The articles in this issue examine the transformations and adaptations of place branding during t... more The articles in this issue examine the transformations and adaptations of place branding during the Covid-19 pandemic and post-lockdowns. Using five case studies, they examine how Covid-19 has changed place branding in Italy, Brazil, Japan, the Philippines, and France during different stages of the pandemic. The articles explore questions concerning how to (re)brand a global viral hotspot; the interplay of Covid-19, place branding and tourism; populism, nation (re)building and Covid-19 management; as well as the political nature and impact of place branding such as nation-building and nationalism during the Covid-19 pandemic and in a post-lockdown world. The articles examine place branding as semiotics with respect to how campaigns are entextualized and re-contextualized. They focus on tropes such as morality, fun, (lack of) mobility, and the future/time. Overall, this issue argues that Covid-19 is an event for place branding and that new tropes are likely to continue to emerge and endure.
Applying sociolinguistic perspectives this issue explores the most recent developments in call ce... more Applying sociolinguistic perspectives this issue explores the most recent developments in call center research and the impact call center work has on agents. Significant issues addressed in call center interactions including web chat, agent stigmatization, agent resistance, agent training and the impact of Covid-19. The essays provide a forum where developments are critically reviewed and future areas of research explored including how call center work can be improved. The first article by Nielsen addresses the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic in India and working from home through the notions of chronotopes. The second article in the issue by Lockwood develops a framework for the assessment of written web chats in offshore call centers. The third essay by Friginal examines how the voice assessment of Filipino agents can be improved through caller clarification sequences. Tovar’s paper, the fourth paper in this collection, focuses on the strain that working in a call center creates for agents and how they resolve this. The fifth paper by Orthaber examines resistance and passive compliance in call center interactions in a Slovenian call center using turn-by-turn micro-analysis of service conversations with a focus on silences. Despite the different angles, the papers share themes of resistance (creative compliance) and the development of a new register of call center speak while also highlighting agency among call center workers.
Call centres have been widely criticised as standardized workplaces, and the imposition of callin... more Call centres have been widely criticised as standardized workplaces, and the imposition of calling scripts is often characterised as dehumanizing and deskilling. But these accounts lack close analysis of how scripts are actually produced, taken up and used by call centre workers, and they are generally locked into dualistic analyses of control and resistance. In contrast, this paper combines long-term ethnography with trans-contextual analysis of the production, circulation and uptake of calling scripts. This reveals a good deal of collective and individual agency in processes of text-adaptation, and produces a rather more nuanced picture of work in a call centre.
Ensuring newly arrived migrants gain fluency in the language of their host country has challenged... more Ensuring newly arrived migrants gain fluency in the language of their host country has challenged governments worldwide. Whilst many governments provide settlement and language programs for migrants, a critical site for language development and cultural integration is the workplace itself. However very few studies have explored how different worksites and job types in the new globalised economy may facilitate migrants' acquisition of the language of a target community with which they need to communicate. Drawing on a long-term ethnographic study and sets of interviews, this research explores how a multilingual call centre based in London facilitates such language acquisition. This site uses English as well as a number of other European languages to market mostly IT products into Europe and beyond and we discuss how the training and provision of scripts contributes to agents being able to develop their language skills. This study revealed a number of facilitators for language acquisition including the spatial layout of the worksite where communication, both socially and professionally, takes place; but perhaps most surprisingly, we learned that the way in which the agents use scripts to scaffold their exchanges on phones plays a significant role in language acquisition.
This article follows previous research arguing that skills of call center agents, which often inc... more This article follows previous research arguing that skills of call center agents, which often include emotional labor, communication, procedural and substantive knowledge, and articulation work, are mostly invisible. Moving beyond previous analyses linking call centers to low-skilled standardized work, I draw on ethnographic fieldwork and transpositional analysis in the Philippines and the UK to show which real-world processes and written practices make agents' skills not only invisible and illegible to industry outsiders but also their managers. I argue that textualization practices such as data entry and script work are important, and that deemphasizing quantification in favor of qualitative assessment could produce better outcomes for agents and skill appreciation by others.
