"But It's Truly Aggravating and Depressing": Voicing Counter-Expectancy In US–Philippines Service Interactions

Intercultural competence is essential in a globalised business environment, where successful cross-border transactions rely on effective intercultural communication. Interactions between US customers and Filipino customer service representatives (CSR) in call centres are one example where intercultural competence is required. This study examines the use of counter-expectancy expressions in call centre complaint calls by American consumers and Filipino CSRs in the insurance sector. This study used a systemic functional linguistic (SFL) framework to examine the various linguistic realisations used in the dialogues, with a focus on the appraisal system. To further explore the connection between the use of business language, cultural norms, and the growth of intercultural competence, this study also considered Hall's context cultures along with Hofstede's cultural classifications. Using a mixed approach, the present study examined 20 authentic audio recordings of complex insurance complaint calls (approximately four hours long and containing 39,440 words). These spoken data were transcribed and analysed for linguistic characteristics that indicated concessive expressions, for example, connectives such as 'but' and 'however', and adjuncts such as 'Just' and 'only'. The results of this study are significant for language and cultural awareness training programmes and, ultimately, for enhancing intercultural communication skills in professional settings.