Corpus-based Linguistic Analysis of Negotiation in Online Selling

Abstract

Negotiation is an important form of communication in which several aspects determine the communication interaction. These aspects are social resources, tactics and norms. The process of negotiation is based mainly on two parties in which each party tries to gain his wants from the other. The communicated information is formed according to certain tactics and strategies. The paper attempts to figure out these tactics and strategies in order to provide a sufficient and clear image about the nature of online selling negotiation interaction. This is done by applying an eclectic linguistic models including speech act theory of Searle (1979), Grice's maxims, deixises, the use of inclusive /exclusive pronouns and the use of common lexical items like, verbs, nouns and adjectives. The study aims to deepen our understanding about the linguistic and pragmatic perspectives that form and affect this type of communication interaction. The study hypothesizes that the linguistic and the pragmatic perspectives are utilized by both parties of negotiation in order to actualize the types of negotiation. The corpus under the investigation involves several examples of online selling negotiation interaction._