Use of politeness strategies during interaction between customers and hotel employees in selected Hotels in Kitui County
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Date
2015-05
Authors
Mutuku, Eunice K.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Kenyatta University
Abstract
Where business is conducted productively, effective communication is necessary to facilitate the
flow of information that is vital for both customers and the business people in order for them to
achieve their goals harmoniously. If effective communication in hotel business is not achieved,
friction may arise between the customers and hotel employees which may bring some
misunderstanding and bad feelings from the customers' side. This may lead to some hoteliers
losing customers and thus business people in hotels are increasingly concerned with the question
of how they can achieve customer control in their business. In this study, politeness strategies
were studied as one of the methods of customer control in hotel industry. This study provides
some information and knowledge about politeness strategies which hotel employees require in
order to communicate effectively with their customers. A sample size of 50 people was drawn
from the target population of330.The sample was taken from the 10 selected hotels out of the 30
hotels in Kitui town. Random stratified sampling was used to come up with the 10 hotels. Four
episodes from each of the ten hotels were recorded while a questionnaire was administered to the
10 managers. Stratified random sampling was appropriate for the study because the researcher
wanted to take in to consideration all the categories of hotels found in the town i.e. high class,
middle class and low class. Simple random sampling was used to come up with a sample of four
conversations from each of the ten hotels, two of which were between customers and the front
office staff and the other two between customers and the waiters. Simple random sampling
method was used to come up with the respondents and utterances used. Data was first coded and
entered in statistical package for social science (SPSS) computer software to enable the analysis.
Tables were used to present the information from which interpretation was done by comparing
the frequencies and percentages. The results' showed that the hotel employees used all the four
types of politeness strategies as described by Brown and Levinson (1987).1t was also established
that, of all the four politeness strategies used, negative politeness strategies were the most used
followed by positive strategies. The second least used strategies were the bald on -record while
the least used strategies were the off-record.
Description
A research project submitted to the school of humanities and social sciences i partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the Degree of Master of Arts in English and
Linguistics of Kenyatta University, May 2015