In public and academic debates, the gender star has been criticized for potentially hindering text comprehensibility and imposing an additional burden on learners of German by complicating an already complex language. We investigated in an experiment whether the use of the gender star (e.g., Student*innen) complicates text comprehensibility compared to masculine generics for learners of German. Participants were 80 Flemish students studying German as a foreign language. They were asked to read 13 short news articles, of which ten texts served as experimental items in either gender star or masculine form. Participants' accuracy in answering content questions, subjective ratings of text comprehensibility and sentence difficulty, and their full-text reading times were assessed. Additionally, we collected data on participants' proficiency in German, prior knowledge of, and attitudes toward gender-fair German. Our results suggest that the gender star does not pose a strong hindrance to text comprehensibility for Flemish students learning German: while proficiency in German had a significant effect on content question accuracy and sentence difficulty as well as subjective comprehensibility ratings, this effect was independent of gender form.

Background: Experiential approaches are gaining recognition in intercultural business communication training. However, aikido's potential as an experiential method remains underexplored. Purpose: This study investigates the assumption that incorporating aikido movements into intercultural business communication training leads to learning gains and increased satisfaction. Method: Using a longitudinal mixed-methods approach, we trained 73 participants (working professionals) across four groups based on an aikido interaction model. Two groups practiced with aikido embodiment, while two received theoretical explanations only. Data were collected through observations and multiphase surveys. Findings: While quantitative data showed no significant impact on learning gains in intercultural interaction and tranquility skills, aikido-embodied training improved memory performance and yielded higher satisfaction with the experiential method and teaching style. Qualitative data added nuance and showed that participants experienced aikido-embodied training as facilitating the assimilation, retention, and application of the intercultural communication skills as learning gains and expressed satisfaction with how aikido promoted attentiveness and understanding. One comparison group yielded outcomes similar to the aikido-embodied groups; closer analysis suggests that group behavior may have influenced results and merits attention in future research. Implications: The embodied pedagogy of aikido, by promoting engagement, clarity, and retention, offers a valuable approach to experiential culture-general business communication training.

In recent years, gender-neutral pronouns have emerged in different languages. We review current research on their emergence and offer an interdisciplinary framework for studying and understanding gender-neutral pronouns. Our framework is aimed at sparking and guiding interdisciplinary research on gender-neutral pronouns. The framework incorporates (cross-)linguistic and cognitive aspects of the function, use and processing of gender-neutral pronouns in light of the fact that different language systems (i.e., conceptual vs. grammatical gender languages) require different degrees of linguistic creativity in order to expand the word class of pronouns. Furthermore, we link these linguistic and cognitive considerations with research on the social-psychological effects of the use of gender-neutral pronouns, more specifically on how they affect the well-being of nonbinary people with regard to social stigmatization and discrimination (minority perspective) as well as how their attitudes are linked with attitudes on non-binary individuals (majority perspective). Integrating these different aspects, we highlight the current gaps in the literature, make concrete suggestions for future research approaches, and emphasize the importance of interdisciplinary research on this multifaceted topic.

Research has shown that the mental representations evoked by Dutch masculine pronouns, even when intended as generic, can be male-biased (Redl, 2021). Such bias can perpetuate gender inequalities in society (e.g., Stout & Dasgupta, 2011), prompting language users to seek more inclusive alternatives, such as gender-neutral pronouns. This study investigates the effect of Dutch gender-neutral pronouns as generic referential strategies on perceived text quality, and maps familiarity with and attitudes toward Dutch gender-neutral pronouns. The first experiment was conducted among a representative sample of Belgian participants, while the second experiment involved a mixed sample of Belgian and Dutch participants, thus facilitating a comparison between the two varieties of Dutch. The results show that gender-neutral pronouns do not affect text comprehensibility. However, the pronoun combination die-die-diens (subject-object-possessive) may impair text appreciation, even among young, highly educated participants familiar with gender-neutral pronouns. This study documents increasing familiarity with gender-neutral pronouns in Flanders and is the first to map familiarity in the Netherlands. Taking into account attitude measures, hen in subject position has little potential to be accepted, but the combination die-hen-hun does show potential. Additionally, our study suggests that plural forms are a viable gender-inclusive referential strategy for those who seek to avoid masculine generics.

In the current era of digitalization, customers are routinely invited to express their (dis)satisfaction with a product or a service and to provide recommendations for other prospective customers by writing reviews on a variety of online social media platforms. Such forms of electronic word-of-mouth have been found to strongly influence other consumers' purchase decisions. In the case of negative reviews, the negativity expressed in a particular comment can spread to the whole community, which can damage a company's reputation and profits. In an attempt to take consumer feedback into account, companies engage in "webcare." This type of online service encounter has been defined by van Noort and Willemsen as "the act of engaging in online interactions with (complaining) consumers, by actively searching the web to address consumer feedback (e.g., questions, concerns, and complaints)." Following-up on these developments, scholars have started to research the communicative strategies used by companies to address consumer feedback and those used by (dis)satisfied customers to voice their (dis)satisfaction from the perspective of discourse analysis and linguistic pragmatics, paying attention to their linguistic realizations and their interactional dynamics. The aim of this Special Issue is to further expand our knowledge on the discourse-pragmatic strategies used in the interaction of (dis)satisfied customers and companies online, and on how these different strategies influence other prospective customers' perceptions, ultimately impacting their purchase decisions. In doing so, it positions itself at the crossroads of linguistics, communication, and business studies.

