The Language of Outsourced Call Centers A corpus-based study of cross-cultural interaction
Eric Friginal
Georgia State University
Studies in Corpus Linguistics 34
2009. xxii, 319 pp.
The Language of Outsourced Call Centers is the first book to explore a large-scale corpus representing the typical kinds of interactions and communicative tasks in outsourced call centers located in the Philippines and serving American customers. The specific goals of this book are to conduct a corpus-based register comparison between outsourced call center interactions, face-to-face American conversations, and spontaneous telephone exchanges; and to study the dynamics of cross-cultural communication between Filipino call center agents and American callers, as well as other demographic groups of participants in outsourced call center transactions, e.g., gender of speakers, agents’ experience and performance, and types of transactional tasks. The research design relies on a number of analytical approaches, including corpus linguistics and discourse analysis, and combines quantitative and qualitative examination of linguistic data in the investigation of the frequency distribution and functional characteristics of a range of lexico/syntactic features of outsourced call center discourse.
Table of contents
List of tables
xiii–xvii List of figures
xiv–xvii Acknowledgements
xix Preface
xxi–xxii Chapter 1 Introduction
1–13 Chapter 2 Outsourced call centers in the Philippines
15–38 Chapter 3 Corpora and description of speaker groups in the call center corpus
39–73 Chapter 4 Multi-dimensional analysis
75–103 Chapter 5 Lexico/syntactic features
105–143 Chapter 6 Grammatical expression of stance
145–167 Chapter 7 Politeness and respect markers
169–189 Chapter 8 Inserts
191–225 Chapter 9 Dysfluencies
227–254 Chapter 10 Communication breakdown: Caller clarifications
255–271 Chapter 11 Synthesis and directions for future research
273–297 Appendix
299–305 References
307–315 Index
317–319
http://www.benjamins.com/cgi-bin/t_bookview.cgi?bookid=SCL 34
Eric Friginal
Georgia State University
Studies in Corpus Linguistics 34
2009. xxii, 319 pp.
The Language of Outsourced Call Centers is the first book to explore a large-scale corpus representing the typical kinds of interactions and communicative tasks in outsourced call centers located in the Philippines and serving American customers. The specific goals of this book are to conduct a corpus-based register comparison between outsourced call center interactions, face-to-face American conversations, and spontaneous telephone exchanges; and to study the dynamics of cross-cultural communication between Filipino call center agents and American callers, as well as other demographic groups of participants in outsourced call center transactions, e.g., gender of speakers, agents’ experience and performance, and types of transactional tasks. The research design relies on a number of analytical approaches, including corpus linguistics and discourse analysis, and combines quantitative and qualitative examination of linguistic data in the investigation of the frequency distribution and functional characteristics of a range of lexico/syntactic features of outsourced call center discourse.
Table of contents
List of tables
xiii–xvii List of figures
xiv–xvii Acknowledgements
xix Preface
xxi–xxii Chapter 1 Introduction
1–13 Chapter 2 Outsourced call centers in the Philippines
15–38 Chapter 3 Corpora and description of speaker groups in the call center corpus
39–73 Chapter 4 Multi-dimensional analysis
75–103 Chapter 5 Lexico/syntactic features
105–143 Chapter 6 Grammatical expression of stance
145–167 Chapter 7 Politeness and respect markers
169–189 Chapter 8 Inserts
191–225 Chapter 9 Dysfluencies
227–254 Chapter 10 Communication breakdown: Caller clarifications
255–271 Chapter 11 Synthesis and directions for future research
273–297 Appendix
299–305 References
307–315 Index
317–319
http://www.benjamins.com/cgi-bin/t_bookview.cgi?bookid=SCL 34
