The study of negotiation has attracted considerable scholarly attention in recent decades, yet rarely have discourse analysts applied their particular concerns and interests to the phenomenon. Although a fundamental characteristic of negotiation is linguistic action, the detailed study of negotiation as a communicative, discourse activity is in its infancy. In the first collection of its kind, Alan Firth has brought together 14 original studies of negotiation discourse.Drawing on insights and methodologies from discourse and conversation analysis, pragmatics, ethnography and ethnomethodology, the book examines negotiations in a wide range of workplaces, including the US Federal Trade Commission, management-union meetings, doctors' surgeries, travel agencies, international trading houses in Denmark, Belgium and Australia, Swedish social welfare offices, and consumer helplines. Collectively, the book explores the notion of negotiation both as a formal encounter and as a gloss for more informal decision-making activities.Questions specifically addressed include: what is the interactional character of negotiation? How are negotiations related to the work context? And how are negotiations undertaken linguistically - as discourse-based activities? Answers are sought by utilising transcripts of real-life instances of negotiation. This allows for finely-detailed descriptions of the observed activities, providing important insight into the discourse-context relationship, the interactional bases of work acitivities, and the communicative processes of negotiation.

The Language of Negotiation aims to heighten awareness of language and to suggest practical ways to use language-related tactics to get results. It encourages the reader to recognise negotiation as a specifically language-centred activity and demonstrates how learning to use language effectively can radically improve negotiation skills. The book features: A step-by-step guide on the practice of negotiation, from preparation to follow-up after the event Chapters on various aspects of negotiation, such as the spoken, written and interpersonal sides, as well as media interviewing and using the phone. Specific and useful strategies for actions like advising, complaining, confirming and dismissing. A range of effective and informative examples throughout, designed to show the value of enhanced language use and practical exercises to encourage the reader to apply the ideas to their own practice. The Language of Negotiation will be of value to all those in business and professional life whose work involves negotiation. It will also be of particular interest to students in graduate schools of business or management and to anyone who has an interest in improving their negotiation skills. No prior knowledge of language theory is assumed on the part of the reader.

The topic of negotiation has turned out to be of crucial interdisciplinary interest for our understanding of what we are doing in language use. Are we exchanging meanings defined in advance and presupposing equal understanding on the basis of a rule-governed system, or are we negotiating meaning and understanding in the framework of an open dialogic universe? Negotiation, on the one hand, can be taken as the name of a specific dialogue type or action game of bargaining. On the other hand, it represents a methodological concept for describing and explaining dialogic interaction which replaces the orthodox view of pattern transference. The papers collected in this volume deal with both versions of the concept of negotiation. This volume contains a selection of papers presented at the International Conference on Pragmatics and Negotiation at Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in June, 1999. The dialogic aspect was taken as the key concept to guide the present selection.

This book offers a comprehensive practitioner's guide to negotiating at the United Nations. Although much of the content can be applied broadly, the guide focuses on navigating multilateral negotiations at the UN. The book is a tool to help new UN negotiators, explaining basic negotiation concepts and offering insight into the complexities of the UN system. It also offers a playbook for cooperation for negotiators at any level, exploring the dynamics of relationships and alliances, the art of chairing a negotiation, and the importance of balancing the power asymmetries present in any multilateral discussion. The book proposes improvements to the UN negotiation process and looks at the impact of information technologies on negotiation dynamics; it also shares stories from women UN delegates, illustrating what it means to be a female negotiator at the UN. This book is an exploration of the power of the individual in any negotiation, and of the responsibility all negotiators have in wielding that power to speak for a better world. This book will be of much interest to students of diplomacy, global governance, foreign policy, and International Relations, as well as practitioners and policymakers.

Describes a method of negotiation that isolates problems, focuses on interests, creates new options, and uses objective criteria to help two parties reach an agreement.

This volume highlights the role of language ideologies in the process of negotiation of identities and shows that in different historical and social contexts different identities may be negotiable or non-negotiable.

The Chinese are known as an inscrutable people in the West. With the rapid globalisation of world business, China, with its booming economy and as one of the world's largest emerging markets, is attracting increasing numbers of international traders and investors. Various sources have shown that language and culture are, among other factors, two of the major obstacles to successful business collaborations between the Chinese and Westerners. This dissertation aims to help remove these obstacles by offering some insights into the intricate mechanisms of business negotiation between the Chinese and the Dutch. While most of the research concerning Chinese-Western communication has used everyday conversation as the subject of study, this research chooses negotiation, the core of international business, as its subject. Micro-level qualitative discourse analyses are used as the main research method in addition to ethnographic methods such as the questionnaire survey and interview. The main data used are simulated as well as real-life video-taped Chinese-Dutch business negotiations. Questionnaire survey and interview data from real-life Chinese and Dutch negotiators are used as support data. The phenomena recurrently cropping up across the negotiations are examined at a turn-to-turn level to pinpoint places where problems arise that prevent the negotiators from reaching mutual understandings and fulfilling negotiation goals. The deep-rooted cultural concepts underlying the linguistic phenomena prove to be the main trouble sources. The results of this research are relevant for both the academic and business world.

Negotiation is a ubiquitous part of social life. Some even say that social order itself is a negotiated phenomenon. Yet the study of negotiation as an actual discourse activity, occurring between people who have substantial interests and tasks in the real social world, is in its infancy. This is the more surprising because plea bargaining, as a specific form of negotiation, has recently been the center of an enormous amount of research attention. Much of the concern has been directed to basic ques tions of justice, such as how fair the process is, whether it is unduly coercive, and whether it accurately separates the guilty from the innocent. A study such as mine does not try to answer these sorts of questions. I believe that we are not in a position to answer them until we approach plea bargaining on its own complex terms. Previous studies that have attempted to provide a general picture of the process as a way to assess its degree of justness have neglected the specific skills by which prac titioners bargain and negotiate, the particular procedures through which various surface features such as character assessment are accomplished, and concrete ways in which justice is administered and, simultaneously, caseloads are managed.

The framing metaphor is commonly used in negotiation and communication research to characterize how individuals place interpretive and linguistic boundaries around phenomena, objects, or events. This book develops this construct, exploring its potential to provide research insights, and illustrating new strategies for further development. Divided into three sections, the book first captures the breadth of the theoretical framing construct, then focuses on the many ways in which the construct has been researched and applied. The final section reflects on the construct's potential, and its value in understanding negotiation. An inspiring group of contributors - all experts in framing theory and conflict/negotiation management - outline how the framing construct is viewed theoretically by research scholars, and in the field by conflict resolution practitioners.