Current trends and the way forward on call center research in a post-covid world: An introduction

• Johanna Tovar ^[1]
  1. [1] WU Vienna (Vienna University of Economics and Business)
• Localización: Sociolinguistic Studies, ISSN 1750-8649, Vol. 16, Nº. 1, 2022 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Current trends and the way forward on call center research in a post-covid world), págs. 7-17
• Idioma: inglés
• DOI: 10.1558/sols.42444
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Applying sociolinguistic perspectives, this issue explores the most recent developments in call center research and the impact call center work has on agents. Significant issues are addressed in call center interactions, including web chat, agent stigmatization, agent resistance, agent training and the impact of Covid-19. The essays provide a forum where developments are critically reviewed and future areas of research explored, including how call center work can be improved. The first article by Nielsen addresses the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic in India and working from home through the notions of chronotopes. The second article in the issue by Lockwood develops a framework for the assessment of written web chats in offshore call centers. The third essay by Friginal examines how the voice assessment of Filipino agents can be improved through caller clarification sequences. Tovar’s paper, the fourth paper in this collection, focuses on the strain that working in a call center creates for agents and how they resolve this. The fifth paper by Orthaber examines resistance and passive compliance in call center interactions in a Slovenian call center using turn-by-turn micro-analysis of service conversations with a focus on silences. Despite the different angles, the papers share themes of resistance (creative compliance) and the development of a new register of call center speak, while also highlighting agency among call center workers

• Referencias bibliográficas
  • Alarcón, A. and Heyman, J. McC. (2013) Bilingual call centers at the US-Mexico border: Location and linguistic markers of exploitability....
  • Archer, D. and Jagodzinski, P. (2014) Call center interaction: A case of sanctioned face attack? Journal of Pragmatics 76: 46–66. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2014.11.009.
  • Baker, C. D., Emmison, M. and Firth, A. (eds) (2005) Calling for Help: Language and social interaction in telephone helplines. Amsterdam and...
  • Cameron, D. (2000a) Good to talk? London: Sage.
  • Cameron, D. (2000b) Styling the worker: Gender and the commodification of language in the globalized service economy. Journal of Sociolinguistics...
  • Cameron, D. (2008) Talk from the top down. Language and Communication 28(2): 143--155. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2007.09.001.
  • Cowie, C. (2007) The accents of outsourcing: The meanings of ‘neutral’ in the Indian call centre industry. World Englishes 26(3): 316–330....
  • Duchêne, A. (2009) Marketing, management and performance: Multilingualism as commodity in a tourism call centre. Language Policy 8: 27–50....
  • Forey, G. (2013) The impact of call centre employment on women in India. World Englishes 32(4): 503–520. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/weng.12058.
  • Friginal, E. (2009) Threats to the sustainability of the outsourced call center industry in the Philippines: Implications for language policy....
  • Heller, M. (2003) Globalization, the new economy and the commodification of language and identity. Journal of Sociolinguistics 7(4): 473–492....
  • Heller, M. (2010) The commodification of language. Annual Review of Anthropology 39: 101–114. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.012809.104951.
  • Hultgren, A. K. (2011) ‘Building rapport’ with customers across the world: The global diffusion of a call centre speech style 1. Journal of...
  • Hultgren, A. K. (2017) Vocatives as rationalized politeness: Theoretical insights from emerging norms in call centre service encounters. Journal...
  • Hultgren, A. K. (2019) Globalizing politeness? Towards a globalization-sensitive framework of mediated service encounters. In P. Garcés-Conejos...
  • Hultgren, A. K. and Cameron, D. (2010) Communication skills in contemporary service workplaces: Some problems. In G. Forey and J. Lockwood...
  • Mirchandani, K. (2012) Phone clones: Authenticity work in the transnational service economy. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press....
  • Lankshear, G., Cook, P., Mason, D., Coates, S., and Button, G. (2001) Call centre employees’ responses to electronic monitoring: Some research...
  • Lockwood, J. (2012) Developing an English for specific purpose curriculum for Asian call centres: How theory can inform practice. English...
  • Lockwood, J. (2017) An analysis of web-chat in an outsourced customer service account in the Philippines. English for Specific Purposes 47(July):...
  • Lockwood, J. and Forey, G. (2007) ‘I’d love to put someone in jail for this’: An initial investigation of English in the business processing...
  • Márquez Reiter, R. (2011) Mediated business interactions: Intercultural communication between speakers of Spanish. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University...
  • Orthaber, S., and Márquez Reiter, R. (2016) When routine calls for information become interpersonally sensitive. Pragmatics and Society 7(4):...
  • Poster, W. (2007) Who is on the line? Journal of Industrial Relations 46(2): 271–304. Doi; https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-232X.2007.00468.x.
  • Schinkel, W. and Noordegraaf, M. (2011) Professionalism as symbolic capital: Materials for a Bourdieusian theory of professionalism. Comparative...
  • Tovar, J. (2020) Call center agents’ skills: Invisible, illegible, and misunderstood. Journal of Sociolinguistic Studies 14(4): 437–458. Doi:...
  • Woydack, J. (2016) Superdiversity and a London multilingual call centre. In K. Arnaut, M. Sif Karrebaek, M. Spotti, and J. Blommaert (eds)...
  • Woydack, J. (2019) Linguistic Ethnography of a Multilingual Call Center: London Calling. Cham: Springer. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93323-8.
  • Woydack, J. and Lockwood, J. (2020) Affordances for language learning in a call centre. Journal of English for Specific Purposes 60: 159–178....
  • Woydack, J. and Lockwood, J. (2021) ‘Scripts are beautiful’: Managers’ and agents’ views of script use in call centers. International Journal...
  • Woydack, J. and Rampton, B. (2016) Text trajectories in a multilingual call centre: The linguistic ethnography of a calling script. Language...