LANGUAGE VARIATION WHEN RETURNING A PRODUCT

Language Variation When Returning a Product Based on Gender and Ethnicity Language serves as a reflection of our social distinctions in this society. As a female polyglot with a multicultural background, I am interested in exploring sociolinguistic patterns, especially in finding out how different ethnicities and genders interact. What language forms or patterns are apparent in various contexts? Holmes (2001) asserts that people of the same group often speak similarly. Furthermore, many researchers have looked at the significance between social groups and language, such as gender and politeness (Swann, 2009); ethnicity/culture and politeness (Holmes, 2001); and ethnicity and speech patterns (Holmes, 2001). As a sociolinguistic enthusiast and in my hopes to inspire further research on language patterns of different social groups, I conducted a variation study that looks into how different social groups, specifically gender and ethnicity, use language when one returns a product that was previously bought in store. Based on the data collected from field observation, I divided the variable Language Variation When Returning a Product (LVWRP) into five variants based on linguistic politeness and/or attitudes when faced with a rather uneasy situation (since people have to come back to return a product that was purchased). For this study, I examined the following three research questions: 1. In what ways do social contexts and social group membership influence politeness? 2. What are the gender patterns or ethnicity patterns in language use when approaching the customer representative in the store to return a product? 3. How do men differ from women and how do ethnic groups differ in interactions in terms of using verbal and nonverbal expressions to achieve their goal of returning a previously bought product?

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The five variants of LVWRP are (a) apologetic verbal/nonverbal expression, no explanation; (b) apologetic verbal/nonverbal expression, with explanation; (c) no apologetic verbal/nonverbal expression, with explanation; (d) no apologetic expression, no explanation; and (e) other (expressing anger, complaint, etc.). These variants were used to examine different patterns of my research variablesgender and ethnicity. One of the main reasons that led me to conduct this study was my dilemma after purchasing a huge box of cereal that I thought I would enjoy the taste. I bought this cereal not because it looked tasty but because it said that it would reduce my cholesterol. However, after tasting a spoon full of that cereal, I was utterly disappointed with the taste. I realized that I made a mistake and I wanted to return the product. However, in my culture, Koreans normally do not or cannot return a purchased product. I understand that this is America and according to the store policy, if I am dissatisfied with the product, I can return it within certain a time, especially if I still have the receipt. However, this was my first time returning a product and I was not sure how to approach the customer representative; not only did I feel bad for returning but I wondered to myself if I should pretend to be firm and confident to show my dissatisfaction so that I can achieve my goal of getting the refund or if I should act more friendly to persuade the customer representative. I decided to choose the latter option because I am more used to doing a softer approach based on my culture. In fact, I prepared my speech to start with an apology. As I was preparing my speech, I did not feel comfortable to say the words Im sorry to the customer representative because, yes, I want to express my apologies, but I was not sure if I wanted to say the I am part of the apology. I realized that in Korea, linguistically, people normally apologize by saying sorry instead of Im sorry. Koreans would simply say mi-an (sorry), which literally means, Im causing discomfort because I made a mistake. As a

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Chinese speaker, I realized that Chinese is quite similar with Korean language in a sense that it also does not use the words I am when apologizing. People say dui bu qi (sorry), in which the phrase literally means, Dont get up or Stay calmdui (to/for), bu (a negative article), and qi (to rise). In other words, dui bu qui means, Dont bother getting up because Im the one who made the mistake. These linguistic differences in saying, Im sorry in different countries reveal language variation used in diverse contexts. When English as a second language (L2) speakers learn how to apologize in English, they usually learn the whole phrase Im sorry, in which it automatically includes the words I am. However, when faced with an uneasy situation, L2 speakers may not want to express the I am part because it may indicate a sense of responsibility for the matter. For instance, someone bought a product but something happened to it and it was not that persons fault. A Korean person, although apologizing is a way to be culturally polite, may not feel comfortable in adding the words I am when apologizing. Therefore, depending on social background, although some people may truly feel apologetic in heart, they may choose to skip the apologizing part entirely. As ways of being polite and expressing apologies are linguistically and culturally different, and considering the fact that out of all the possibilities, I ended up approaching the customer representative in a friendly, less-aggressive manner considering my cultural norms and identity, I was excited to conduct this study and to collect data that may reveal language variation patterns depending on gender and ethnicity. Methodology Data collection took place at two different locationsCostco and Walmartas these seemed to be the two major supermarket/general store in the Monterey area. I made my

