footing, stance, evaluation, facework, relational work

This paper reports on the results of a sociopragmatic study of restaurant-owners' public responses to negative customer reviews posted on the TripAdvisor website. Responses to customer complaints are typically apologetic in nature, characterized by an acceptance of criticism and a high level of deference towards the customer. However, this study focuses on those responses which take an explicitly oppositional stance - often contradicting or rejecting the reviewer's claims, and sometimes directing personal criticism at the reviewer (strategies of counter-attack). Drawing on Goffman's concept of footing (1981) and informed by sociopragmatic theories of facework, rapport management and relational work, I explore the discursive mechanisms by which restaurant-owners manipulate the footings that underlie their stancetaking practices. In some cases the default footing (rooted in expectations of deference towards the customer and the acceptance of criticism) is essentially maintained, and various means of mitigation are used as counterweights to the expressions of oppositional stance. In other cases, however, there is a fundamental shift in footing, resulting in a radical reframing of the participants' roles and status (the customer may be publicly denigrated or mocked). Such practices reflect the dynamic, fluid nature of social identities - even in a genre that may at first sight appear to be highly conventional in nature.