Data & Analysis

Email conversations

Data & Analysis: Services

I

My supervisor encountered a technical issue before our weekly zoom meeting in this scenario. After she informed me of this in her first email, she sent me this second email starting with
the emotional word “ugh,” which shared her frustration and indicated a power-dynamic shift from previously being semi-formal to a sense of informal, closeness, and intimate.

She stopped using salutations and closing since this email. One explanation could be convenient since skipping the greeting and ending in a series of conversational emails would reduce time and improve working efficiency. Besides, using greetings and closing may establish a politeness wall between the interlocutors. Hence, it could be seen as a sign that the supervisor is showing her friendliness and welcoming to the intern.

Screen Shot 2022-04-28 at 5.23.50 PM.png

The informal and emotional words, emojis, salutations and closings, and the communicator’s hesitation for whether to send more emails demonstrate "weak" and "robust" rapport-building moments in email conversations. For instance, emojis implicate opening up and a sense of closeness. Yet, none of us had reached out to the other person in the time between the last two emails shows the distance between my supervisor and me. I did not follow up with emails asking for the next virtual meeting time due to my attempt to maintain a balance in our relationship. That is to say, I did not want to create too much pressure to the other person since I already knew she was struggling with the problem and had a busy schedule.

It is rather interesting to see that how in email communication, we still can frame each situation through word choices and navigate the subtle yet significant interpersonal relationship bonding and communication.

This case exemplified how proxies such as emojis, emotional words, salutations & closings, and punctuations show the rapport and communication between two people. Moreover, these communicative practices are exclusive to email interactions. I did not compare email and in-person interaction due to a lack of data on in-person communication. Nevertheless, building rapport with someone over emails (plus once-a-week Zoom meetings in my case) is especially harder than usual.

Back to Research

Data & Analysis: Text