Socio-cultural and contextual resources shaping the initiation of closings of public utility service interactions

Abstract

This article investigates the pre-closings of interactions between inquirers and public utility service providers to find out what strategic sequential components the participants utilize to bid the closings of their conversations. We examined how these components are co-constructed and linguistically realized and what socio-cultural and co-textual influences have given rise to these sequences. The data analyzed was based on recorded face-to-face interactions between seven employees in public utility services and 100 Jordanian participants who approached the organization to inquire about utility services. Contrary to prior research on pre-closings, our results reveal a more elaborate sequential organization consisting of eight strategic component options, most of which (e.g. supplicating, praising, showing hospitality, invoking compassion) have not been encountered in other similar discourses analyzed. Some components are socio-culturally motivated, others are religiously affiliated, and some others are co-textually and contextually bound. Such findings will, hopefully, contribute to understanding how interlocutors use socio-cultural and religious affiliations to co-construct the preclosing of their interactions