Doing Emotional Labour: Rhetoric and Rhetorical Agency in Interactive Retail Service Work

Abstract

Although emotional labour entails a complex combination of verbal and non-verbal communication the use of rhetoric, strategic goal- oriented communication, within this process has been overlooked. Based on an exploratory empirical study of retail sales workers it is argued that their accounts show both that rhetoric is required when doing emotional labour and that exploration of how rhetoric is used allows the development of insights relating to the role of agency when doing emotional labour. The term rhetorical agency is therefore assigned to indicate that emotional labourers can make choices vis- à-vis the rhetorical appeals they utilise in customer encounters. These choices are framed through analysis of the rhetorical appeals of logos, pathos and ethos, as well as the contextual element of kairos. The analysis strongly indicates that the performance of emotional labour involves the agentic deployment and utilisation of rhetoric in order to meet work-related targets.