The hardest word

Iam in a queue. It’s early but already busy. As I amputting my coffee order in, the barista wants to know my name. I say it. He is clearly struggling to hear it – maybe it’s the mask.

After repeating it a few times, he is now struggling to spell it. I deliberately misspell my name for him: a-n-d-r-e-a in the hope that this more familiar spelling will help. Just as well he doesn’t need my last name too. That’s even harder to spell. I can feel people shifting uncomfortably in the queue behind me. Awkward.

The barista is trying his best to be polite. He smiles an apologetic smile. Awkwardly. I smile back.

Not all interactions are successful. Even short and relatively trivial interactions can have an impact. Sometimes you want to start the conversation again and forget everything that was said. Sometimes you never want to see the person again.

One of the most difficult conversational ‘‘saves’’ is required when communication has broken down and an argument has taken place. Being good at this kind of ‘‘save’’ can be crucial for businesses because unhappy customers can spread negative press and thus impact the company’s reputation. It’s also important for individuals, who might want to save a friendship.

So how do we turn around an unsuccessful interaction?

There are different ways of recovering from a bad situation (humour is one!) and, as always, language matters. The reason it matters is not just because what is said matters, but also because how it is said can make all the difference. In the English-speaking world, one obvious saving tactic is to apologise. This works only if the apology is deemed authentic.

Aclassic linguistic way to undermine apologies is to follow them with but X. This use of but X cancels the intention of the apology, or at the very least weakens it, by implying that the apology was not needed in the first place.

Furthermore, the apology is not the only thing that matters in overcoming an argument: how the apology is received is equally important. It really does take two people to save an unsuccessful interaction. An apology followed by the listener’s own apology, no matter how small (oh no, it was me, I misunderstood, sorry about that) works towards (re-) establishing solidarity and common ground.

This pairing – adjacency pairs, in technical terms – of a particular speech act (here, the act of apologising) with an expected appropriate response (the act of reciprocating an apology) is helpful in resolving disagreements, not so much through the content of the apology itself, but by the fact that both parties are willing to apologise in the first place.

This is when language matters again, because apologies need to be expressed in such a way that they might be identified as genuine apologies.

Having said that, an apology responded to with another apology is not the only adjacency pairing which is likely to lead to conflict resolution. Another strategy is the acceptance of the apology but framing it in positive terms, for instance by commending the speaker’s intent to apologise. An acceptance which acknowledges and saves the face of the addressee without signalling further denigration can help alleviate the conflict.

In contrast, anything that implies ‘‘Yes, you did really need to apologise for that’’ will usually not work.

Communication really is a two-way street. Words are used to get things done and their impact is most definitely felt. As for me, I amsticking with my local barista now that he has learnt my name. He makes good coffee.