Impoliteness strategies reported and issued on website reviews by clients of New York and Madrid social services centres

Abstract

This paper analyses the negative reviews that some users of social services in New York and Madrid posted on Google. The aim is to relate the impoliteness strategies that the users of these centres reported to have received or that they issued themselves with the cultural values of the groups they belong to. To achieve this, twenty American and Spanish centres were analysed, obtaining more than two hundred negative comments that, qualitatively and quantitatively analysed, were related to impoliteness strategies. These impoliteness strategies were linked to the four social characteristics already presented in a previous study. Also, the chi-square formula was applied to the data. Thus, this study has shown that the use that speakers make of impoliteness strategies is related to the cultural values of the group they belong to.