This paper investigates denial, a rapport-challenging speech act. It discusses the performance of denial in the review response genre – managerial responses addressing negative online comments made by dissatisfied customers. In this study, the speech act of denial is taken to be instantiated as Deny Problem, one of the moves constituting the review response genre. The moves were identified by qualitatively analysing a total of 2,577 managerial responses produced by hotels of different star-ratings (2-star to 5-star) with the aid of the software Nvivo 12. The Deny Problem move and its proximal discourse environment were analysed further to address three main broad areas of interest: the forms of denial, the functions performed by denial, the targets of denial, and the work, if any, done by the hotel management to mitigate the potential damage to rapport resulting from the performance of the rapport-challenging act. Our analysis suggests that denial, be they used alone or in series, can target the asserted information, the customer's rationality, the hotel's responsibility, and the seriousness of the problem. While discursive effort is usually made to repair the damaged rapport with the customers, rather unexpectedly, instances of further rapport challenge are found in the proximity of the denial.

本文研究否认性，一种和声挑战的言语行为。它讨论了在评论回复类型中拒绝的表现-经理回应解决了不满意的客户在网上发表的负面评论。在这项研究中，拒绝的言语行为被实例化为拒绝问题，这是构成评论响应类型的动作之一。通过使用软件Nvivo 12定性分析由不同星级（2星级至5星级）的酒店产生的2577条管理响应，从而确定了这些举动。分析了Deny Problem举动及其近端话语环境。进一步解决三个主要的广泛关注领域：拒绝的形式，拒绝执行的功能，拒绝的目标以及工作（如果有），由酒店管理人员执行，以减轻因执行和解挑战行为而对和解造成的潜在损害。我们的分析表明，无论是单独使用还是串联使用，拒绝都可以针对所主张的信息，客户的合理性，酒店的责任以及问题的严重性。尽管通常会尽力而为地与客户修复受损的融洽关系，但是出乎意料的是，在拒绝的附近发现了进一步融洽关系挑战的情况。