NEGOTIATION AS RITUAL
NEGOTIATION AS RITUAL

Summary/Abstract: The term negotiation is more and more frequently used nowadays not only in relation to commerce or economic activities, but also in many other domains. Irrespective of the area where the term negotiation appears, it is generally associated to the idea of conflict or to the one of adjusting the opinions of the persons involved. People negotiate every day and almost everywhere (in the family, at work, in the street, in a shop etc.), whenever they want to gain something or to solve differences of opinion. Not only material objects can be negotiated, but also relationships, meanings, identities. This explains the important role that negotiation plays in the defining and restructuring of the relationships between individuals and society. The present paper presents one hypostasis of negotiation, namely, negotiation understood as a ritual, with all the steps it implies; negotiation is understood as a communication process between persons who have different points of view concerning the same reality, but also as a process of value exchange between persons who have divergent needs. The examples on which our analysis is based represent fragments of recorded negotiations.

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