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ABSTRACT
This study scrutinizes the (im)politeness strategies employed by online vendors and customers in their interactions in selected online platforms and different audience experiences for the purpose of identifying their underlying motives, consequences and also recommending management tools. The multimodal dataset used in this research was obtained from; screenshot conversation from a messaging platform (WhatsApp), online reviews from a social media platform (Tiktok) and recorded interviews from target audience. A thorough examination and evaluation of their content took place. The research reveals that among the five impoliteness strategies suggested by Culpeper, online vendors and customers employ four of them namely bald on record impoliteness, off record impoliteness, positive impoliteness and negative impoliteness. The findings also indicate that online vendors and customers utilize these super strategies to fulfill all three of Culpeper's impoliteness functions, the affective, coercive and entertainment functions. These strategies are used by both vendors and customers to attack or defend each other’s face. The study concludes that language is a powerful tool that can have a significant impact on businesses. The way a vendor or a customer utilizes language can either promote or harm online businesses.
