Anthropology Research Paper Samples

The observation took place on 31st March, 2015 at BELTORE Glassware. Different service encounters were observed between an attendant and different customers who visited the glassware. The attendant and the customers were involved in different conversations. There were different service encounters as discussed below:

Service encounter 1

Attendant: Did it happen?
Customer: Yeah. You did not attend the wedding?
Attendant: I am aware, I was held up her. We had a lot of work then
Customer: That’s good. You have to prioritize events
Attendant: True. How was the wedding?
Customer: The best yet.
Attendant: Thanks for visiting BELTORE Glassware. We value you.
In the conversation that took place at the BELTORE Glassware, the attendant is a male, a light-colored, short and strong man. The attendant is dressed in a grey fitting suit. Again, the attendant appeared to be so much welcoming and caring about customer needs. The humble tone that the attendant uses in the conversation with the client shows their caring ability and good customer care skills. The customer is a tall lady who appears to be composed and contented. The customer is dressed in a green linen dress and flat shoes that makes them to appear to be young. The client has an inquisitive nature due to the many questions that they ask in order to get full details out of the conversation. The inquisitive nature depicts the customer’s caring and friendly nature regardless of the relationship between them and the attendant.
The conversation involves conversational uptakes as depicted by the customers and the attendant. The attendant and the customer collaborate to make the conversation successful. The two maintains a social relationship in the conversation. In the conversation, the attendant offers an uptake in line three, through the response, “True. How was the wedding?” The customer also offers an uptake, in line four, by replying, “That’s good. You have to prioritize events.” The attendant further offers another uptake, in the response, “True. How was the wedding?”

Service encounter 2

Attendant: Is this the total?
Customer: Yes. What happened yesterday?
Attendant: Would you like packed pizza dish today?
Customer: Not really.
Attendant: Thanks for visiting BELTORE Glassware. We value you.

Customer: Always

In the conversation, the attendant the attendant is a male. A light-colored, short and strong man. The attendant is dressed in a grey fitting suit. Again, the attendant appeared to be so much welcoming and caring about customer needs. The humble tone that the attendant use in the conversation with the client shows their caring ability and good customer care skills. The customer is a middle sized lady, dressed in a light blue skirt suit, and in high-heeled black shoes. The client proves to be a woman of few words as they did not engage in so many inquisitive questions.
In the conversation, the attendant did not provide an uptake to the customer’s question, “What happened yesterday?” that is posed in line two. The conversation does not have any uptake to trigger the participants to extend the conversation.

Service encounter 3

Attendant: Where is the receipt?
Customer: Here. The glassware was not open for the last three days?
Attendant: Yeah, there was some auditing going on
Customer: Good for you. Pleasure you are back
Attendant: Pleasure. Did you have any business for us?
Customer: Nope
Attendant: Thank you for visiting BELTORE Glassware. We value you.
The conversation is between a female attendant and a male customer. The attendant is a tall, composed lady, dressed in a blue jeans trouser, and a cream white blouse. The attendant appears to be a middle aged lady. The attendant is conversing with a male customer who is dressed in a black suit. The customer seems to be so much inquisitive and caring about the operations of the glassware.
The conversation includes provision of uptakes by both the attendant and the customer. The attendant offers an uptake in the response provided in line three, “Yeah, there was some auditing going on.” The customer the offers another uptake, “Good for you. Pleasure you are back.” It is then followed by the attendant’s uptake, “Did you have any business for us?”
The uptakes provided in the conversations trigger the second persons to indulge into the conversation. The customers are motivated to contribute to the conversation by the uptakes offered by the clients. The uptakes help to engage both the customers and the attendants in the collaborative conversations (Bailey, 1).
A service encounter may not necessarily have the conversation uptakes. There are different reasons as to why an individual may not offer an uptake in order to engage the other person in collaborating in the conversation. One of the reasons is lack of time. For instance, in a hotel or wholesale, there may be many clients to be attended to. It will require the attendant to only engage in matters concerned with the service. Again, the customer being served may hardly get time to engage in a talk with the attendant (González, 2013). Another reason that may hinder provision of uptakes is the level of interactions. If the people involved in a conversation have not known each other for a long time, it may be difficult for them to engage in a collaborative conversation.

Work Cited

Bailey, Benjamin. Interactional sociolinguistics, SAGE, 2014. Received from http://www.slideshare.net/ ON 31ST March 2014.
drrubrico/interactional-sociolinguistics on 31st March 2015.
González, Gomez. A Reappraisal of Lexical Cohesion in Conversational Discourse. Applied linguistics, 34(2), 128-150., 2013. Print.