A DISCOURSE ANALYSIS APPROACH TO THE EPISODIC STRUCTURE OF SALES NEGOTIATIONS: OBSERVATIONS ON BUSINESS ENGLISH STUDENTS’ MENTAL PATTERNS OF DISCOURSE TRANSACTIONS.

Victoria Guillén Nieto

University of Alicante

Abstract – Drawing on the assumption that the business negotiation is a specific type of spoken genre, this piece of qualitative research focuses on the mental patterns or scripts that a sample of European Business English students, who have not been trained in negotiating skills, have regarding the discourse structure of sales negotiations, i.e., the presence or absence of a particular ritualistic behaviour as well as the occurrence or non-occurrence of typified procedures and patterns, by comparing different versions of the same negotiation. The methodology used draws on Discourse Analysis. The main research questions are: Do the students sampled share the same script of a sales negotiation? Can we perceive any relevant differences in students’ expectations about the discourse transactions of a sales negotiation? If so, what are the reasons that may serve as an explanation to such differing views and performances? To what extent does the script upon which students base their expectations concerning the episodic structure of a sales negotiation resemble that of the proposed ideal model of negotiation? The data are sixteen videotaped open role-played negotiations.

Introduction

Over the last twenty years, Pragmatics has made Linguistics describe a marked turn from the motorway of syntax to the crossroads of discourse analysis, that is, to the study of the structure and function of language beyond the level of the sentence. One of the major concerns of discourse analysts is to describe and explain how spoken discourse is structured and how speakers’ conversational contributions are connected. This pragmatic approach to language use has generously contributed to the development of linguistic research into the field of English for Specific Purposes, encouraging researchers to consider business discourse as a specific type of social interaction and business speech events as specific genres. (Vid. Mulholland: 1991; Charles: 1996; Steuten: 1996; White: 1998, etc.).

To illustrate this line of research, let us consider, for example, the investigation carried out by Steuten (1996) who analysed the internal structure and cohesion in business conversations, i.e. telephone calls at a Dutch Hotel, by means of a hierarchical model of business conversations called DEMO (Dynamic Essential Modelling of Organisations), which focuses on the transaction concept to understand the sequences of communicative actions in business conversations.

Many linguists agree on the fact that speech events can be grouped into: (a) written genres such as poetry, narrative, report-writing, letter writing, etc.; and (b) spoken genres like the telephone call, the interview, the negotiation, etc. The underlying assumption of this perception is that each genre is typified by a specific framework in such a way that particular instances of the same speech event will share the same broad pattern but may show differing aspects concerning the general framework.

Using a technological metaphor, genres seem to be, in general terms, recorded in the different files making up the speaker’s communicative competence mental database; such pre-existing knowledge structures in memory have been labelled: dynamic schemata or scripts[1]. By scripts we mean “a dynamic background knowledge structure stored in memory involving event sequences”. (Yule 1996: 86). The concept of a script is simply a way of recognising some expected sequence of actions in an event. For example, we have scripts (schemata stored in memory files) for what normally happens in all kinds of speech events, from the general ones, such as “going shopping” or “going to the doctor’s surgery”, to the specific ones, e.g. “the employment interview”, “the telephone call”, “the business meeting”, “the sales negotiation”, etc. “Each time speakers are involved in social interaction and they come across the signals of a particular genre, they seem to behave as if they were computer users because they select and activate a particular file from their memory stock and begin to work only with that file, setting out their expectations about what may (and may not) happen, what can (and cannot) be said, who can (and cannot) be there, etc.” (Guillén Nieto, in press).

Therefore, this sense of generic expectations will affect the production, reception and understanding of the activities of the particular instance of speech genre. The generic sense of a negotiation acts, in Mulholland’s words: “as a familiar framework for participants and so provides them with the comfort of a ritual, within which they can address the peculiar needs of any particular negotiating instance” (Mulholland, 1991: 41). However attention must be drawn towards the fact that scripts are not universal but culturally based. (Vid., Yule 1996: 87; Giménez 2001).

To sum up, to see the negotiation generically will enable us to study the principles underlying its discourse framework better. Therefore, the main research questions of this study are: Do the students share the same episodic structure of a sales negotiation when they negotiate using English as the lingua-franca? Can we perceive any relevant differences in students’ expectations about the discourse transactions of a sales negotiation? If so, what are the reasons that may serve as an explanation to such differing views and performances? And to what extent does the script upon which the students sampled base their expectations concerning the episodic structure of a sales negotiation resemble that of the proposed ideal model of negotiation?

Aims

Drawing on the assumption that negotiations are a specific type of spoken genre, the aim of this piece of research is twofold: (a) to analyse the scripts that a sample of European Business English students, who have not been trained in negotiating skills, have regarding the discourse structure of sales negotiations, i.e. the presence or absence of a particular ritualistic behaviour as well as the occurrence or non-occurrence of typified procedures and patterns, by comparing different versions of the same negotiation. And (b) to bring students to the point of awareness at which the necessity of acquiring certain discourse structures and resources is evident.

