Communicative Behavior and Conflict between African-American Customers and Korean Immigrant Retailers in Los Angeles
- 1 January 2000
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Discourse & Society
- Vol. 11 (1), 86-108
- https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926500011001004
Abstract
Face-to-face interaction between Korean immigrant retailers and African-American customers in Los Angeles often leaves members of each group feeling as if the other has behaved in insultingly inappropriate ways. Twenty-five service encounters involving both African-American and immigrant Korean customers were video-recorded in a liquor store and transcribed for analysis. These encounters reveal divergent communicative patterns between immigrant Koreans and African-Americans. The contrasting forms of participation that occur in these encounters are used by both storekeepers and customers to explain negative attributions that they make about each other. I argue that the differing forms of participation documented in service encounters - and the ways in which they are interpreted - are simultaneously a result of (1) cultural and linguistic differences between storekeepers and customers in service encounter behavior and expectations; and (2) social inequality in America, which shapes both the local context in which these encounters occur and the social assumptions that storekeepers and customers bring to the stores.Keywords
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