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Achieving friendly interactions: a study of service encounters between Korean shopkeepers and African-American customers
Hye-Kyung Ryoo Discourse Society 2005 16: 79 DOI: 10.1177/0957926505048231 The online version of this article can be found at: http://das.sagepub.com/content/16/1/79

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Achieving friendly interactions: a study of service encounters between Korean shopkeepers and African-American customers
Discourse & Society Copyright 2005 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi) www.sagepublications.com Vol 16(1): 79105 10.1177/ 0957926505048231

H Y E - K Y U N G RY O O
SEOUL WOMENS UNIVERSITY

A B S T R A C T . This study presents an in-depth analysis of talk between Korean immigrant shopkeepers and their African-American customers in service encounters. The data were collected through 9 months of eldwork in Korean immigrant-owned stores. Despite the widely publicized conict and tension between African Americans and Korean immigrants in service encounters, the results of this study reveal frequent incidents of positive and harmonious encounters between the participants in the stores. The study argues that a disproportionate focus toward the negative and conictive nature of African AmericanKorean interactions is evident in existing research in the eld. The study claims that there exists an equally positive aspect of interactions between African-American customers and Korean shopkeepers during service encounter interactions that is obscured by prevailing research. This article focuses on describing this positive and friendly aspect of interactions realized through the participants use of specic rapport-building strategies. K E Y W O R D S : African American, interethnic/intercultural communication, Korean immigrants, service encounters

Introduction
Among the many different ethnic groups in the USA, Korean immigrants comprise one of the fastest growing ethnic minorities in the last couple of decades. As they have sought ways to survive in a foreign land, they have tended to settle in low-income African-American neighborhoods and have dominated the area of small businesses with local residents. Consequently, the number of Korean-owned businesses and contacts with African-American customers has grown, and interactional problems and tensions between the two ethnic groups have emerged as a serious social issue. Despite a large body of research on African AmericanKorean interethnic

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conict, some of which has claims based on observations of actual interactions between the two groups (Chang, 1990; Jeon, 1993; Jo, 1992; Koch and Schockman, 1994; Lee, 1993; Min, 1996; Norman, 1994; Park, 1990, 1996; Song, 1997; Stewart, 1989), there have been few attempts at a close-up and turn-by-turn detailed analysis of talk in actual encounters. The present study is a discourse analysis of actual talk in real-life interactions between the two groups, including a turn-by-turn analysis of talk from taperecorded interactions as well as data from interviews and observations made in the stores. The result of the data analysis revealed ample evidence of intercultural cooperation and friendliness between African Americans and Korean immigrants in the stores. It was found that both shopkeepers and customers not only achieved friendly relations, but also were able to overcome communication difculties when they occurred. Therefore, this article aims at describing the participants interactional efforts to achieve positive and friendly service encounters, which has largely been overshadowed by the highly proled and publicized nature of interethnic conict and tension. Specically, this article focuses on examining the ways in which participants achieved friendly merchantcustomer relations in the stores by describing in detail the strategic means through which they built solidarity and rapport. The article argues that the positive nature of African AmericanKorean interactions, as well as intercultural communication studies in general, should be pursued as an equally important area of research in the eld. This is in line with a growing recognition in the eld of intercultural communication studies that studies of communication among people from different cultural backgrounds should go beyond a focus on cultural differences and miscommunication among participants (Sarangi, 1994a, 1994b; Shea, 1993; Singh et al., 1988). The main objective of this article is to bring out the recognition of a great need to move in the direction of focusing more on the positive and cooperative efforts of participants in African AmericanKorean interactions to construct meanings and harmonious relations.

Theoretical background and relevant literature

An important theoretical and empirical theme that has a bearing on the present study is the issue of miscommunication in intercultural encounters. The commonality of intercultural and interlingual experiences in contemporary societies has attracted much work in intercultural communication from a variety of academic disciplines such as sociolinguistics, anthropology and secondlanguage acquisition. However, the salient feature of intercultural communication that has been the major target of investigation has been the negative nature of communication between participants from different cultural backgrounds. In fact, a great body of literature on intercultural miscommunication proves this trend of focusing on problems caused by cultural and linguistic differences (Banks et al., 1991; Davies and Tyler, 1994; Gass and Varonis, 1989;

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House, 1996; Knapp and Knapp-Potthoff, 1987; Riley, 1980; Tyler, 1995; Tyler and Davies, 1990). Early interactional sociolinguists such as Gumperz (1982a, 1982b) and Tannen (1984) have strongly supported this perspective of culturally determined ways of speaking. Gumperz (1982a) introduced the notion of discourse strategy in that different interactive experiences in a certain speech community form ones ways of interaction based on different cultural assumptions. The culture-specic discourse strategies are claimed to transfer over when speaking ones second language, thus, leading to frequent miscommunication. Studies of African AmericanKorean interethnic relations have had a strong tendency to construe an instance of customershopkeeper interaction between the two groups in the framework of cultural differences, thus labeling it as an intercultural/interethnic rather than customershopkeeper interaction. For example, Bailey (1996, 1997) studied Korean immigrant shopkeepers and African-American customers interacting in liquor stores. He found that the highly publicized ethnic conict and tension were largely attributed to disparate communication styles in service encounters between the two ethnic groups. Bailey (1996, 1997) raises the issue of cultural difference regarding how two ethnic groups have conicting expectations toward the situational framework of the service encounter setting. The dominant tendency of studies that have examined the negative aspects of intercultural communication still holds true in studies of interethnic relations between African Americans and Korean immigrants. The majority of studies on African AmericanKorean immigrant interactions tend to limit their analytical scope within the framework of the problematic and unsuccessful nature of the interactions (i.e. Bailey, 1997; Chang, 1990; Jo, 1992; Lee, 1993; Min, 1996; Park, 1990, 1996; Stewart, 1989, 1993). Those studies all seem to agree on the common theme that, regardless of the different claims of each study on what causes the problem and conict, frequent miscommunication and confrontation are inherent and bound to happen in interactions between Koreans and African Americans. On the contrary, the cooperative and friendly nature of interactions between African Americans and Korean immigrants and their interactive efforts to construct meanings in on-going service encounters have not gained equal attention in the eld. This may be attributed to the public frenzy and media attention to inammatory incidents such as the Los Angeles riots in 1992 and highly publicized boycotts against Korean small businesses in major US cities. Racism and hate crimes have been serious social issues and disruptions caused by ethnic conicts have frequently taken headlines of the evening news and newspapers. As a result, researchers might have focused their research efforts on guring out the causes of such presumed conicts and problems. However, some scholars of African AmericanKorean relations point out the fact that the negative and conictive nature of interactions between the two groups has been overly emphasized (Lee, 1999; Lie and Abelmann, 1999; Park, 1999). Lee (1999: 127) claims that

