Conversational Strategies in Management Union Negotiations

Abstract

The paper analyses conversational strategies used in a Romanian negotiation transcript following management union talks on payment issues. After defining negotiation using concepts from Pragma-Dialectics and the New Rhetoric as a type of argumentative genre, the Romanian negotiation sample is compared to English negotiation samples highlighting the fact that the overall generic structure as well as many of the argument types is similar. Differences, however, can be encountered on the stylistic level. The author uses conversational analysis to establish the role of formulations, accounts, and thrombosis (a particular type of speech act based on a combination of a threat and a promise) in the sequential unfolding of the negotiation process. The Romanian negotiation style as it emerges from this single transcript analyzed seems to be more competitive, even slightly more aggressive than its English counterparts are.