirect complaint + request for repair (IC+RR)¹¹, direct complaint + request for repair (DC+RR), indirect complaint + indirect complaint (IC+IC), indirect accusation + indirect complaint (IA+IC), request for repair + threat (RR+TH) and indirect behaviors between the native speakers of American English and the native speakers

11 Since there were only three cases of RR+IC, they were included in IC+RR pattern. There was no reverse order found in the other patterns.