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the merchantcustomer dispute in African AmericanKorean relations is disproportionately exaggerated and strategically racialized for the boycott. Park (1999) specically points out the media impact in shaping the conictive and negative relational stereotypes between the two groups. There is an urgent need to reconsider preconceived and taken-for-granted notions that interactions between Korean immigrants and African Americans are inherently problematic and full of conicts. Sarangi (1994a) points out the problem of overemphasizing the problematic nature of intercultural communication by claiming that:
. . . intercultural communication is as much about miscommunication, as it is about communication . . . Future research will do well to pay adequate attention to the positive face of intercultural communication. Put simply, intercultural communication studies, in their search for a comprehensive theory, must go beyond celebration of miscommunication. (pp. 1901)

Bailey (1997), although he put his analytical emphasis on the problematic nature of interactions between the two groups, readily acknowledged the pervasiveness of positive interactions in his data as follows:
The overwhelming majority of African-American customers and immigrant Korean retailers get along. Not only are relations generally harmonious, but also relations between regular customers and retailers are often very positive. (p. 106)

The present study approaches the issue of African AmericanKorean interactions not with the question of what caused the problems, but what is going on in actual face-to-face interactions between the two groups. It readily acknowledges the overly emphasized nature of interethnic conict between the two groups and raises an issue of the unbalanced research focus in the eld. In this respect, the present study can provide additional insight into the nature of African AmericanKorean interethnic relations as a signicant step toward more balanced views in the eld.

Ethnographic background and methods

FIELD SITES

The present study analyzed customer and shopkeeper interactions in two Korean immigrant-owned stores in a US Midwestern city with a population of 572,002 (US Bureau of the Census, 2000). The most recent data of the ethnic breakdown of the city show that 36.1 percent (305,673) of the total population of the city is African American, whereas Koreans comprise about 0.08 percent (477) (US Bureau of the Census, 2000). According to the chairman of the Korean Association in the city, there were about 120 Korean immigrant-owned small businesses throughout the city and the types of business varied being beauty supply stores, garment stores, jewelry

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stores, general merchandise, and so on. Unlike large cities such as Los Angeles and New York where frequent violent crimes and boycotts are reported, the participants in the present study stated that there had been no such major incidents against Korean immigrants in the city except for some petty shoplifting in individual stores. Two Korean immigrant-owned stores participated in this study. One was a beauty supply store that carried mostly wigs, hair products, cosmetics, and some general merchandise. The other was a jewelry store that sold relatively highpriced ne jewelries such as gold and diamonds, as well as provided repair and cleaning services. Each store was located in a different African-American neighborhood in the city. The beauty supply store was located in an African-American neighborhood on the west side of the city that was considered both by the storeowner and the customers as an upper-middle class neighborhood. The jewelry store was located in a large two-story shopping mall in the hub of a low-income African-American neighborhood in the city. Residents interviewed in the present study described the neighborhood as a ghetto where low-income African Americans formed an ethnic niche and a lot of gang activities and drug dealings were going on.
DATA - COLLECTING PROCEDURE

About two visits per month to each store were made during the nine-month study period. A total of 15 visits to each store was made. In the beauty supply store, an 8-mm video camera was set up in a place that could capture an overall view of cash register interactions, and an audiotape recorder was placed on the cash register counter to record verbal interactions between participants. The recording equipment was placed in position within clear view of the customers. The data-collecting procedure was slightly more difcult in the jewelry store because it lacked an appropriate spot to set up recording equipment. Furthermore, the customers and shopkeepers were often moving around to look at jewelry in different showcases throughout the store, making a xed set-up inconvenient. Therefore, the recording equipment was hand-carried by the researcher and each customer was asked for oral permission to have his or her interaction with the shopkeeper recorded. In addition to the video- and audio-recording of interactions, ethnographic methods of observations and interviews were employed to complement the primary data of tape-recorded interactions. Observations were made while taping the interactions and detailed eld notes were taken. Ethnographic interviewing of the participants (both with Korean immigrant shopkeepers and AfricanAmerican customers) was conducted as well. Video- and audiotapes were reviewed immediately after collection. It was true that many interactions over the counter were routine service encounter interactions, which were relatively short and conventionalized with the basic organization of Attendance-Allocation, Service (a request for goods and quoting of price), Goods-Handover, Pay, and Closing (Ventola, 1995).

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Upon viewing all the recorded materials, the researcher selectively transcribed only the interactions that lasted longer than just brief routine activities. The selection criteria were based on those encounters that included interactional elements contributing to the positive and cooperative nature of overall interactions.1