Methodology

The structure of an interaction draws our attention to pre-existing knowledge in memory that allows us to recognise and understand the part language plays in conversation, that is, the way it is organised through the syntagmatic axis to convey meaning. (Guillén Nieto in press). As regards the analysis of discourse structure, the methodology used in this paper draws on the descriptive discourse analysis model developed within Discourse Analysis over the last three decades: the Sinclair-Coulthard model (1975), and its later revisions by Burton (1981) and Francis and Hunston (1992: 123-161), as well as on the collaborative model of negotiating developed by The Harvard Negotiating Project[2] (Fisher: 1981; 1991). In keeping with the structural emphasis of the Birmingham tradition, I suggest a hierarchical structural model for the analysis of sales negotiations. This consists of a series of ranks or levels that are nested into one another. The rank scale I put forward is shown is Fig. 1.

Fig. 1: The discourse structure of business negotiations.

Business negotiation (Rank or level 1)

↕

Transaction (Rank or level 2)

↕

Exchange (Rank or level 3)

↕

Move (Rank or level 4)

↕

Act (Rank or level 5)

The above rank scale, which is clearly inspired by Sinclair and Coulthard (1975), shows how each rank or level is instrumental in creating and organising the others. This layered pattern is created though embedding. The nature of the embedding (symbolized by ↕ in Fig. 1) ranges from the acts and moves[3] determining exchanges, to the exchanges shaping the discourse transactions produced during the negotiation activity, to the whole business interaction involved in a business negotiation.

According to Francis and Hunston (1992: 141), whose research on the discourse analysis of conversation is based on Sinclair and Coulthard (1975), the interaction can be described as “an unordered series of transactions”, and they explain that this does not mean that interactions do not display order but that this order cannot perhaps be characterised in linguistic terms. However, I tend to think that the interaction involved in a business negotiation can certainly be described as an ordered sequence of thematic episodes linguistically realised by topic-oriented discourse transactions. Following the research carried out by The Harvard Negotiating Project[4], skilful and successful negotiators should ideally pursue the following layered pattern of discourse transactions when negotiating:

Fig. 2: Discourse transactions in business negotiations

Relationship building.

↓↑

Agreeing procedure.

↓↑

Exchanging information.

↓↑

Questioning.

↓↑

Options.

↓↑

Bidding.

↓↑

Bargaining.

↓↑

Settling and concluding.

↓↑

Final greetings.

As one can see from Fig. 2, the structural organisation of the discourse transactions of a business negotiation is topic-oriented. In other words, transactions are essentially topic units governed by two mechanisms: prospection (symbolized by ↓ in Fig. 2) and encapsulation[5](symbolized by ↑ in Fig. 2). By means of the former, each discourse transactionsets out expectations about the next one; and according to the latter, to understand the meaning of each transaction one needs to retrieve the preceding one. These transactions seem to perform a well defined discourse function within the overall negotiating procedure providing cohesion, coherence and relevance to its discourse organisation, as well as facilitating the information flow and closure. In what follows, I shall briefly define and explain the specific discourse function of each of the proposed topic-oriented transactions.

At the beginning, speakers may start with some ritualistic exchanges the main purpose of which is to establish rapport and a good atmosphere which will create a friendly climate for the whole negotiation. This is, in fact, the purpose of the preliminary transaction that has been called Relationship building. During this transaction, it is important to keep the conversation moving and to show interest in what the other side has to say[6]. In fact, what happens in this preliminary transaction may have important implications for the participants’ motivation and attitude in a negotiating activity, which in turn will influence the fluency with which the speech event may unfold. (Hayes, 1991: 71-72).

Once rapport has been established, it is important to state the objectives clearly and to agree on them with the other party in order to create a climate of cooperation. These exchanges will realise the first in a series of medial transactions, that is, Transaction 2: Agreeing procedure. And it is equally convenient to begin with a clear opening statement that will enable the other party to understand the background and interest of his. Therefore, speakers usually begin with a short account of the company’s history and activities or move on to stating each side’s interests. These are the typical exchanges of which Transaction 3 is made up: Exchanging information.

Transaction 3 may lead to another series of exchanges in which the seller will often ask questions to get more information about the customer’s needs and the emphasis placed on different factors. These exchanges will give shape to Transaction 4: Questioning.

Having exchanged information and clarified positions, it is important for negotiators to generate ideas and options before making decisions. This creative process will give rise to transaction 5: Options.

Once options have been evaluated, negotiators should put forward proposals and bids. These exchanges will realise transaction 6: Bidding. If new offers are made in response to the other side’s proposals and the time has come to make concessions linked to conditions, these will be the typical exchanges of transaction 7: Bargaining.

