Speech criticism, face-work, and communication responses: Towards a model of speech criticism and feedback

摘要

Speech criticism takes places when one person criticizes the speech of another person. Thus far, an abundance of research has been dedicated to understanding the impressions people develop about individuals who speak certain languages, with accents, or other social markers. However, situations of overt speech criticism have been minimally explored. This study addresses the communication responses that participants exhibited following an incident where they were criticized for their speech in a face-to-face video-recorded dyadic encounter. Individuals responded to speech criticism with avoidant, apologetic, humorous, accommodative, assertive, and aggressive approaches. Data suggest that people demonstrated more acceptance and accommodation when responding directly to a critical person, yet exhibited more assertiveness and aggressiveness when responding indirectly. Implications of these findings are discussed and a model is presented to promote further research in this area.