Achieving friendly and harmonious interactions

Goffman (1963) claims that a service encounter is a face engagement in which participants with specic goals conduct a mutual activity through the use of various communicative means. It has been a widely held belief in early studies of service encounters that interactions in service encounters primarily consist of simple business transactions, which involve the transmission of information such as the availability or prices of merchandise (Merritt, 1976; Mitchell, 1957). However, consenting claims of more recent studies hold that interactions in service encounters not only display the transactional and business-oriented aspect of language, but also exhibit the interactional aspect of language.2 Many studies of service encounters (Avedon, 1996; James, 1992; Kalaja, 1989; Lamoureux, 1988; Ventola, 1987) have provided ample evidence that interactions in service encounters do have a dynamic and complex aspect in that the needs of the customers must be satised by and balanced with the abilities of the service provider or seller. Many studies show that service encounters indeed provide participants with opportunities to forge interpersonal and interactional relationships during the encounters (Aston, 1988a, 1988b; James, 1992; Lamoureux, 1988). Lamoureux (1985) claims that service encounter discourse has multiple functions of indexing, instantiating, and reinforcing the personal relationships between shopkeepers and customers. Although it was true that many of the interactions found in the present study were routine service encounters, other interactions often went beyond simple exchanges of greetings and goods; often, elaborate exchanges of friendly remarks were involved. Overall, the discourse data collected in the present study exhibited a frequent occurrence of friendly service encounters.3 One signicant observation from the data analysis in the present study is the extent to which interactional patterns are considerably different from what has been claimed in the majority of the studies on interethnic relations. In fact, Davids work (1999) on interactions between Arab shopkeepers and their African-American customers is another study that takes notice of this point. David (1999: 195) claims that:
Most interactions in the store are unproblematic. It is interesting to see that in spite of all the negative attention given to the convenience stores, the interactions within them are generally non-problematic in the sense that there are discernible signs of trouble. Of course this does not mean that various types of interactions do not trouble the customer or the worker. But it is rare for interactional difculties to actually manifest themselves interactionally.

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From the detailed analysis of talk in the present study, it has been found that the participants exerted a considerable positive effort to instigate and sustain social and personal relations. The participants seemed to possess a basic concern for their interlocutors face as well as their own behind the interactional efforts of participants. Whether it is inter- or intra-ethnic encounters, face concern has been claimed to be the most fundamental and universal need addressed by people when they interact with each other (Goffman, 1959). This basic interactional concern has generated a considerable amount of work on human interaction and politeness in different areas of studies (Basso, 1979; Brown and Levinson, 1987; Haviland, 1977; Hills et al., 1986; Leech, 1983; Ting-Toomey, 1988; TingToomey and Cocroft, 1994). It has long been believed that face is a basic element of social interactions and face concern is an important aspect of interactions in a society (Brown and Levinson, 1987; Goffman, 1963; Leech, 1983). In the present study, participants concern for their interlocutors face was an important factor that contributed to non-confrontational and positive encounters between shopkeepers and customers. The data of the present study demonstrate a number of specic ways in which participants achieved this interactional goal. They were: (i) using ingroup identity markers, (ii) solidarity building by sharing attitudes, (iii) using the speech act of compliment, (iv) initiating personal communication, and (v) joking and laughing. Each strategy is presented with excerpts from the data and the analysis focuses on showing how those specic interactional and rapport-building moves used by participants constantly created positive situational frames.
USING INGROUP IDENTITY MARKERS

The rst aspect of interactional moves that incorporated the face concern of participants was realized in the address terms. Spencer-Oatey (2000) discusses a number of domains of rapport management strategies and categorizes the choice of terms of address or honorics within the stylistic domain. She claims that the stylistic aspect of rapport management should be appropriately managed to achieve harmonious relations in an interaction. Brown and Levinson (1987) consider the use of ingroup address terms as motivated by a concern for the other partys positive face want and they are used to build up solidarity and closeness between participants. By using ingroup markers to address the interlocutors, participants implicitly claimed a common ground with their interlocutors to attend ingroup membership. The following extract is an example of the ingroup address terms used by the shop owner.
Extract 1 Beauty supply store 100401Th V2:0:06:44 AA2:262 The shop owner (SO) is standing by the cash register area when two customers, a male and a female (C2 and C1), come into the store.

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Discourse & Society 16(1) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 C1: SO: C1: SO: C1: SO: C1: SO: C2: SO: C1: SO: C1: SO: C1: SO: C1: C2: C1: SO: C1: SO: can I get two sets of these keys, how much does it cost; each key made. key made? yea. hundred dollar, a hundred, uh huh, (that aint that bad?) [yea, I can[a hundred dollars for key make; fourteen karat gold. key? uh huh, a key. key. (-) uh huh, (.) fourteen karat gold copy; uh huh ( ?) ((looks at C1 and smiles)) one dollar, uh uh. [give hihihi me; [hihihi give me- hihihi two sets of each two sets two sets. yea. okay (.) gottyou, baby. ((pats C1s shoulder))

In this example, the shop owner made a joke about the price the customer should pay to make extra keys in l. 5. He intentionally exaggerated the cost of making the keys and the customer acknowledged it as a joke shown in l. 8. Then, the shop owner extended the joking activity by extravagantly exaggerating that the key was made of real gold in l. 11, which was taken seriously by the customer this time as shown in a series of turns by the customer repeatedly conrming the information she had just heard (ll. 12, 14, 16). Finally, the shop owner chose to stop joking and continue with the business at hand in l. 18 by quoting the actual price of making the key. The series of exchanges involving the shop owners joking and customers cooperative responses (i.e. witty response to the joke in l. 8 and laughing) set the friendly mood and positive interactional frame that could support the use of the ingroup marker by the shop owner in l. 25 when he addressed the female customer as baby. The following non-verbal behavior of the shop owner (patting the female customer on her shoulder) strengthened the friendly mood that was already set up by the jokes and the address term used by the shop owner. The following extract is another example of using ingroup identity markers, this time by the customer.

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Ryoo: Achieving friendly interactions Extract 2 Beauty supply store 070201M V2:0:20:42 (VHS2:1:11:26) A male African-American customer (C) comes into the store and looks at a bandana. The shop owner (SO) is standing by the vending machine lling it with cans of soda. The customer picks out a bandana and approaches the shop owner. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 C: SO: ((showing a bandana to SO)) you got in blue and black? blue and black? ((approaches the place where the bandanas are)) right here this royal blue. you wanna this color? yep, how many. one. okay- (-) and what color too; black? how much are they, one dollar. yea. this- thats gonna (be it right there.?) this one? yea, ((puts bandana on the counter)) [(Ill be back ?) [O::kay take your time. eight oclock close. hihihi thats my man.