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observation one on a Friday evening (Walmart) and the other on a Sunday afternoon. For two hours each day, I sat near the customer service area and recorded the gender and ethnicity of people who came to return their purchased product. I intended to record the age of the people but it was too difficult for me to determine peoples age. In contrast, it was rather easy to determine gender (female and male) and ethnicity; I was fortunate to only encounter ethnicity that I was familiar with in terms of being able to recognize accents of certain ethnic groups. I divided the ethnicity into four groups based on the data collected: (a) White Caucasian; (b) Asian; (c) Hispanic; and (d) African American. In terms of the variant types, as mentioned previously, I divided the LVWRP into five types; sample phrases along with the variant types are shown in Table 1. A represents the presence of apologetic verbal/nonverbal expression (-/+) and E represents the presence of explanation (-/+) when returning a purchased product. The order of words in sample phrases can be interchangeable (e.g., one may express the verbal or nonverbal apology after showing the receipt or after explaining their reason of returning the product). When determining the presence of apologetic verbal expression, I tried to listen to words, such as, I apologize, Im sorry, Sorry, and/or I dont mean to disturb/be a hassle to you. For apologetic nonverbal expression, I carefully examined their facial expressions and gestures. For example, a shy smile, a halfway friendly smile, a favor-asking smile (a please? smile), etc. The presence of explanation includes any additional statements upon showing the receipt (if they had one) and using words, such as because, when they return the product (e.g., I want to return this because it is not my size). Finally, I added the other variant because there were few instances that did not fit into the apologetic and explanation categories.

LANGUAGE VARIATION WHEN RETURNING A PRODUCT

Table 1 LVWRP Variant Type and Sample Phrases LVWRP Variant Type (A+, E-): Apologetic verbal/nonverbal expression, no explanation (A+, E+): Apologetic verbal/nonverbal expression, with explanation (A-, E+): No apologetic verbal/nonverbal expression, with explanation (A-, E-): No apologetic verbal/nonverbal expression, no explanation Other Expression of confusion, anger, complaint, etc. Results and Analysis As shown in Table 2, I observed and collected data at two locationsCostco and Walmart. I first recorded their gender and ethnicity; then I looked at their facial expressions and listened to what they said. I first observed at Walmart on a Friday evening because I assumed Heres my receipt. Heres my receipt. Im returning this product because... Im sorry (or nonverbal facial expression) but I want to return this because.... Sample Phrases Im sorry (or nonverbal facial expression) but I want to return this

LANGUAGE VARIATION WHEN RETURNING A PRODUCT

that many people would stop by Walmart at this time since Friday afternoon/evening is usually considered the start of the weekend. To my surprise, the traffic was quite slow on a Friday evening at the Walmart store in Marina. I intended to collect 15 observations but I only recorded 12. Because I had a low turn out on a Friday evening, I changed my Costco data collection plan from Friday to Sunday afternoon. As anticipated, Costco had faster traffic and I was able to collect 18 observations. Observation locations are not my research variables but I believed that analyzing this data would serve as a big picture to my research. As shown in Table 2 and Figure 1, my findings between these two locations are similar. Table 2 Variant Frequency in two Observation Locations (Costco and Walmart) Costco LVWRP N=18 (A+, E-) (A+, E+) (A-, E+) (A-, E-) Other 1 7 2 6 2 6% 39% 11% 33% 11% Percentage N=12 0 5 2 4 1 0% 42% 17% 33% 8% Walmart Percentage

Note. Percentage rounded to the nearest tenths. Figure 1 Variant Frequency in two Observation Locations (Costco: n=18; Walmart: n=12)

