Title Participants Abstract "Expressing and responding to customer (dis)satisfaction online : new insights from discourse and linguistic approaches" "Nicolas Ruytenbeek, Sofie Decock" "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." Standaardtaal "Jürgen Jaspers, Sarah Van Hoof" Tussentaal "Jürgen Jaspers, Sarah Van Hoof" Taalzuivering "Sarah Van Hoof, Jürgen Jaspers" "Harmony and common ground : Aikido principles for intercultural training" "Greet De Baets, Ellen Van Praet" "This paper investigates the added value of aikido, a martial art, as an embodied pedagogy for intercultural communication training: what is the potential of bringing the physical practice of aikido into the intercultural communication classroom, emphasizing experiential discovery instead of traditional didactic explanations? To this end, we conducted a benchmarking study identifying the core principles of aikido. We interviewed twenty aikido experts worldwide and performed a qualitative content analysis of the transcribed interview data relying on NVivo software. First, and foremost, our findings show fundamental similarities between aikido interaction and intercultural interaction. They reveal a shared significance of focused interaction by consciously seeking harmony and co-creating common ground. Second, we demonstrate that the aikido pedagogy teaches harmony and common ground through (i) multisensory learning practice and (ii) somatic discovery by training physiological and mental tranquility. Our conclusion is that aikido has potential as an embodied pedagogy for intercultural communication training." "The impact of linguistic choices and (para-)linguistic markers on the perception of Twitter complaints by other customers : an experimental approach" "Nicolas Ruytenbeek, Sofie Decock, Ilse Depraetere" "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." "The impact of employee empathy on brand trust in organizational complaint response emails : a closer look at linguistic realization" "Rebecca Van Herck, Sofie Decock, Bernard De Clerck, Liselot Hudders" "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." "Werkgelegenheidsconferentie federale regering 2023 : 7 studies die beleid moet kennen over vrouwen op arbeidsmarkt" "Stijn Baert, Larissa Bolliger, Els Clays, Eva Derous, Louis Lippens, Shana Mertens, Brecht Neyt, Stijn Schelfhout, Eveline Schollaert, Sarah Van Hoof, Lien Wille" "Examining accent bias towards Turkish speakers of Dutch : a speaker evaluation experiment" "Moira Van Puyvelde, Sarah Van Hoof, Chloé Lybaert, Koen Plevoets" "This contribution investigates the attitudes of Flemish first language speakers towards Turkish-Flemish speakers of Dutch as a second language. We conducted a 2 x 2 x 2 speaker evaluation experiment measuring the effects of accent (native vs. Turkish), language variety (standard vs. colloquial) and name (Flemish vs. Turkish) on attitudes vis-à-vis male speakers of Belgian Dutch. Our findings provide no consistent evidence of a negative bias vis-à-vis Turkish names in Flanders. While this result could be attributed to a social desirability bias, consistent downgrading of the Turkish accent on Superiority provides an indication of the existence of an accent bias that penalises ethnic minority accents in competence-related judgements." "Rapport management and multimodality in onsite and video remote interpreting" "Dries Cavents, July De Wilde, Jelena Vranjes"