SOCIAL DISTANCE AND SPEECH BEHAVIOR - THE CASE OF INDIRECT COMPLAINTS

This paper discusses speech-act research with specific reference to Wolfson's 'Bulge' theory of social distance. The theory maintains that most solidarity-establishing speech behavior takes place among status-equal friends and acquaintances. Wolfson built her theory on evidence from data collected on two speech acts: compliments and invitations. Counterevidence is given here on another rapport-inspiring speech-act sequence termed indirect complaints/commiseration. Indirect complaining/commiserating is described in detail with specific reference to the effect of the variable of social distance on its distribution. The way in which indirect complaints and commiserative responses pattern out along the social distance continuum indicates that the characteristic Bulge is not in the middle (among friends and acquaintances) but is always skewed toward one end of the continuum (strangers) or the other (intimates). In contradistinction to the way in which compliments and invitations appear to be socially distributed with reference to social distance, commiseration occurs almost as frequently among strangers as it does among friends. The conclusion to be drawn is that some rapport-inspiring speech behaviors occur almost as frequently among interlocutors of extreme social distance as they do among friends and acquaintances.