A Meta-Representational Analysis of Echo Utterances in Chinese Complaint Hotline Interactions

Based on the notion of meta-representation proposed by Sperber & Wilson, this study analyzes echo utterances in Chinese complaint hotline interactions, categorizing them into quotative and reconstructive echoes. Quotative echoes, relying on metalinguistic resemblance, involve the literal reproduction of prior speech and are used predominantly by customers to voice moderate, within-framework resistance. In contrast, reconstructive echoes, based on interpretive resemblance, fundamentally reset the cognitive framework of the talk and serve as a deep intervention strategy. The choice and function of these echo strategies are fundamentally shaped by the power dynamics inherent in the institutional setting. Customers, typically in low-power positions, employ quotative echoes to tentatively resist proposed solutions and highlight procedural-personal disconnects, while strategically using reconstructive echoes to overturn the epistemic framework of the talk into a deontic one, thereby moralizing their complaint. Conversely, agents, positioned within the institutional authority, overwhelmingly use reconstructive echoes to systematically convert customers' personalized, emotional narratives into neutral, technical, and solution-oriented terms. This discursive process institutionalizes the complainable and functions to naturalize existing power relations. Ultimately, this meta-representation perspective elucidates how the very nature of the complainable is not pre-formed but negotiated through a continuous struggle between personal experience and institutional procedure. The study concludes that effective complaint resolution hinges on this dynamic interplay, achieving a balance between procedural justice and the acknowledgment of humane needs.