Trust and Discourse Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture (DAPSAC) The editors invite contributions that investigate political, social and cultural processes from a linguistic/discourse-analytic point of view. The aim is to publish monographs and edited volumes which combine language-based approaches with disciplines concerned essentially with human interaction – disciplines such as political science, international relations, social psychology, social anthropology, sociology, economics, and gender studies. For an overview of all books published in this series, please see http://benjamins.com/catalog/dapsac General Editors Ruth Wodak, Andreas Musolff and Johann Unger Lancaster University / University of East Anglia / Lancaster University [email protected]; [email protected] and [email protected] Advisory Board Christine Anthonissen Konrad Ehlich Christina Schäffner Stellenbosch University Free University, Berlin Aston University Michael Billig J.R. Martin Louis de Saussure Loughborough University University of Sydney University of Neuchâtel Piotr Cap Jacob L. Mey Hailong Tian University of Łódź University of Southern Denmark Tianjin Foreign Studies University Paul Chilton Greg Myers Lancaster University Lancaster University Joanna Thornborrow Cardiff University Teun A. van Dijk John Richardson Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Loughborough University Sue Wright Barcelona University of Portsmouth Luisa Martín Rojo Universidad Autonoma de Madrid Volume 56 Trust and Discourse. Organizational perspectives Edited by Katja Pelsmaekers, Geert Jacobs and Craig Rollo Trust and Discourse Organizational perspectives Edited by Katja Pelsmaekers University of Antwerp Geert Jacobs Ghent University Craig Rollo University of Antwerp John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam / Philadelphia TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of 8 the American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Trust and Discourse : Organizational perspectives / Edited by Katja Pelsmaekers, Geert Jacobs and Craig Rollo. p. cm. (Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture, issn 1569-9463 ; v. 56) “The idea for the volume was first inspired by the 3rd Discourse in Organizations Inter- national Workshop, held in Antwerp and Corsendonk in September 2011.” Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Discourse analysis. 2. Trust. 3. Business communication. I. Pelsmaekers, Katja. II. Rollo, Craig. III. Jacobs, Geert. P302.T775 2014 401’.41--dc23 2014012648 isbn 978 90 272 0647 3 (Hb ; alk. paper) isbn 978 90 272 7002 3 (Eb) © 2014 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa Table of contents Acknowledgements vii chapter 1 Trust and discursive interaction in organizational settings 1 Katja Pelsmaekers, Geert Jacobs & Craig Rollo chapter 2 Trust in action: Building trust through embodied negotiation of mutual understanding in job interviews 11 Ewa Kuśmierczyk chapter 3 The reciprocal nature of trust in bedside teaching encounters 45 Christopher Elsey, Lynn Monrouxe & Andrew Grant chapter 4 “They just want to confuse you”: Negotiating trust and distrust in adult basic education 71 Helen Oughton chapter 5 In foreign news we trust: Balance and accuracy in newspaper coverage of Belgium 95 Ellen Van Praet, Bram Vertommen, Tom Van Hout & Astrid Vandendaele chapter 6 Trust work: A strategy for building organization-stakeholder trust? 113 Heather Jackson chapter 7 Putting yourself down to build trust: The effect of self-disparaging humor on speaker ethos in educational presentations 135 Martijn Wackers, Bas Andeweg & Jaap de Jong vi Trust and Discourse: Organizational perspectives chapter 8 “Trust us: Bootcamp Pilates does not sound half as hard as it is, but it works”: The credibility of women’s magazines 161 Martina Temmerman chapter 9 “There is reason to believe however…”: The construction of trust in Late Modern English correspondence and non-literary prose 181 Marina Dossena chapter 10 Discursive construction and deconstruction of trust: The aftermath of a nuclear accident 201 Hiromasa Tanaka & Takanori Kawamata List of contributors 219 Index 221 Acknowledgements Our thanks go to Greg Myers, Ruth Wodak and Andreas Musolff, DAPSAC Series Editors, for their constructive comments throughout the editing process, to two anonymous reviewers who read the volume meticulously and to Isja Conen for her editorial guidance. The idea for the volume was first inspired by the 3rd Discourse in Organizations International Workshop, held in Antwerp and Corsendonk in September 2011. We would like to thank the contributors to the workshop and the co-c onveners, Chris Braecke, Sylvain Dieltjens, Priscilla Heynderickx and Tom Van Hout for their share in the discussion and the organization. The book project was later joined by researchers who had been working on this theme independently and we want to thank them for their interest. Thanks are also due to the institutions that supported the workshop and Dis- course in Organizations, FWO (Research Foundation Flanders), the Department of International Business Communication at the University of Antwerp, Ghent University, and the Department of Applied Language Studies at Lessius University College. chapter 1 Trust and discursive interaction in organizational settings Katja Pelsmaekers1, Geert Jacobs2 & Craig Rollo1 1University of Antwerp / 2Ghent University With, within and between organizational settings, what does it mean to (re)estab- lish and foster relationships of trust through using language? How are these rela- tionships discursively signaled as being in jeopardy? When are they seen to break down? And how do members of organizations try to restore trust? These are some of the questions that will be explored in the chapters of this book. Focusing on phenomena in public and private organizations and their dealings with ‘outsiders’, and against the backdrop of globalization and individualization, organizational complexity, the drive for efficiency, communication across traditional linguistic and cultural barriers, and the proliferation of potential communication channels, the authors in the next chapters investigate how people in organizations and orga- nizational settings do (aspects of) trust. While trust has often been referred to as a relational condition in which the trustor believes the trustee will be able and willing to care for the trustor’s interests (cf. Robb & Greenhalgh 2006), it is not clear how the various streamlined, stan- dardized, fleeting and sometimes impersonal forms of communication common in organizational settings relate to trust. What does it mean to trust in these con- texts? How do organizations and the individuals interacting with them do trust in, say, job interviews, newsroom meetings and doctor-patient interactions? In what follows we will first explore why trust has become such a topic of interest in social studies and criticism at large. Then we will refer to selected theo- ries of trust as they have been made relevant in recent studies, paying special atten- tion to Garfinkel’s (1963) conceptualization of trust. In the third section we will zoom in on the role of trust in language and discourse, and vice versa, the role of discourse and language in trust. In the fourth section we turn to trust in organiza- tional settings. Finally, we will show how the various chapters fit into these frames and how they add to what we know about trust in discourse to date.