International Journal of Business Communication, 2017
Some recent studies have reported how call centers employ low-skilled workers and how agents work... more Some recent studies have reported how call centers employ low-skilled workers and how agents work robotically using scripts when assisting customers on the phone; other studies have focused on how they need to be “native speaker”–like in their language fluency when serving customers; and yet others talk of the repressive nature of the industry where agents become emotionally, culturally, and linguistically exhausted, exacerbated by the prescriptive and highly regulated use of scripts at work. While acknowledging that the use of scripts in call centers can result in agent disengagement and customers feeling they are talking to robots, this is not the complete story. This study aims to report on the use of scripts in the global call center industry, which may place their use in a more positive light. After first defining what is meant by “scripting” in this context, two case studies are reported on where line managers and agents found script use to be helpful in a number of ways. The first case study uses data gathered in an offshored monolingual call center in Manila, and the second study uses data gathered in a multilingual call center in London. How both managers and agents use scripts and how they perceive them are the focus areas of this study, and while arguably there are a number of problems with this practice, there are also self-reported benefits in supporting effective communication and positive business outcomes in the call centers.
Drawing on long-term ethnography and interviews, this paper investigates language work and langua... more Drawing on long-term ethnography and interviews, this paper investigates language work and language management in the context of a multilingual call center. It looks at how language issues are managed on a day-today basis, specifically in three areas that have been previously overlooked: i) the recruitment process for multilingual agents, ii) how agents are trained in language management, and iii) how their performance on the phone in multiple languages is evaluated and monitored. The paper reexamines the value of scripts, particularly in relation to knowledge management, challenging the idea that working language fluency on the phone is the principal skill required. Rather, the paper demonstrates that successful agents utilize a variety of skills which are learned with the help of scripts, concluding that 'interactive professional' rather than 'language worker' better describes the skill set required by agents for this work.
Call centres have been widely criticised as standardized workplaces, and the imposition of callin... more Call centres have been widely criticised as standardized workplaces, and the imposition of calling scripts is often characterised as dehumanizing and deskilling. But these accounts lack close analysis of how scripts are actually produced, taken up and used by call centre workers, and they are generally locked into dualistic analyses of control and resistance. In contrast, this paper combines long-term ethnography with transcontextual analysis of the production, circulation and uptake of calling scripts. This reveals a good deal of collective and individual agency in processes of text-adaptation, and produces a rather more nuanced picture of work in a call centre.
Call centers have been widely critiqued in academia, and by extension the media, for their widesp... more Call centers have been widely critiqued in academia, and by extension the media, for their widespread standardization. This paper argues that while this critique of working conditions has been well-intended, it has led to unwanted, widespread stigmatization of not just call center work but also of call center agents. While much has been published on call centers, the stigma this kind of work entails and the effect this has on agents on and off the phone has been overlooked so far. This paper applies Goffman's notion of stigma to data collected through long-term ethnography and interviews with over seventy call center agents in a London call center. It shows how agents experience stigma, manage, and resist it. The analysis reveals that agents attempt to hide where they work by adopting different accents and avoiding specific lexis associated with call center language. The paper concludes by suggesting potential avenues for reducing the stigma of working in a call center, e.g. shifting the dominant discussion in academia beyond debates surrounding standardization.
Research Companion to Language and Country Branding brings together entirely new interdisciplinar... more Research Companion to Language and Country Branding brings together entirely new interdisciplinary research conducted by scholars working on various sociolinguistic, semiotic, anthropological and discursive analytical aspects of country branding all over the world.