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C: SO: C: SO: C: SO: C: SO: C:

SO: C:

The customer in this extract was a young male who was looking for a bandana and picked one out that he liked with the help of the shop owner. Then, the customer wanted to do some more shopping as shown in l. 17 and the shop owner made a joking remark to the customer in l. 19 (meaning you can be in the store shopping until 8 oclock when the shop closes). The shop owners utterance in l. 19 was acknowledged by the customer as a joke as shown in the customers laughing and use of the ingroup marking expression thats my man in l. 20. The customers nal utterance thats my man was a cooperative move toward the shop owners joke in the previous turn. However, it also played a role of evoking closeness between the participants, which was motivated by the shop owners friendly joke. From looking at the two examples of ingroup identity markers used by both the shop owner and the customer, we not only see the positive effect of the strategic use of linguistic markers on the relational and interactional aspect of those particular encounters, but also how they were creatively constructed and cooperatively managed by the participants. An ingroup marker has little inherent meaning and its interpretation largely depends on the context in which it is used.4 That is, it is hardly the case that an ingroup marker has its positive interactional function in and of itself. In the rst example above, the previous positive

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situational frame that was evoked by the cooperative alignment of the joke between participants provided the subsequent situational framework for the positive interpretation of the address term. As shown in the earlier examples, participants choices of ingroup markers depended on contextual factors such as the age and relative closeness of participants.5 However, we can now see that they also came out of the situational framework where the cooperative interactional work of both participants contributed to the conversations friendly mood.
SHARING ATTITUDES AND GIVING SUPPORT

The second aspect of interactional talk between shopkeepers and customers was the way in which they shared attitudes and supports. Aston (1988a) presents two different dimensions of sharing attitudes: one is through showing agreement and support about the objects or reality they both possessed and experienced in the world, which he calls solidary affect. The other dimension of sharing attitudes is what Aston (1988a) calls supportive affect, which is the case where one participant shows affective support to the other partys state or experience. The following example is an illustration of the rst aspect of sharing attitudes, solidary affect, realized by the customers showing sympathy to the shopkeepers state, which in turn, she has experienced also.
Extract 3 Beauty supply store 080701T V2:1:09:51 AB2:212 The shopkeeper (SK) is a female Korean employee in her early 40s. She is helping customers check out at the cash register. The customer is a female African American (C) who looks to be in her early 40s also and approaches the counter with some items to check out. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 [hi; [okay, hi, how are you today, C: oh not bad; how about yourself= SK: =oh Im okay; [and; C: [good. SK: cleaning; working; [hihihi C: [hihihi yes I understand. SK: yea. C: whoo::: ((sighs)) SK: uh okay, that all? C: yea thats it. SK: okay? two dollar ten cents please? C: okay. SK: uh huh, ((C pays money and SK punches the keys)) C: SK:

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Ryoo: Achieving friendly interactions 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 C: yea Im a schoolteacher so; (.) I might ( so we started (.) yesterday. so our kids are just- (-) w:::oo o:h yea. hihihi so Im kind of tired. yea hihihi two dollar ninety cents [thank you. [okay; thank you hihi. ?) too (.)

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SK: C: SK: C:

The initial part of this conversation (ll. 15) consisted of a routine greeting between the participants where the shopkeeper and the customer exchanged conventionalized greetings with each other. Greetings are considered to be a representative case of phatic talk in that people inquire about the other partys wellbeing, oftentimes without serious concern or sincerity (Coupland et al., 1992). The shopkeeper, in greeting back to the customer, however, chose to be more specic about telling her well-being in l. 9 by elaborating in her response her daily chores in the store (cleaning, working). In response to the shopkeepers rather elaborated greeting, the customer provided a supportive uptake in l. 10 (yes I understand) which showed her sympathy toward the shopkeepers hard work in the store. The customers supportive moves did not end here but reappeared in ll. 2022 where she showed empathy by sharing her personal experience as a school teacher and difculty being with kids because school had just started. In l. 25 the customer told the shopkeeper about her state of being tired from work, implying that she also had a busy day like the shopkeeper. The customers revealing her personal experience paralleled the shopkeepers initial utterance about her workload in the store and was motivated by a supportive attitude toward the shopkeeper, showing her empathy toward an experience she also shared. The following example is an illustration of the second aspect of sharing attitudes, supportive affect, realized by the shop owners sharing agreement of the customers assessment on the price of a product.
Extract 4 Beauty supply store 073001M V1:0:59:30 A female African-American customer (C) in her early 40s is looking for a hairpiece with the help of the shop owner (SO). The shop owner presents a couple of hairpieces to the customer to choose. The customer is looking closely at the hairpieces and asks the shop owner for the price. The conversation starts when the shop owner answers the customers question by quoting the price of a hairpiece. 35 36 37 38 39 40 SO: C: SO: C: twenty six ninety nine. twenty six expensive. uh huh, Beverly Johnson is [very expensive. [yea; I like Beverly Johnson. do you have u:hm (-) do you have a lighter color than that.

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Discourse & Society 16(1) 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 SO: C: SO: C: SO: lighter color is number six na eight. okay, let me see number ( ?) ((nds the hairpiece and shows it to C)) number six medium (.) light brown. I like this. (-) medium light brown, uh huh,

In l. 35 the shop owner informed the customer of the price of a hairpiece that the customer inquired about. This was immediately followed by the customers assessment of the price in l. 36 where she said it was expensive. Of particular interest to the analysis of Extract 4 is the shop owners reaction to this customers assessment. In ll. 37 and 38, rather than justifying explicitly why he had to charge the price he offered, the shop owner provided a positive uptake (uh huh). Furthermore, in his next turn, he agreed with the customers assessment while adding the intensifying marker very and providing a particular brand name of hairpieces. According to Aston (1993), supportive affect is realized when one participant provides a supportive and positive comment on an experience or state in which the other person has. The shop owners turns in ll. 37 and 38 are good examples where one party gave a positive support by agreeing with (very expensive) the others negative assessment of the cost of the hairpiece (expensive). By stating that the particular brand of hairpieces was expensive, the shop owner claimed that the particular brand of product was supposed to be expensive. Other than providing an excuse for the high price of the product, this particular utterance of the shop owner in l. 38 played an additional role of building solidarity by sharing the attitude with the customer.6 As shown in Extract 4, solidary affect was a joint accomplishment of sharing attitudes that was realized by displaying an identical point of view to support the other partys contribution and assessment. From Extract 4, it is shown that participants actively shared their attitudes and experiences and responded to each other with support and agreement, which facilitated a more positive and solidarity building relationship between the participants and created a friendly experience throughout the interaction.
SPEECH ACT OF COMPLIMENT

