We present results from a qualitative analysis illustrating how people handle criticism in a workplace environment, including both the production of and responses to criticism. Our data comes from responses provided by 80 participants in a written Discourse Completion Task (DCT) in French. In the scenarios, relative power (equal vs. hierarchical) and social distance (close vs. distant) were manipulated. Our analysis focuses on three recurrent patterns. First, we illustrate how criticism and replies to criticism are the product of several speech acts, in line with the concept of speech act set. Second, we argue that criticism and replies to criticism are both impacted by external and internal downgrading and upgrading strategies. Third, we give examples of how pronouns can be used to increase or decrease the level of politeness. Our findings provide new insights into the preferred linguistics strategies for criticizing and responding to criticism in French.