Branding is a process of identity construction, whereby countries gain visibility and put themselves on the world map as distinctive entities by drawing on their history, culture, economy, society, geography, and their people. Through branding, countries aim not only at establishing their uniqueness but also, and perhaps most importantly, at attracting tourism, investments, high quality human capital, as well as at forging financial, military, political and social alliances. Against this backdrop, this volume explores how countries and regions imagine and portray others and themselves in terms of gender, ethnicity, and diversity today as well as the past. In this respect, the book examines how branding differs from other, related policies and practices, such as nation building, banal nationalism, and populism.
This volume is an essential reference for students, researchers, and practitioners with an interest in country, nation, and place branding processes.
Research Companion to Language and Country Branding brings together entirely new interdisciplinar... more Research Companion to Language and Country Branding brings together entirely new interdisciplinary research conducted by scholars working on various sociolinguistic, semiotic, anthropological and discursive analytical aspects of country branding all over the world.
Branding is a process of identity construction, whereby countries gain visibility and put themselves on the world map as distinctive entities by drawing on their history, culture, economy, society, geography, and their people. Through branding, countries aim not only at establishing their uniqueness but also, and perhaps most importantly, at attracting tourism, investments, high quality human capital, as well as at forging financial, military, political and social alliances. Against this backdrop, this volume explores how countries and regions imagine and portray others and themselves in terms of gender, ethnicity, and diversity today as well as the past. In this respect, the book examines how branding differs from other, related policies and practices, such as nation building, banal nationalism, and populism.
This volume is an essential reference for students, researchers, and practitioners with an interest in country, nation, and place branding processes.
This book presents an innovative institutional transpositional ethnography that examines the text... more This book presents an innovative institutional transpositional ethnography that examines the textual trajectory of “the life of a calling script” from production by corporate management and clients to recontextualization by middle management and finally to application by agents in phone interactions. Drawing on an extensive original research it provides a behind-the-scenes view of a multilingual call center in London and critiques the archetypal modern workplace practices including extensive use of monitoring and standardization and use of low-skilled precariat labor. In doing so, it offers fresh perspectives on contemporary debates about resistance, agency, and compliance in globalized workplaces. This study will provide a valuable resource to students and scholars of management studies, communication, sociolinguistics, and linguistic anthropology.
The articles in this issue examine the transformations and adaptations of place branding during t... more The articles in this issue examine the transformations and adaptations of place branding during the Covid-19 pandemic and post-lockdowns. Using five case studies, they examine how Covid-19 has changed place branding in Italy, Brazil, Japan, the Philippines, and France during different stages of the pandemic. The articles explore questions concerning how to (re)brand a global viral hotspot; the interplay of Covid-19, place branding and tourism; populism, nation (re)building and Covid-19 management; as well as the political nature and impact of place branding such as nation-building and nationalism during the Covid-19 pandemic and in a post-lockdown world. The articles examine place branding as semiotics with respect to how campaigns are entextualized and re-contextualized. They focus on tropes such as morality, fun, (lack of) mobility, and the future/time. Overall, this issue argues that Covid-19 is an event for place branding and that new tropes are likely to continue to emerge and endure.
Applying sociolinguistic perspectives this issue explores the most recent developments in call ce... more Applying sociolinguistic perspectives this issue explores the most recent developments in call center research and the impact call center work has on agents. Significant issues addressed in call center interactions including web chat, agent stigmatization, agent resistance, agent training and the impact of Covid-19. The essays provide a forum where developments are critically reviewed and future areas of research explored including how call center work can be improved. The first article by Nielsen addresses the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic in India and working from home through the notions of chronotopes. The second article in the issue by Lockwood develops a framework for the assessment of written web chats in offshore call centers. The third essay by Friginal examines how the voice assessment of Filipino agents can be improved through caller clarification sequences. Tovar’s paper, the fourth paper in this collection, focuses on the strain that working in a call center creates for agents and how they resolve this. The fifth paper by Orthaber examines resistance and passive compliance in call center interactions in a Slovenian call center using turn-by-turn micro-analysis of service conversations with a focus on silences. Despite the different angles, the papers share themes of resistance (creative compliance) and the development of a new register of call center speak while also highlighting agency among call center workers.