Another interactional pattern that was commonplace in service encounters was the speech act of compliment. Brown and Levinson (1987: 103) categorize compliment as a positive politeness strategy and claim S (speaker) should take notice of aspects of Hs (hearer) condition (noticeable changes, remarkable possessions, anything which looks as though H would want S to notice and approve of it). Compliment has been one of the speech acts that has gained much attention in the eld (Herbert, 1989; Holmes, 1988; Manes and Wolfson, 1980; Spencer-Oatey et al., 2000; Wolfson and Manes, 1980; Wolfson, 1981). As for the functions of compliments in discourse, Wolfson and Manes (1980) claim that they fulll a basic social function by expressing a speakers common interest with

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the hearer and maintaining/creating solidarity. Spencer-Oatey (2000) also considers compliments as face-enhancing speech acts in that they contribute to positive relationships between people by enhancing their positive face. One of the aspects of compliments that drove the participants to frequently employ them in service encounters was that they could provide a neutral and relatively safe topic for a brief friendly conversation without disclosing much personal information. Therefore, participants who were often strangers or mere acquaintances in service encounters found compliment a relatively easy strategy to evoke a friendly relationship and a sense of rapport. The next example shows how compliments were realized in discourse and how they played a positive role in building up solidarity.
Extract 5 Beauty supply store 080701T V2:1:10:57 AB2:228 A female African-American customer (C) who looks to be in her late 20s enters the store with a little boy (B; apparently her son). She shops around the store for a while and comes to the cash register to check out. The little boy seems to want his mother to buy him something and asks for it. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 C: SK: B: C: SK: C: SK: C: SK: ((to her boy)) I dont have no money to pay for ((punches the keys)) three dollar fourteen cents. ( ?) [((to her son)) I dont have no money. [oh you have nice comfortable dress. thank you. it feels good. yeah I think that is nice yea? yeah thanks. okay, ((to the little boy by the customer)) you be good boy, okay I give to you one sucker for you, andshe has something for [you. [yes. you be nice and we give to good boy. [say thank you. [and candy.

C: SK: SK: C: SK:

The shopkeeper helped the customer check out her purchases and initiated a compliment in l. 6 by commenting on the customers dress. The strategy of performing compliments seemed to be a relatively easy way for the shopkeepers to enhance the positive aspect of relations with customers because of the exible nature of its occurrence and its largely conventionalized formulaicity (Wolfson and Manes, 1980). The shopkeeper in Extract 5 complimented the customer on her dress, which was totally irrelevant to the business transaction of the service encounter. The customer responded to the compliment by thanking the shopkeeper in l. 7 and providing agreement in l. 8. Then, the shopkeeper took another

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turn to agree on the customers comment (it feels good) by providing an agreement token yeah and repeating the compliment in l. 9, which was followed by the customers short acknowledgement and repeated thanking in l. 10. In Extract 5 we can see that compliments and compliment responses were linked as a pair and embedded in the stretch of service talk between the shopkeeper and customer as a separate unit of speech event. The function of compliments by the shopkeeper here seemed to be relatively straightforward in that they were aimed at establishing solidarity with the customer as a friendly move, which was also shown in her giving out a treat to the customers baby boy later in the interaction. The compliments in Extract 5 were not a must-have element in the service encounter. They are rather an extra interactional effort consciously initiated by the participants to lubricate momentary interpersonal relations. It is clear that these extra efforts by the participants enhanced a feeling of solidarity between them and positively contributed to the creation of rapport.
INITIATING PERSONAL COMMUNICATION

Spencer-Oatey (2000), in her analytical framework of rapport management, discusses the discourse domain of rapport management that concerns the proper management of content and topic of discourse. Initiation of personal communication in service encounters is one of the strategies included in this discourse domain of rapport management. Personal communication is an active way by which participants in service encounters attend to the interactional and relational aspects of interchanges. The representative case of personal talk is what has been called phatic communion rst introduced by Malinowski (1923). Malinowski (1923: 315) denes it as a type of speech in which ties of union are created by a mere exchange of words. Malinoswki (1923: 316) further added that the functional aspect of phatic communion was a form of action serving to establish bonds of personal union between people brought together by the mere need of companionship. In a recent study of phatic communication, Zegarac (1998: 330) emphasizes the interactional and interpersonal aspect of phatic communication by dening it as an utterance whose main implicit import has to do with the speakers disposition towards establishing and/or maintaining a social relationship with the hearer. Phatic communion includes exchanges of talk with the social function of binding individuals without the specic goal of transferring information or thought (Coupland et al., 1992). One of the specic realizations of this phatic use of talk in interactions can be so-called small talk where participants share personal feelings and attitudes in order to establish and maintain interpersonal and social relationships. Brown and Levinson (1987) also discuss gossip and small talk as positive politeness strategies that are aimed at marking friendship or personal interest toward each other. Baileys (1996, 1997) study on service encounters between Korean immigrant retailers and African-American customers in the Los Angeles area focuses on this interactional aspect of interactions between two ethnic groups. Bailey

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(1996) makes a distinction between socially expanded service encounters and socially minimal service encounters. Socially expanded service encounters include talk that is not directly tied to the business transaction at hand and socially minimal service encounters mostly consist of talk focusing only on the business transactions. He claims that interethnic tension and conicts between the two groups were caused by differing expectations with regard to the frame of service encounters where Koreans showed a preference for the socially minimal type, whereas African Americans preferred the socially expanded type. That is, whereas African-American customers tended to initiate topics of personal conversation such as jokes and story telling, Korean immigrant workers in stores showed strictly business-oriented attitudes toward their interactions, which was perceived as disrespectful and rude to their customers. The data collected for the present study show a quite different picture from that Bailey (1996) found in his data. Small talk and personal communication were quite common between the two participants in the present study. Furthermore, they were frequently initiated by the Korean employees and storeowners. Instances of phatic communion or small talk found in the data analysis were frequently extended to rather lengthy stretches of talk. It has been found that shopkeepers and customers often engaged in personal exchanges or talk on topics such as weather or children that were not really related to the current business transactions. David (1999) also found that small talk was a common interactional feature in service encounters in his data. He found that introducing general topics such as the weather or sports were common and facilitated friendly talk between workers and customers who were often strangers. One example of small talk in the data was about weather. Weather has largely been considered as the most typical and relatively safe topic of casual conversation between interactants who do not share much of a common agenda or experience (Laver, 1975). Extract 6 is a good example of phatic communion between a customer and shop owner about the current weather condition.
Extract 6 Beauty supply store 072001F V1:0:57:59 AA1:055 The shop owner (SO) is standing at the cash register area and a female African-American customer (C) approaches the register to check out. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 C: SO: C: C: SO: C: ((putting down a facial cream on the counter)) hey. ((punches the keys on the register)) two ten, ((putting the cream in a bag)) very hot today, very hot today. ((takes out paper bills from her pocket and counts them)) (1.2) ((hands over the money to SO)) but I love it. you LOVE it. oh yea. oooo::h I dont want to be cold.