After this, it is advisable for negotiators to summarise what agreements have already been reached and what responsibilities have already been assigned. Besides, it is essential to identify any areas which have not yet been agreed on and any further action which needs to be taken. Likewise, any points that need to be dealt with at the next meeting should be summarised and a date for a new appointment fixed. These exchanges will realise the first of two terminal transactions, that is, transaction 8: Settling and Concluding. Finally, when the negotiation has come to an end, negotiators will exhibit a ritualistic behaviour again by exchanging final greetings in transaction 9: Final Greetings.

Nevertheless, it must be noted that the particular realisations of this broad pattern may differ considerably every time speakers engage in a sales negotiation because one of the special properties of spoken discourse is that it is self-monitored. This means that negotiators have the power to select or change their own discourse route when they interact according to a wide variety of factors such as: (a) their negotiating styles, whether collaborative or confrontational; (b) their personal relationship; (c) the external circumstances in which the speech event is embedded, etc. All this would not be possible, if it were not for the fact that spoken interaction permits a certain degree of flexibility, since it is not a mechanical process in which participants exhibit a robot-like behaviour, but rather a creative one in which speakers are allowed to skip transactions, go backwards and forwards along their own discourse route (Perhaps we could now move on to discuss…, Let us now look at the different options we have…, We will look at that first and then we will come back to…), or even interrupt interaction (May I say something?), bearing in mind that the capacity to improvise does not mean that they are free to say or do anything they please, because each spoken genre will impose its own limitations, otherwise it could not be recognised as such.

Consequently, the fact that interactive discourse has the property of being self-monitored has led me to go a stage further and put forward a distinction between preferred and dispreferred structures for business negotiations. In my view, a preferred structure reveals an ordered topic-oriented sequence of discourse transactions. In this type of structure, the discourse functions of cohesion, coherence, information flow, relevance and closure are ensured by the fact that each topic unit or transaction prospects the next one and encapsulates the preceding one. By contrast, a dispreferred structure discloses an unordered, topic-oriented, sequence of discourse transactions in which discourse may sometimes lack the necessary cohesion and coherence to be interpreted adequately; information may not flow fluently but rather get stuck or tumble out; and irrelevant topics may arise in the course of conversation.

So the question I would like to raise now is why do the participants in negotiations often flout the preferred structure or pattern? The answer to this question is not simple. There are different approaches to negotiating which are determined, to a large extent, by the business situation -for example, one will approach a one-off situation such as buying or selling a house in a different way to negotiating a joint-venture or a cooperation agreement, etc.- and by significant cultural differences. I will call this intended breach skilful flouting because it reveals participants’ strategic competence in negotiating. By contrast, lack of strategic competence in negotiating skills may give rise to another type of unintended infringement which I shall refer to as unskilful flouting.

The Data Used

The bulk of the data was collected in 1999-2000. A survey was carried out to find out how much the students who had taken the subject Business English, one of the third-year options of the English Studies Curriculum at the University of Alicante in Spain, already knew about business negotiations before they received specific training in negotiating skills. The survey was carried out among a sample of thirty two students who had only a broad idea of the purpose of the investigation so that they would behave as spontaneously as possible.

There were sixteen Spanish students and sixteen Erasmus students, namely German and French; their ages ranged from 20 to 25 and their English level from intermediate to proficiency.

The survey was conducted by means of a questionnaire given to the students to complete and an open role-played negotiation that students agreed to perform and gave me permission to videotape. I shall now move on to consider the open role-playednegotiation in further detail.

Since none of the students sampled were native English speakers, English, universally acknowledged as the international language of commerce, was used as the lingua-franca to achieve their communicative and interactive purposes in the sales negotiation they were asked to perform. This consisted of an open role-play concerning the sale of a house. Students were firstly divided into two groups: sellers and buyers. Thanks to the students’ permission and collaboration, a total of sixteen versions of the same role-played negotiation were videotaped and carefully transcribed for the purpose of this study. These were organised as follows: four negotiations between Spanish students, four between Erasmus students and eight between Spanish and Erasmus students.

Sellers were given role-card A:

ROLE-CARD A: imagine that you want to sell your house. You put the following property for sale classified ad in last week’s Costa Blanca News:

Aguas de Busot. Semi-detached house in El balcón de Aguas housing estate with views over the sea and the pinewoods. 10 minutes from El Campello, 20 minutes from Alicante or Benidorm. 1st floor: lounge/dining-room with open fire, spac. Kitchen, 15m2 conservatory, 15m2 inner patio. 2nd floor: 2 double-bedrms, includ. Balcony. 1 bathrm with skylight. Also double boxrm and 2-car garage. All mod. Cons. Ideal for retired couple or for those who love a healthy life in the countryside. For only 12.000,000pts. Payment facilities.

Payment: the house has a mortgage loan of 5,000,000 pts. 4,500,000 pts of which remain to be repaid to the bank. If the client subrogates to your mortgage loan, you will be willing to give him/her a discount of 1,000,000 pts. If the client prefers to pay cash, you will be prepared to give him/her a discount of 500, 000 pts. But this discount is subject to the commission that you will be charged by the bank for anticipated cancellation.