Sofie Decock examines the social semiotics of body and clothing practices in the depiction of intercultural encounters in Ella Maillart's and Annemarie Schwarzenbach's travel writing on Afghanistan. Decock demonstrates the importance of these practices in intercultural impression management, relationship building, power dynamics, and the strategic negotiation of social norms. The chapter shows how the female narrator in Maillart's The Cruel Way (1947) reflects on and experiences the gendered performance of herself and her travel companion's bodies and clothes in a foreign environment and how 'going undercover' in their case seems to be neither possible nor desirable. They transgress traditional gender norms by strategically exploiting them to their advantage, but, at the same time, both gender ambiguity and a clear female identity have the potential of bringing them into uncomfortable situations in which their bodies are objectified. Secondly, the focus shifts to various instances of 'othering' in descriptions of local women by the European female narrators in Maillart's and Schwarzenbach's texts. In this power constellation, the narrators construct themselves as wearing trousers, while the depiction of Afghan women concentrates on (the absence of) veiling practices and body postures associated with them. Central to this 'othering' is the dichotomy between tradition and modernity and the norm transgressions regarding this dichotomy.

This study investigates the effect of linguistic realizations of employee empathy (LREE) on brand trust in email responses to customer complaints. We explore possible mediating effects of perceived empathy and perceived complaint handling quality and we look into moderation effects of compensation (Study 1) or customer's acceptance of blame (Study 2). Our aim is to find out if LREE have a negative or positive impact on the customer in cases of partial refunds, either because LREE are being perceived as insincere or as genuine expressions of concern. The results of two experiments show that LREE positively influence brand trust through higher perceived empathy and perceived complaint handling quality. However, the expected negative effect is not found, as LREE are more effective in a low versus high compensation condition. The effectiveness itself is not influenced by the acceptance of blame when a partial refund is offered.

This paper addresses how the realizations of different constitutive components of Twitter complaints shape the perception of these complaints by other customers. We present three experiments on French language in which we test how customer complaint perception is impacted by the realization of the complainable (Exp. 1), of the entity responsible for the complainable (Exp. 2), and of the customer's wish for the complainable to be remedied (Exp. 3). The results of Exp. 1 indicate that the perceived likelihood that the complaint will be responded to by the company is highest when the complainable is realized as a combination of an assertion + question + picture. In Exp. 2, we found that, in comparison with the use of the discourse marker dites to refer to the entity responsible for the complainable, the use of a noun phrase or the absence of this component increases perceived politeness. Finally, our data from Exp. 3 reveal that, compared to the use of an imperative to voice the customer's wish for the complainable to be remedied, "indirect" request forms, and preparatory interrogatives, in particular, are perceived as more polite, as expressing lower dissatisfaction, and as decreasing the likelihood of a response from the company.

To date, there has been little attention for the factors that influence the perception of online complaints. We present two experiments in which we test the impact of the degree of linguistic (in)directness and the formal realization of complaint components on complaint perception. Our experimental stimuli are designed on the basis of French-language authentic Twitter complaints which have been coded in terms of the presence of four constitutive complaint components: the complainable, the negative evaluation of the complainable, the person/company responsible for the complainable, and a wish for compensation. In our experiments, participants are asked to read Twitter complaints, and they are invited to assess them in terms of perceived strength, dissatisfaction, (im)politeness, and offensiveness. Our results indicate that not only the number but also the type of component that is formally realized shape complaint perception. We also find a positive correlation between perceived complaint strength and impoliteness. In addition, different formal realizations of the negative evaluation of the complainable have a different effect on complaint perception; in particular, negative emoji make the complaints softer and more polite. We also discuss methodological issues that have arisen while designing the experiments and that have to do with the operationalization of face-threat.

This paper examines the effect of the recently introduced Dutch non-binary 3rd person pronouns hen and die on tesssxt comprehensibility and text appreciation in the context of newspaper reporting on non-binary persons. Moreover, it presents a first measurement of Flemish people’s familiarity with and attitudes towards this pronominal reform in Dutch in its early stage. In a survey experiment we compared the use of non-binary hen and die (both combined with hen as object and hun as possessive form) with established referential strategies. We also examined the potential mediating role of perceived awkwardness of the referential strategy used and tested the moderating effect of cueing, i.e. making readers aware of the fact that the person reported on identifies as non-binary and prefers non-binary pronouns. The results show that perceived awkwardness explains the lower comprehensibility and appreciation scores of non-binary hen and that cueing improves those scores. Overall, our findings suggest that especially the non-binary pronoun die has the potential to be successfully implemented.

