Seller-Buyer Conversation: Investigating the Discourse Strategies

Abstract

This paper is an overview of the discourse strategies involved in buyer-seller conversational exchanges. Discourse is truly human interaction, whether written or spoken. An analysis of discourse can simply be viewed as a conversational analysis. Contemporary use of the term discourse analysis covers several activities and disciplines which provide insights for the discourse analyst in the interpretation of language-use in a wide range of discourses or genres, including sellerbuyer discourse. This study hinges on both the Pragma-crafting Theory and Bach and Harnish"s speech act theory for the analyses of data. The analyses reveal that in using language to communicate in different contexts and situations in buyerseller conversation, the interactants (the sellers and the buyers) demonstrate the various functions that language performs therein: to bargain, to persuade, to greet, to explain, to undertake, to confirm, to affirm, among others.