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In these two observation locations, apologizing verbally/nonverbally along with explanations (A+, E+) showed the highest percentage (39% Costco and 42% Walmart). The second highest percentage for both of these observation locations is no apology and no explanation (A-, E-). Such results suggest that people tend to use apology and explanation together. Further investigations should be made to explain the reasons for these results, but in my opinion, apology and explanation happen together because I think it is human nature to talk more to defend oneself or convince the other person when apologetic. Research Variables: Gender and Ethnicity Gender. According to Swann (2009), women use language differently than men due to power difference in society. Moreover, Swann documented a tendency that male speakers talk

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more than females, particularly in formal or public contexts. In addition, a study conducted by Brown (1980) in Tenejapa, Mexico showed that women expressed more politeness and friendliness toward others because of their social position (being powerless) in relation to men. To illustrate how gender may have impacted my findings, I present Table 3 and Figure 2 below. Table 3 LVWRP Variant Use Across Gender Female LVWRP N=20 (A+, E-) (A+, E+) (A-, E+) (A-, E-) Other 0 7 4 6 3 0% 35% 20% 30% 15% Percentage N=10 1 5 0 4 0 10% 50% 0% 40% 0% Male Percentage

Figure 2 LVWRP Variant Use Across Gender

LANGUAGE VARIATION WHEN RETURNING A PRODUCT

As shown in Table 1, women showed a tendency to explain more than to not explain (E+ total of 55%; E- total of 30%). Men, on the other hand, had equal percentages of explaining and not explaining (50%; 50%). This result contrasts Swanns (2009) finding that females talk less than males. In terms of apologizing, men in my data showed a higher percentage of apologizing than not apologizing. This also contrasts Browns (1980) study women would express more politeness and friendliness in comparison to men. Overall, although these percentages may seem low, it would be worth looking into why women would explain but would not express apology and why men would express apology but would not explain. Perhaps this result may be tied into the genders power and position in society

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that Brown (1980) and Swann (2009) discuss. Nevertheless, we could see that both males and females show a high tendency to use A+ and E+ when returning a purchased product (female: 35% and male: 50%). Ethnicity. According to Holmes (2001), some people may use short phrases, verbal fillers or linguistic tags to signal their ethnicity. This has been true in my findings. As you can see in Table 4, there were two instances of the other variant under White Caucasian and one other variant instance for Hispanic. Table 4 Overview of LVWRP Variant Use Across Ethnicity White Asian LVWRP Caucasian (N=15) (A+, E-) (A+, E+) (A-, E+) (A-, E-) Other 0 4 3 6 2 0% 27% 20% 40% 13% 0 6 0 0 0 0% 100% 0% 0% 0% 1 2 1 3 1 12% 25% 12% 38% 13% % (N=6) % (N=8) (N=1) 0 0 0 1 0 0% 0% 0% 100% 0% Hispanic % American % African

For the two instances with White Caucasians (both women), they expressed anger and complaint to the customer representative because they felt that the representatives were not accommodating their needs. In fact, one customer wanted to talk to the manager, not because the

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representative was not giving her a refund but because she felt that the representative was asking her too many questions and that she was not processing the transaction as quickly as she wanted. In my observation of 30 people, none of the customer representatives declined any refund; moreover, in my perspective, the customer representatives seemed to show consistency to all the customers by asking approximately the same amount of questions, such as When did you purchase this? or Do you have your receipt? or Was there anything wrong? For people who were asked if there was anything wrong, people with no explanation (E-) simply said, no or I just want my refund/money back. Thus, it was surprising for me to see that these two people actually complained and expressed anger. This scenario made me think that perhaps ethnicity, in this case, White Caucasian, and their social status (and their awareness of it) allow them to act as such. Interestingly, the customer representatives that the two female White Caucasians expressed anger/complaint to were ethnic minorities for both instances (an African American representative in Costco and a Hispanic representative in Walmart). The one other variant was by a Hispanic female customer. She did not express anger or complaint, but instead, she barely communicated with the customer representative because of the language barrier; the customer representative at Costco was an African American male, who only spoke English and the customer only spoke Spanish. The customer talked to the representative in Spanish and the representative was not able to respond to her or ask any questions. The refund was successful but this observation was important to me because language variation occurs not only as a result of social or cultural differences, but also of linguistic differences or barriers. Overall, for White Caucasians, Hispanics, and African Americans, the dominant LVWRP was (A-, E-)40%, 38%, and 100% respectively (it is difficult to make any generalization for