Call centres have been widely criticised as standardized workplaces, and the imposition of callin... more Call centres have been widely criticised as standardized workplaces, and the imposition of calling scripts is often characterised as dehumanizing and deskilling. But these accounts lack close analysis of how scripts are actually produced, taken up and used by call centre workers, and they are generally locked into dualistic analyses of control and resistance. In contrast, this paper combines long-term ethnography with trans-contextual analysis of the production, circulation and uptake of calling scripts. This reveals a good deal of collective and individual agency in processes of text-adaptation, and produces a rather more nuanced picture of work in a call centre.
Ensuring newly arrived migrants gain fluency in the language of their host country has challenged... more Ensuring newly arrived migrants gain fluency in the language of their host country has challenged governments worldwide. Whilst many governments provide settlement and language programs for migrants, a critical site for language development and cultural integration is the workplace itself. However very few studies have explored how different worksites and job types in the new globalised economy may facilitate migrants' acquisition of the language of a target community with which they need to communicate. Drawing on a long-term ethnographic study and sets of interviews, this research explores how a multilingual call centre based in London facilitates such language acquisition. This site uses English as well as a number of other European languages to market mostly IT products into Europe and beyond and we discuss how the training and provision of scripts contributes to agents being able to develop their language skills. This study revealed a number of facilitators for language acquisition including the spatial layout of the worksite where communication, both socially and professionally, takes place; but perhaps most surprisingly, we learned that the way in which the agents use scripts to scaffold their exchanges on phones plays a significant role in language acquisition.
This article follows previous research arguing that skills of call center agents, which often inc... more This article follows previous research arguing that skills of call center agents, which often include emotional labor, communication, procedural and substantive knowledge, and articulation work, are mostly invisible. Moving beyond previous analyses linking call centers to low-skilled standardized work, I draw on ethnographic fieldwork and transpositional analysis in the Philippines and the UK to show which real-world processes and written practices make agents' skills not only invisible and illegible to industry outsiders but also their managers. I argue that textualization practices such as data entry and script work are important, and that deemphasizing quantification in favor of qualitative assessment could produce better outcomes for agents and skill appreciation by others.
International Journal of Business Communication, 2017
Some recent studies have reported how call centers employ low-skilled workers and how agents work... more Some recent studies have reported how call centers employ low-skilled workers and how agents work robotically using scripts when assisting customers on the phone; other studies have focused on how they need to be “native speaker”–like in their language fluency when serving customers; and yet others talk of the repressive nature of the industry where agents become emotionally, culturally, and linguistically exhausted, exacerbated by the prescriptive and highly regulated use of scripts at work. While acknowledging that the use of scripts in call centers can result in agent disengagement and customers feeling they are talking to robots, this is not the complete story. This study aims to report on the use of scripts in the global call center industry, which may place their use in a more positive light. After first defining what is meant by “scripting” in this context, two case studies are reported on where line managers and agents found script use to be helpful in a number of ways. The first case study uses data gathered in an offshored monolingual call center in Manila, and the second study uses data gathered in a multilingual call center in London. How both managers and agents use scripts and how they perceive them are the focus areas of this study, and while arguably there are a number of problems with this practice, there are also self-reported benefits in supporting effective communication and positive business outcomes in the call centers.
Drawing on long-term ethnography and interviews, this paper investigates language work and langua... more Drawing on long-term ethnography and interviews, this paper investigates language work and language management in the context of a multilingual call center. It looks at how language issues are managed on a day-today basis, specifically in three areas that have been previously overlooked: i) the recruitment process for multilingual agents, ii) how agents are trained in language management, and iii) how their performance on the phone in multiple languages is evaluated and monitored. The paper reexamines the value of scripts, particularly in relation to knowledge management, challenging the idea that working language fluency on the phone is the principal skill required. Rather, the paper demonstrates that successful agents utilize a variety of skills which are learned with the help of scripts, concluding that 'interactive professional' rather than 'language worker' better describes the skill set required by agents for this work.
