Rapport‐building activities in corner shop interactions

This paper examines a range of interactional activities participants carry out in the course of corner shop transactions in Quito, Ecuador. These activities include: phatic communication exchanges as traditionally conceived, that is, conventionalized forms such as how‐are‐you and health inquiries; individualized exchanges in the form of conversational work around a range of topics (e.g. politics, health, school); and creative language play activities (e.g. wordplay and linguistic play with names). These activities are described as reflecting participants’ orientation to the maintenance of positive rapport or friendly relations ( Aston 1988a ) with the effect that the service transaction becomes a pleasant and even an entertaining encounter. Such orientation is described here in relation to the familiarity existing between shopkeepers and customers as a result of frequent contact in the context of the barrio(residential neighbourhoods) in Quito. As such the study lends support, from a different socio‐cultural perspective, to recent work in the area that highlights the centrality of phatic communication in task‐oriented interactions in English (cf. Coupland 2000a , 2000b , 2003 ), and brings to the fore a wider range of activities which appear to be employed for rapport‐building purposes in service encounters.