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African Americans who showed a 100% because unfortunately, I only encountered 1 observation of African American). This is revealed in Table 4 and Figure 3 below. Table 4 Overview of LVWRP Variant Use Across Ethnicity White Asian LVWRP Caucasian (N=15) (A+, E-) (A+, E+) (A-, E+) (A-, E-) Other 0 4 3 6 2 0% 27% 20% 40% 13% 0 6 0 0 0 0% 100% 0% 0% 0% 1 2 1 3 1 12% 25% 12% 38% 13% % (N=6) % (N=8) (N=1) 0 0 0 1 0 0% 0% 0% 100% 0% Hispanic % American % African

Figure 3 Overview of LVWRP Variant Use Across Ethnicity

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As shown in Table 4 and Figure 3, in contrast to White Caucasians, Hispanics, and African Americans, Asians showed a high tendency (6 out of 6) of (A+, E+) as shown in Table 4 and Figure 3. This result could possibly relate to Okamotos study of Japanese women, whom were seen as relatively polite, gentle, soft-spoken, non-assertive and empathetic (Okamoto 1995, p. 298). One of the limitations of this study is that I did not have an equal amount of people for each ethnicity groups or for each location. I would suggest that future research be done with more balanced and more people involved in the observation (and not just 30 people). Through my observation, I have seen that Asians have a tendency to express apology and to explain more. In my opinion, the Asian culture of being apologetic to be perceived as polite could be one of the possible factors for this language variation. In addition, I would like to further investigate how gender and ethnicity relate to social status and power and thus influence

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language variation. My findings show that within a similar context, White Caucasian expressed a level of variation that was a little more aggressive than any other ethnicity. I also noticed that, although low in numbers, there is a tendency that men would apologize but not explain while women would explain but not apologize. Finally, it is interesting to see that the overall pattern of LVWRP reveals that expressing apology comes with an explanation (A+, E+) or not expressing apology does not come with an explanation (A-, E-). Pedagogical Implications Conducting this variation was quite meaningful because as a teacher, I know how important it is to know the tendencies and patterns of language variation that occur in classroom settings. Because students come from all different background and represent all sorts of identity and social status, as teachers, we need to be informed and careful because misunderstandings can easily happen. For example, African American students sometimes feel that they are devalued in school, and if teachers do not give appropriate feedback to these students, they lose confidence in themselves and they would not value education in general (Hudley & Mallinson, 2011). In my study, I observed language variation patterns among gender and ethnicity that relate to politeness and attitudes when they are faced with an uneasy situation, such as returning a purchased product. By seeing some of the patterns through my study, I will try to understand that variations do not mean superiority or inferiority in terms of peoples language use or attitudes. As an Asian female, I tend to be sensitive to certain values, such as respectfulness and politeness; thus, if I have an aggressive student, I may feel offended. However, through this study, I realized that language and attitude variations among gender and ethnicity are quite complexI cannot or should not make any generalization or stereotype towards a certain type or group. Instead, I

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should continue to study, accept, and be aware of the variations that surround me and become a teacher that can embrace and appreciate diversity.

References Brown, P. (1980), How and why are women more polite?: some evidence from a Mayan community. In S. McConnell-Ginet, R. Borker, & N. Furman (Eds.), Women and language in literature and society. New York: Praeger. Holmes, J. (2001). An introduction to sociolinguistics (2nd ed.). Harlow, UK: Longman. Hudley, A. H., & Mallinson, C. (2011). Understanding English language variation in U.S. schools. New York: Teachers College Press. Okamoto, S. (1995), Tasteless Japanese: less feminine speech among young Japanese women. In K. Hall and M. Bucholtz (Eds.). Swann, J. (2009). Gender and language use. In R. Mesthrie, J. Swann, A. Deumert, & W. Leap, Introducing sociolinguistics (2nd ed., pp. 213241). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.