Call centres have been widely criticised as standardized workplaces, and the imposition of callin... more Call centres have been widely criticised as standardized workplaces, and the imposition of calling scripts is often characterised as dehumanizing and deskilling. But these accounts lack close analysis of how scripts are actually produced, taken up and used by call centre workers, and they are generally locked into dualistic analyses of control and resistance. In contrast, this paper combines long-term ethnography with transcontextual analysis of the production, circulation and uptake of calling scripts. This reveals a good deal of collective and individual agency in processes of text-adaptation, and produces a rather more nuanced picture of work in a call centre.
Call centers have been widely critiqued in academia, and by extension the media, for their widesp... more Call centers have been widely critiqued in academia, and by extension the media, for their widespread standardization. This paper argues that while this critique of working conditions has been well-intended, it has led to unwanted, widespread stigmatization of not just call center work but also of call center agents. While much has been published on call centers, the stigma this kind of work entails and the effect this has on agents on and off the phone has been overlooked so far. This paper applies Goffman's notion of stigma to data collected through long-term ethnography and interviews with over seventy call center agents in a London call center. It shows how agents experience stigma, manage, and resist it. The analysis reveals that agents attempt to hide where they work by adopting different accents and avoiding specific lexis associated with call center language. The paper concludes by suggesting potential avenues for reducing the stigma of working in a call center, e.g. shifting the dominant discussion in academia beyond debates surrounding standardization.
Research Companion to Language and Country Branding brings together entirely new interdisciplinar... more Research Companion to Language and Country Branding brings together entirely new interdisciplinary research conducted by scholars working on various sociolinguistic, semiotic, anthropological and discursive analytical aspects of country branding all over the world.
Branding is a process of identity construction, whereby countries gain visibility and put themselves on the world map as distinctive entities by drawing on their history, culture, economy, society, geography, and their people. Through branding, countries aim not only at establishing their uniqueness but also, and perhaps most importantly, at attracting tourism, investments, high quality human capital, as well as at forging financial, military, political and social alliances. Against this backdrop, this volume explores how countries and regions imagine and portray others and themselves in terms of gender, ethnicity, and diversity today as well as the past. In this respect, the book examines how branding differs from other, related policies and practices, such as nation building, banal nationalism, and populism.
This volume is an essential reference for students, researchers, and practitioners with an interest in country, nation, and place branding processes.
Research Companion to Language and Country Branding brings together entirely new interdisciplinar... more Research Companion to Language and Country Branding brings together entirely new interdisciplinary research conducted by scholars working on various sociolinguistic, semiotic, anthropological and discursive analytical aspects of country branding all over the world.
Branding is a process of identity construction, whereby countries gain visibility and put themselves on the world map as distinctive entities by drawing on their history, culture, economy, society, geography, and their people. Through branding, countries aim not only at establishing their uniqueness but also, and perhaps most importantly, at attracting tourism, investments, high quality human capital, as well as at forging financial, military, political and social alliances. Against this backdrop, this volume explores how countries and regions imagine and portray others and themselves in terms of gender, ethnicity, and diversity today as well as the past. In this respect, the book examines how branding differs from other, related policies and practices, such as nation building, banal nationalism, and populism.
This volume is an essential reference for students, researchers, and practitioners with an interest in country, nation, and place branding processes.
This book presents an innovative institutional transpositional ethnography that examines the text... more This book presents an innovative institutional transpositional ethnography that examines the textual trajectory of “the life of a calling script” from production by corporate management and clients to recontextualization by middle management and finally to application by agents in phone interactions. Drawing on an extensive original research it provides a behind-the-scenes view of a multilingual call center in London and critiques the archetypal modern workplace practices including extensive use of monitoring and standardization and use of low-skilled precariat labor. In doing so, it offers fresh perspectives on contemporary debates about resistance, agency, and compliance in globalized workplaces. This study will provide a valuable resource to students and scholars of management studies, communication, sociolinguistics, and linguistic anthropology.
