Blurb:

This chapter analyzes these students’ least frequent use of e-mail: complaining.


The analysis begins with a description of previous work on complaints (Olshtain & Weinbach, 1987) and reports on other complaint studies carried out in both naturalistic and laboratory settings. The analysis of the present data reports on the actual topics of students’ complaints, grades being the most common, and applies Laforest’s (2002) previously-recognized complaint patterns to explore these students’ complaint e-mails including related areas such as mitigated and intensified complaints and arguments. To explore these patterns, this chapter makes uses of a series of particular e-mail exchanges with a student. This chapter concludes with specific pedagogical implications and areas of future research related to complaints.