A Study Of The Conflict Talks In The American Presidential Candidate Debates From The Perspective Of Impoliteness

Conflict talks are common and inevitable language phenomena in daily life.At the earlier time,conflict talks did not catch the scholars' attention,because they thought there was no significance studying them,also,because of the difficulty in collecting the data.Grimshaw(1990)first employed the term---conflict talk.After that,many scholars began to take conflict talk as their research focus.Despite many researchers have studied conflict talk from various angles,there are not many studies of conflict talks from the perspective of impoliteness,especially the impoliteness in debates.Therefore,the thesis explores the conflict talks in the three debates between the two presidential candidates---Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton from the perspective of impoliteness.Based on Bousfield's(2008)impoliteness model,the thesis aims to answer these questions:1)What are the impoliteness strategies commonly used in the conflict talks between the two debaters in the debates?2)What are the impoliteness response patterns in the conflict talks between the two debaters?3)What are the main pragmatic functions of the impoliteness strategies in the conflict talks between the two debaters?The study adopts the qualitative approach,and the author collects data from the three 2016 American presidential candidate debates between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.The study analyzes the conflict talks between the two debaters,identifies the commonly employed impoliteness strategies,works out the impoliteness response patterns of the conflict talks,and summarizes the pragmatic functions of the impoliteness strategies in the conflict talks.Based on the study,it is found: 1)there are 15 impoliteness strategies that are identified,such as to ignore,to snub the other,to exclude the other form an activity,to disassociate from the other,to use inappropriate identity markers,to use taboo words.2)As for the impoliteness response patterns,offensive-offensive pattern and offensive-defensive pattern are commonly used.3)The pragmatic functions of the impoliteness strategies in the conflict talks are directive,expressive,and recreational.The study has contributed to the pragmatic field,especially enriches the fields in terms of the relationship among conflict talk,impoliteness,and positive pragmatic strategies.The study can also help the readers have a better understanding of how impoliteness strategies are used in relation to their positive pragmatic functions in debates.This can help people change their negative attitudes to and discrimination against conflict talks and impoliteness.