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Papers by Johanna Tovar
After first defining what is meant by “scripting” in this context, two case studies are reported on where line managers and agents found script use to be helpful in a number of ways. The first case study uses data gathered in an offshored monolingual call center in Manila, and the second study uses data gathered in
a multilingual call center in London. How both managers and agents use scripts and how they perceive them are the focus areas of this study, and while arguably there are a number of problems with this practice, there are also self-reported benefits in supporting effective communication and positive business outcomes in the call centers.
Books by Johanna Tovar
Branding is a process of identity construction, whereby countries gain visibility and put themselves on the world map as distinctive entities by drawing on their history, culture, economy, society, geography, and their people. Through branding, countries aim not only at establishing their uniqueness but also, and perhaps most importantly, at attracting tourism, investments, high quality human capital, as well as at forging financial, military, political and social alliances. Against this backdrop, this volume explores how countries and regions imagine and portray others and themselves in terms of gender, ethnicity, and diversity today as well as the past. In this respect, the book examines how branding differs from other, related policies and practices, such as nation building, banal nationalism, and populism.
This volume is an essential reference for students, researchers, and practitioners with an interest in country, nation, and place branding processes.
Branding is a process of identity construction, whereby countries gain visibility and put themselves on the world map as distinctive entities by drawing on their history, culture, economy, society, geography, and their people. Through branding, countries aim not only at establishing their uniqueness but also, and perhaps most importantly, at attracting tourism, investments, high quality human capital, as well as at forging financial, military, political and social alliances. Against this backdrop, this volume explores how countries and regions imagine and portray others and themselves in terms of gender, ethnicity, and diversity today as well as the past. In this respect, the book examines how branding differs from other, related policies and practices, such as nation building, banal nationalism, and populism.
This volume is an essential reference for students, researchers, and practitioners with an interest in country, nation, and place branding processes.
After first defining what is meant by “scripting” in this context, two case studies are reported on where line managers and agents found script use to be helpful in a number of ways. The first case study uses data gathered in an offshored monolingual call center in Manila, and the second study uses data gathered in
a multilingual call center in London. How both managers and agents use scripts and how they perceive them are the focus areas of this study, and while arguably there are a number of problems with this practice, there are also self-reported benefits in supporting effective communication and positive business outcomes in the call centers.
Branding is a process of identity construction, whereby countries gain visibility and put themselves on the world map as distinctive entities by drawing on their history, culture, economy, society, geography, and their people. Through branding, countries aim not only at establishing their uniqueness but also, and perhaps most importantly, at attracting tourism, investments, high quality human capital, as well as at forging financial, military, political and social alliances. Against this backdrop, this volume explores how countries and regions imagine and portray others and themselves in terms of gender, ethnicity, and diversity today as well as the past. In this respect, the book examines how branding differs from other, related policies and practices, such as nation building, banal nationalism, and populism.
This volume is an essential reference for students, researchers, and practitioners with an interest in country, nation, and place branding processes.
Branding is a process of identity construction, whereby countries gain visibility and put themselves on the world map as distinctive entities by drawing on their history, culture, economy, society, geography, and their people. Through branding, countries aim not only at establishing their uniqueness but also, and perhaps most importantly, at attracting tourism, investments, high quality human capital, as well as at forging financial, military, political and social alliances. Against this backdrop, this volume explores how countries and regions imagine and portray others and themselves in terms of gender, ethnicity, and diversity today as well as the past. In this respect, the book examines how branding differs from other, related policies and practices, such as nation building, banal nationalism, and populism.
This volume is an essential reference for students, researchers, and practitioners with an interest in country, nation, and place branding processes.