Relational Work Strategies in Seller–Buyer Haggling Exchanges in Markets of Port Harcourt, Nigeria

Abstract

This study examines the relational work strategies that are deployed for the maintenance of social harmony, cooperation, and social equilibrium and how these are (mis)handled such that they result in breakdown in haggling exchanges between buyers and sellers in five purposively selected open markets selected from Port Harcourt city, Nigeria. Fifty-six exchanges (between five and twenty taken from each of the markets) involving two or more sellers/buyers in an encounter were recorded using an Android 7.0 phone. The exchanges were analysed with Locher and Watts’s theoretical perspective on relational work. The data showed that polite, impolite, and non-polite strategies were used by the sellers/buyers to achieve conviviality and favourable negotiation outcomes. Some of the strategies clearly contained face-threats, others were aimed at blatant face damage, and some were deployed for face-saving. The study established that no utterance is inherently “polite” or “impolite” without consideration of its context.

Keywords:

• buyer–seller
• haggling exchanges
• politic expression
• Port Harcourt markets
• pragmatic behaviour
• relational work