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This study investigates real estate negotiations that are naturally-occurring interactions between the real estate agents and potential buyers. In this negotiation of the sale and purchase of property both parties are non-native speakers of English who are engaged in a multiethnic negotiation setting in the local Malaysian context. Within this context, the study aims to establish that although the interlocutors are unacquainted, they are able to construct the entire sequence of negotiation in an organized manner. The study is based on a two-pronged methodical approach which integrates the Conversation Analysis-Ethnographic approaches.

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Thilagavathi Shanmuganathan has a PhD in Discourse Analysis and is currently a senior lecturer at the Department of English Language, Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, University of Malaya. She has presented papers at national and international conferences. She has also published in various journals.

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