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Discourse & Society 16(1) 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 ((takes out some change from her pocket)) I like the (winter?); (-) cold is ne. cold is good. ((hands over the coins to SO)) HIHIHI hihihi; were gonna put it right in the middle; (.) fall. thank (hihi) you so much lady. hihi yea, ((SO hands over the receipt to C)) thank you. have a nice day, you too.

SO: C: SO: C: SO: C:

SO: C:

In l. 4, the shop owner initiated phatic communion by commenting on the current weather and the customer agreed with him by repeating the same sentence in l. 5 as the shop owners previous turn. The phatic communion might have ended here with the customers brief response to the initiation of weather talk. However, it went on to a rather elaborated small talk by the customers move to provide an additional statement of personal preference of hot weather in l. 7. Upon hearing the remark from the customer, the shop owner showed his curiosity about the unexpected comment (the customer said she liked hot weather) in l. 8 by repeating the customers previous turn with emphasis on the word love in order to conrm it. Then, the customer responded to the shop owners request for conrmation in l. 9 and provided an account of why she liked hot weather in l. 10. The shop owner, as the customer did in l. 7, responded to the customers turn by contrasting his preference of rather cold weather in l. 12. In l. 13, the customer showed her involvement and acknowledgement in the shop owners previous turn by repeating the utterance. In addition, she also made a witty remark in l. 15 that its better in the fall, a middle ground between hot and cold. The general atmosphere of the service encounter in Extract 6 was very positive and harmonious one with lots of laughter and support toward each partys utterances. Also, we can see a cooperative alignment of talk where both participants contributions were congruent and balanced with many positive uptakes and agreement even though they did not agree on the weather they liked. There are many other incidents in the data where the shop owner initiated small talk and the customer revealed his or her personal information and experience in interactions. The presence of this personal talk implies that the participants were willing to be engaged in a more personally involved interaction and thus to build up rapport and solidarity. The following encounter (Extract 7) is a good example of personal talk that shows its positive relational function.
Extract 7 Beauty supply store 080701T V1:1:09:27 The female Korean shopkeeper (SK) who is in her mid-40s helps a female AfricanAmerican customer (C) in a white uniform. The customer comes into the store to shop for hair products including hairpieces. The shopkeeper shows some hairpieces to the customer

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Ryoo: Achieving friendly interactions by taking them out of their plastic bags. The customer looks at the hairpieces closely by touching them. She picks out two of the hairpieces she has looked at. 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 I think Im gonna try this one, (-) a:nd that one. THat one. [okay. C: [yes. ((tries to put the hairpiece into the bag)) SK: easy for the (.) you know you hihi canC: I can just stick it in here thatll be ne, SK: yea. oh okay. C: thank you. SK: thank you too. C: and I have whole bunch of other stuff. SK: yea. C: [(over here?) ((puts other purchases on the counter)) SK: [uh huh, I like your uniform; what is it. C: u:h its Navy uniform; SK: o:::h I see. C: I work right next door I nally got a chance to get home; SK: o::h (0.2) you working next door? C: uh huh, SK: o::h [I see. C: [(?) here for three years. SK: o::h nice uniform. C: thank you. ((SK rings up the purchases on the register and bags them)) actually I think Im gonna leave this one here, SK: yea [okay, C: [(cause I?) try and perm my hair regular. SK: yes okay, and thats all, C: thatll be it. SK: yes. thirty dollar fty six all total, ((puts the bag on the counter)) C: okay, ((looks into her purse)) actually you know what, (.) give it to me. SK: ((shows the cream to C)) uh [this one? C: [Im gonna try. yea give me that. SK: yes. C: thank you. SK: thank you too, C: ((gives her credit card to SK and SK processes the card on the machine)) its too bad you guys are right next door Im gonna shop here all the time. SK: o:h hihi C: spend all my money. ((put her signature on the form)) SK: o::h yea hihihi. ((hands over the receipt to C)) C: SK:

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Discourse & Society 16(1) 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 C: SK: C: SK: C: SK: C: SK: thank you [you have great day. [thank you. you do same thing [thank you. [I appreciate you helping me out. o:h hihi youre welcome anytime. thanks a lot. yea thank you. bye bye. okay bye bye,

In l. 50 the shopkeeper initiated a conversation by complimenting the customer on her uniform and asking about it. In l. 51, the customer explained what it was and the shopkeeper showed her uptake in l. 52. The conversation might have ended here with a simple exchange of compliment and compliment response. However, the customer provided further information about her job related to the location of her work in l. 53. The shopkeepers response (working next door), which was a repetition in l. 54 of partial elements of the customers previous turn (I work right next door) in l. 53, played a role of showing her interest and involvement in the conversation, which in turn motivated the customer to reveal more of her personal life as shown in l. 57. In ll. 79 and 81, the customer even made a witty remark that she would spend all her money shopping in the store because it was right next to her work. From Extract 7 we can see an example of friendly small talk as well as supportive uptake beyond mere exchanges of transactionally oriented talk through which participants showed their personal interest and built up a friendly and positive atmosphere in the encounter.
JOKING AND LAUGHING

