The negotiation of expert identities in relation to face concerns in service encounters

While discourse analytical research has studied various aspects of service encounters, relatively little attention has been paid to the negotiation of participants’ expert identities in relation to the management of their face concerns. As face considerations are very important in service encounters, and given the potential face threat involved in knowledge displays, this is nevertheless an important aspect to investigate. In this article, we aim to tease out such negotiations of expert identities by studying three fragments—through a qualitative, discourse analytical approach—from recordings of Belgian service encounters in both customer-facing retail and business-to-business contexts. The findings indicate that participants’ constructions of expert identities may have varied effects on the negotiation of face needs, as both blatant challenges to face and careful balancing acts regarding face concerns are observed. This points at the complex and multifaceted nature of the interface between expertise and face in service encounters.