Setting the sceneIn the current era of globalization and digitalization, consumers 1 can easily express and share their positive and negative feedback on organization's products and services with these organizations and with other consumers via different social media channels.In such a climate of so-called 'customer empowerment', organizations have less control over the flow of information about their brand(s) and product(s) (Hennig-Thurau et al. 2010;Verhoef et al. 2010).Whereas positive online feedback, also coined as positive electronic word-of-mouth or positive e-WOM, can strongly contribute to an organization's success, negative online feedback (negative e-WOM) poses a threat to an organization's reputation and sales (Luo 2009).Against this background, organizations try to manage their reputation by monitoring and measuring consumer feedback, and by initiating, following up on and moderating conversations with consumers (Kietzmann et al. 2011;Van Noort and Willemsen 2012).Organizations thus increasingly engage in what is often called webcare, a type of online service encounter (an encounter between consumers and service providers) defined by Van Noort and Willemsen (2012, 133) as "the act of engaging in online interactions with (complaining) consumers, by actively searching the web to address consumer feedback (e.g.questions, concerns and complaints)".Webcare is a delicate type of service encounter: if it is not performed in an appropriate way, it may backfire and damage instead of improve the relationship with consumers and an organization's reputation.Einwiller and Steilen (2015), for instance, have shown that organizations often use webcare strategies which tend not to be appreciated by customers.It is important for organizations to develop adequate webcare strategies, especially since webcare responses posted by organizations on public social media channels can be read and evaluated not only by the consumer who provided feedback, but also by other consumers visiting that particular social media page or account ('bystanders' or 'onlookers').These online public service encounters can thus potentially influence large numbers of people, thereby strongly affecting an organization's reputation and legitimacy.As Creelman (this collection) also discusses, the internet abounds with broad-stroke recommendations made by business practitioners to improve an organization's webcare

Although many studies have conducted a move analysis of customer service genres (e.g., responses to online negative reviews), no previous study has investigated the discourse structure of organizational email responses to customer complaints in a business-to-consumer context. This is surprising because email is one of the preferred channels for complaint handling by companies and consumers. We address this gap by performing a move analysis to look into rhetorical and linguistic patterns of this genre and by comparing it to related customer service genres. To achieve these two goals, we used an authentic data set of 150 English email responses to customer complaints from companies active in the UK. We identified 6 moves and 19 submoves in our sample. The submoves that are prototypical for this sample are (a) the typical submoves: Greeting, Gratitude, Conclusion, and Sign-off/Signature and (b) the conventional submoves: Apology and Explanation. This genre sets itself apart from others as it consists of a unique blend of interpersonal and transactional strategies as a response to negative feedback. This uniqueness highlights the significance of email in service recovery: Companies seem to feel safer to address the transactional dimension in complaint handling via email than via public channels. We recommend customer service agents to use both transactional and interpersonal strategies in company–customer interactions and to avoid standardized, vague, and impersonal realizations of interpersonal moves.

This study examines how non-target-like formulaic expressions used by advanced second language (L2) speakers of German are perceived by first language (L1) German business professionals in an intercultural workplace setting. By using an experimental design, we explore how L1 business professionals (N = 84) perceive the appropriateness and acceptability of the non-target-like expressions as well as how they perceive the communicative competence of the writer in two conditions: one in which the writer is explicitly described as an L2 user of German (intercultural condition), and one in which the writer is not (German condition). Moreover, by first establishing recurrent unconventionalities when L2 users create their own formulaic expressions (i.e., misspellings, grammatical errors, pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic infelicities), we examine the effect of the type of unconventionality. Our experimental stimuli are based on authentic student responses to situations in an intercultural workplace setting which were elicited through a written discourse completion task. Our results indicate that in both conditions expressions containing a grammatical error are judged as least acceptable, followed by those with a pragmatic infelicity. Ratings were significantly higher in the intercultural condition, suggesting tolerance of the L1 professionals towards non-target-like expressions of L2 users.

The guide Waarden voor een nieuwe taal presents recommendations, suggestions, guidelines and examples that should result in a widely supported use of inclusive language by all possible actors within the Dutch arts and culture sector. In this article, Sofie Decock and Sarah Van Hoof frame and comment on the guide based on their expertise as linguists.

In this study, we examine the effects of degree of personalization and formality on customers' attitudes and behavioral intentions in complaint replies on social media. This study differs from previous research in examining less extreme manipulations of personalization and formality, and in operationalizing personalization in the shape of routinized and individualized answers to multiple posts. In two experimental studies, we test the impact of personalization and formality on customers' satisfaction with how the complaint is handled, their perception of the customer service agent in terms of how well the agent treated them (perceived interactional justice) and to what extent the agent made efforts to have an engaging conversation with them (perceived conversational human voice), and on four semantic differentials (professional-unprofessional, fake-genuine, friendly-unfriendly and respectful-disrespectful). The results show a positive main effect of increased personalization and informality and clearly foreground the importance of individualized responses as the stronger effect. The results also support the Persuasion Knowledge Model in showing how informality may backfire in routinized responses, suggesting that informal but routinized language use triggers suspicion with customers that the company is trying to persuade and manipulate them.