Joking, as with the small talk discussed earlier, is considered by Brown and Levinson (1987) as a strategy to address the positive face concern of participants and is often used to make the participants feel at ease. Joking and laughing were crucial parts of a positive and rapport-building interaction between shopkeepers and customers in the present study. Norrick (1994: 409) denes joking as all those forms or strategies such as word play, teasing, and anecdotes designed to elicit laughter from listeners. He further claims that conversational joking is associated with rapport and intensifying cohesion even though it may disrupt conversation. Boxer and Cortes-Conde (1997) claim that conversational joking evokes a play frame that emerges in the situation based on in-group knowledge. Even with varying denitions of jokes, most studies of joking agree on the fact that joking is a social behavior and an interactional activity created and shared by participants in conversations (Boxer and Cortes-Conde, 1997; David, 1999). The primary function that joking plays in interactions is its creation of a situational frame of a lighthearted, amusing nature rather than a serious, sober one. However, in order for that to happen, jokes should be recognized and accepted by the participants with a consequence of enhanced rapport and positive relations. Norrick (1994: 429) claims that joking is a word play that serves a function to

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modulate involvement in the immediate context and promote rapport. The success of joking in a conversation is displayed by the recipients reaction to the jokes through various uptakes such as laughs or verbal acknowledgements showing his or her understanding of the joke. Gavioli (1995) claims that laughter is a preferred next turn created by the recipient or audience, which should come right after a joke is told. The success of a joke in terms of the recipients acknowledgement and response reects the interactional aspect of joking as a speech activity that participants jointly construct. Joking in the service encounters of the present study was common in spite of the fact that participants were usually strangers who knew that the interaction was temporary and it was unlikely that a genuine personal relationship would be formed out of it. Boxer and Cortes-Conde (1997) claim that strangers use jokes to show that they have a sense of wit and create a momentary bond in interactions. The shop owner in the beauty supply store often initiated jokes to customers. The most frequent tactic he used to make a joke was exaggeration, which is dened as a verbal action to exaggerate the idea or information to make it unreal and to evoke laughter (Goodman, 1983: 13). The specic strategy used by the shop owner was to exaggerate the total price of a purchase the customer should pay (e.g. $100 for an item worth $1). It seemed that the shop owner stuck to a relatively safe topic, the price of products, to joke about because oftentimes he and the customers were strangers and did not have much shared experience and common denominators in their lives. In that sense, joking about the price of goods was relatively safe because it was relevant to the current activity of the business transaction and could easily be discerned as an exaggeration rather than a deceptive business practice (because he did this only for products that were not expensive). Extract 8 is an example of joking about prices of merchandise that were exaggerated for the purpose of humor and fun. Of particular interest about these examples is how joking was cooperatively constructed by a joint participation of both the shop owner and customer.
Extract 8 Beauty supply store 121801T V1:0:55:14 (only the audio is available in the video, interactions happened outside of the camera angle) The shop owner (SO) is on the ground level taking some newly arrived merchandise out of boxes. A female African-American customer (C) approaches with an item (not visible from the tape). 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 C: SO: C: SK: C: how much are these; I like [( ?) [hundred dollar, okay I want it for free (.) now. [hihihi [hihihi (1.2) I just hope this is enough; (.) how much are the other ones like-

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Discourse & Society 16(1) 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 SO: C: SO: C: SK: C: small pack is ninety nine cents; (0.2) and a big bag [isbig bag is dollar ninety nine, (0.7) okay I hope this is enough; (.) okay. thats it? sure.

The interaction started off as an ordinary inquiry by the customer asking the price of the merchandise in l. 1. The shop owner in answering the customers question exaggerated the price by saying hundred dollar in l. 2. The item the customer was referring to was not clearly identied because it was out of the cameras angle. However, it can be assumed that it was far less than $100. The shop owners initiation of the joke in l. 2 provided a situational framework to evoke a play frame for the subsequent turns (Norrick, 1994). The customer acknowledged this newly evoked frame of joking and showed her cooperative action by striking back at him with another joke in l. 3. Therefore, it was not only the degree of exaggeration that made the shop owners utterance in l. 2 a joke but also the customers response to the utterance. The success of the customers joke was conrmed by the laughter that ensued as a result. Subsequently, the shop owner and customer resumed serious discussions of the price in ll. 810. In Extract 8 we can see the balanced and cooperative alignment of talk between the two parties through one partys initiation of a joke and the others response with another joke. The second notable aspect of the jokes produced in this encounter is their cooperative alignment of teller and listener (David, 1999: 257) in that the teller initiated a joke clearly and the listener showed his or her cooperative moves by laughing or joining in with additional jokes. Finally, there is another important aspect of the way in which the shop owners jokes were produced. The strategy to exaggerate the price of merchandise or the total price was a tactful interactional strategy by the shop owner to combine the transactional and interactional aspects of service encounters. The shop owners exaggeration of the original price did not completely lose its transactional function because the customer often knew beforehand the price he or she had to pay and the realization of the joke subtly reinforced this preconception of the actual price. In this way, the shop owner used a strategy of initiating a joke and performing a business transaction simultaneously. This is one example of a case in which the boundary between the interactional and transactional dimensions is murky and the two aspects merge in an utterance. In general, as shown in Extract 8, jokes and humor play a positive interactional function to make it possible for participants to have a pleasant experience in the store. Often times, a joke led to another joke and participants shared laughter and built positive buyerseller relations. This positive interactional outcome achieved by a joking activity was only possible by both participants active involvement by taking turns in making contributions to the humorous framework, which in the long run enhanced rapport and harmony between them.

