Rosina Márquez Reiter is Senior Lecturer and Programme Director, MA in Intercultural Communication with International Business and MA in Communication and International Marketing, University of Surrey.

• AcknowledgementsList of FiguresChapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Mediated business (inter)action 1.2 Service encounters over the phone1.3 Call centres and intercultural communication1.4 On the ordinary-institutional continuum1.5 Why openings and closings?1.6 Previous research on openings and closings in institutional callsChapter 2 Methodology2.1 Background to the research 2.2 Data and ethics2.3 Documentary analysis2.4 Non-participant observation2.5 Interviews2.6 Telephone conversations2.7 Analytic perspectiveChapter 3 Openings3.1 Introduction3.2 Inbound calls3.2.1 In-house rules for opening inbound calls3.2.2 Opening sequences of inbound calls3.3 Outbound calls3.3.1 In-house rules for opening outbound calls3.3.2 Opening sequences in outbound calls3.4 Concluding commentsChapter 4 The Negotiation of the Business Exchange4.1 Introduction4.2 The middles of inbound calls: fabricated ignorance4.3 The middles of outbound calls4.3.1 In-house rules for placing outbound calls4.3.2 First attempt calls: camouflaging4.4 Follow-up calls: honouring arrangements4.5 Some concluding commentsChapter 5 Closings 5.1 Introduction5.2 In-house rule for closing calls5.3 The English archetype closing5.4 Practices for closing Spanish service calls5.4.1 Arrangements5.4.2 Summarised upshot of the conversation topic5.4.3 Prior turn repetition5.4.4 Reiteration of the prior material5.4.5 Reason for the call5.5 Foreshortened and extended closings 5.5.1 Foreshortened closings5.5.2 Extended closings 5.6 Some concluding commentsChapter 6 Some Final Reflections: Toward an Understanding of Intercultural Communication in Spanish6.1 Introduction 6.2 Mediated intercultural communication across Spanishes6.2.1 On ambivalent si and unequivocal no6.2.2 Hiding behind the name of 'Difference' 6.3 Some final reflectionsAppendicesReferencesIndex

An excellent resource for anybody interested in what really happens during service calls. The book canbe useful to business managers interested in improving the quality of their call centres, researchers on spanish socio-cultural interactions, as well as students and faculty looking for a well-developed and detail-oriented example of excellent ethnographic and conversational analysis research.