Language and Power answer

For this particular instance, the customer enfolds personal power as employees of a workforce are told that 'customers are always right' and staff have to maintain a positive reputation for the company. Whereas the staff member has occupational power as they actually have the power to cancel the customers membership, which is what the customer wants to do, but can't do without the staffs help.

The staff member uses their occupational power to use interrogatives and inform Joe of an offer that he could get instead of cancelling his account. The use of the adjective 'special' makes the offer sound more appealing and so the customer is more likely to accept the offer and the purpose of the company is maintained- to get customers.

Once the offer is rejected, the staff uses influential power to persuade Joe, they use a direct address and over use his first name by repetitively using 'Joe' this is to allow Joe to feel more involved within the conversation and to keep his attention. They inform him that he would be saving money. This is effective as it appealing because he wants to cancel his account as he views it as a 'waste of money.'

The staff also uses influential power by using statistics such as "saving £60" and "saving £120" trying to persuade the customer that they are better off remaining a customer. This is a subtle notice of the main purpose of this company- to keep customer numbers high to bring in money.

The customer becomes agitated by the staff continued attempt at avoiding cancelling hid account and uses instrumental power to declare that he doesn't want "any special offers erm and no nothing for free or anything like that." This gets his point across swiftly and immediately de-powers the member of staff from being able to persuade him with any more offers.

The non fluency features such as pauses and fillers "erm" show that Joe felt uncomfortable or rude with the way he had to speak to get his point across.

Both the member of staff and Joe use Brown and Levinsons 'face theory' by using politeness techniques. The member of staff immediately shows an understanding and ironically says 'thank you for your patience' even though it is clear that Joe had lost his patience with the staff member. This is an avoidance method as it avoids confrontation and an argument as humans tend to avoid a face threatening act.

The customer instantly feels guilty as he repeats 'thanks' as a triplet "no thanks (.) thats it thanks thanks again" this shows him 'saving face' by acting polite to backhandedly apologise for almost causing an argument.

Overall, the staff shows occupational power and influential power throughout this text and the customer shows personal and instrumental power. In this case the power shifts from the member of staff to the customer due to instrumental power being used by Joe. They both use politeness techniques to avoid a face threatening act at the end of the conversation even though they are not face to face.