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Conclusion and implications of the study

This article discussed participants interactional efforts that have contributed to the positive outcome of interactions based on the analysis of empirical evidence found in the data. Specically, it has described some of the solidarity and rapportbuilding strategies that may operate in actual encounters between the two groups. The strategies used by participants were characterized by their focus on the interactional rather than transactional aspect of service encounters. The ndings from this study are largely in contrast with what the majority of studies of African AmericanKorean interethnic relations have found. However, the present study is not an attempt to downplay difculties and problems in interethnic relations between Korean immigrants and African Americans. Neither is it an attempt to nullify the fact that there was a level of tension and conict between the shopkeepers and customers. Also, it is not the intention of this article to claim that many previous studies that have described negative and confrontational interactions between the two ethnic groups are wrong or misguided. The analytical focus of the present study on the positive and harmonious aspects should not be taken to imply that the participants never had any problems or troubles in the store. In fact, there were some unpleasant incidents where the shopkeepers and customers argued over the refunds and exchanges in the stores. Interviews with participants also revealed that the African-American customers and Korean shopkeepers had certain negative stereotypes and attitudes toward each other, which may have inuenced the nature of the relationship. The contrasting ndings from the present study with most of the other studies of African AmericanKorean interethnic relations may be partially explained in the situational differences surrounding the stores. Most of the studies were conducted in large urban cities such as Los Angeles and New York, whereas this study was conducted in a comparatively small Midwestern city with lower poverty and crime rates. This study is mainly a close description of some of the strategies that may have contributed to the positive outcome of the interactions. However, it implicates new possibilities and perspectives to approach the issue of interactions between African-American customers and Korean immigrant shopkeepers. The primary goal of this article is to draw attention to the fact that there surely are positive aspects of communication where African Americans and Koreans are able to go about their businesses in the store without negative and problematic interactional outcomes. This positive nature has largely been understated in the studies of the African AmericanKorean relations. I admit that future research of African AmericanKorean interactions should go beyond mere description of interactional patterns in service encounters. More studies should be conducted to examine in detail communicative behaviors and patterns in major US cities with equal focus on the positive aspect of interactions. There is a great need for developing more systematic tools to analyze what is

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Discourse & Society 16(1)

really going on in actual interactions between African-American customers and Korean immigrant shopkeepers.
AC K N OW L E D G E M E N T

Portions of the analysis in this article were presented at the 8th Conference on Language, Interaction, and Culture (CLIC) in University of California, Los Angeles, 2325 May 2002.
NOTES

1. The interactional elements here are specic rapport and solidarity building communication strategies such as small talk, joking, etc. These specic strategies are introduced in detail later in this article. 2. Brown and Yule (1983) present the dichotomy of transactional and interactional functions of discourse by claiming that the rst is related to the expression of content and the latter to expressing social relations and personal attitudes (p. 1). They claim that language can be used primarily for a transactional purpose in that it is used to deliver factual and informational content of utterances whereas language used for an interactional purpose is primarily aimed at establishing and maintaining a social relationship. There are some studies that made a distinction between two different aspects of language in the speech event of service encounters (Aston, 1988a, 1988b, 1993; Ciliberti, 1988; James, 1992; Kalaja, 1989; Lamoureux, 1985, 1988; Manseld, 1988). These studies have recognized the different functions of language use in service encounters; one aspect of language use is mainly used for business transactions (e.g. talking about the availability and prices of goods) and another function is to manage interpersonal relationships (e.g. interchanging small talk, using polite address terms). It also should be noted that the boundary between the interactional aspect of service encounter that is realized in phatic or small talk and the transactional aspect of buying and selling is not a clear-cut matter. In fact, there were many incidents found in the data that display a merge of the two aspects of interaction. It would be fruitful for future work to see how participants tactfully concentrate on the business (in the case of service encounters) or transactional matter at hand and simultaneously achieve the interactional goal of rapport and solidarity building. 3. I have received many comments demanding quantication of the data, for example, what percentage of the interactions were typical service exchanges or how many exchanges in the data were categorized as so-called friendly type. However, it is practically not feasible to quantify these types of interactional data with denite categories because, rst of all, there is no truly objective method of categorizing a certain exchange as a certain type; and second, the present study does not aim at quantifying the data and making statistical predictions. The present study is strictly a qualitative approach to the interactions within an ethnographic research framework. 4. In fact, ingroup markers can sometimes be considered rude and inappropriate when they are not used properly considering the situational context. Some customers who were interviewed in the present study told me that they were sometimes offended by the ingroup address terms such as baby, mama, etc. used by Korean shopkeepers (not necessarily the shop owner in this particular store). 5. The customers age and relative distance (i.e. whether s/he was a regular customer or rst comer) served as signicant factors that guided the Korean shopkeepers use of different address terms. For example, the shopkeepers tended to use ingroup markers such as baby, friend, and buddy to address the customers who were regular and looked

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Ryoo: Achieving friendly interactions to be younger than themselves, whereas they used honoric address terms such as sir, maam, and lady to rst comers and customers who looked to be older than themselves. 6. This is one example of the case in which transactional and interactional aspects of service interaction have merged. Giving support to the customers assessment of the price can be an interactional move by the shop owner. However, providing the customer with a justication for why the product was supposed to be expensive can also have a transactional function in the interaction.
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APPENDIX

TRANSCRIPTION CONVENTIONS

Transcription conventions are adapted from Jefferson (1979) and Spencer-Oatey (2000). Identity of speakers C: Customer SO: Shop owner SK: Shopkeeper (employee) Simultaneous utterances [ Simultaneous, overlapping talk by two speakers

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Ryoo: Achieving friendly interactions Contiguous utterances = No interval between the end of one speakers turn and the beginning or the next speakers turn Intervals within and between utterances (0.0) Intervals in the stream of talk timed in tenths of a second either within an utterance or between utterances. (.) Micro pause (-) Brief pause Characteristics of speech delivery A halting, abrupt cutoff Lower amplitude: sound that is quieter than surrounding talk hihihi Laughter tokens Underline Underlined type indicates marked stress Capital letters Capitals indicate increased volume , Low rising intonation ; Slightly falling or a continuing intonation . Low falling intonation ? High rising intonation, not necessarily a question :: Lengthened syllable Commentary in the transcript (( )) Non-verbal behaviors and descriptive comments ( ?) Unintelligible text { } English translation of utterances in Korean

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H Y E - K Y U N G RY O O is teaching at Seoul Womens University in Seoul, Korea. She received her PhD in Applied English Linguistics from University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2002. Her research interests are nativenonnative speaker interactions, interlanguage discourse analysis, and intercultural communication. A D D R E S S : Department of English Language and Literature, Seoul Womens University, 126 Kongnung 2-dong, Nowon-gu, Seoul 139144, Korea. [email: hryoo2002@yahoo.com]

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