Analysis Of Conflict Talk In Business Negotiations Between China And Africa From The Perspective Of Adaptation-Relevance Theory

Conflict talk can be seen in daily life.In the cross-cultural context,conflict talk is more common in interpersonal communication,especially in Chinese and foreign business negotiations.Conflict talk refers to the confrontational discourse events,such as argument,refutation and objection,which occurs when the two sides of communication state their own opinions.From the perspective of adaptation-relevance theory,this thesis uses 40 audio recorded materials as corpus collected by the author and her colleagues as sales representatives of several Chinese tire enterprises in Zambia during trade negotiations with Zambian local enterprises.It adopts a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods to analyze the types of discourse which could trigger conflict talk in China-Africa trade negotiations.This thesis studies the discourse types of conflict talk,causes and resolving strategies of conflict talk,trying to provide ideas for promoting trade negotiations between China and Africa to achieve better results in the cross-cultural context.It is found that in China-Africa business negotiation,if one party uses instruction,declaration and inquiry discourse,it usually leads to conflict talk;the use of argumentative,negative and non-obedience discourse usually intensifies the conflict talk;however,the use of submission,withdraw and third-party intervention discourse usually eases or suppresses the conflict talk.The main reason is that the negotiating parties fail to adapt to the contextual dynamic context components of communicative parties in the social world,mental world,and physical world when using instruction,declaration,inquiry,argumentative,negative and non-obedience discourse.At the same time,the lack of relevance of contextual hypothesis of the negotiating parties can also lead to the generation conflict talk.In China-Africa business negotiations,both parties use appropriate strategies,such as ceding discourse power to the other party,changing the topic and so on,to establish relevance between the two parties;they can also adapt to the other party through appropriate verbal or nonverbal strategies,which can effectively eliminate the conflict talk in the negotiation.This study is of great theoretical and social significance to the study of conflict talk in the cross-cultural context.It deepens the study of the discourse types of conflict talk and causes of conflict talk,and helps both sides of the negotiations to effectively alleviate the negative effects of conflict talk and promote the smooth progress of negotiation.However,the corpus selection of this study is limited,and the depth of the study needs to be further strengthened.