A Study Of Impoliteness In Conflict Talks Among Intimate Female Friends

Conflict talk is ubiquitous in our daily life.Generally speaking,it is not beneficial to social development and interpersonal harmony.Nevertheless,this kind of dialogue has attracted much attention of many scholars at home and abroad,and they have made some studies on it in different contexts.Social development allows an increasing number of women,especially Chinese women,to enter university to receive higher education.In so doing,the social status of those women is raised.Compared with the women who lived in the past,modern women have more freedom in making friends,and most of them have one or more intimate female friends.Although they become intimate female friends,the conflict talk among them cannot be avoided.Therefore,it is necessary to study conflict talks among intimate female friends.Based on the impoliteness models proposed by Culpeper and Bousfield,this thesis analyses the conflict talks among intimate female friends by using quantitative and qualitative research method,aiming to address the following four questions:(1)What kinds of impoliteness strategies are adopted by intimate female friends in conflict talks?(2)What kinds of impoliteness response patterns are used in conflict talks among intimate female friends?(3)What are the factors that may influence intimate female friends’ choice of impoliteness strategies and impoliteness response patterns in conflict talks?(4)What are the pragmatic functions of conflict talks among intimate female friends?Through analysis,four impoliteness superstrategies and thirteen impoliteness output strategies are found in the conflict talks among intimate female friends.Apart from that,based on previous studies of conflict talk,three other impoliteness output strategies are analyzed: “Repeating”,“Making negative comments about what others cherish” and“Declining the others’ offer”.As for impoliteness response patterns,accepting,offensive-offensive,offensive-defensive and offensive-compromise response patterns are used in those conflict talks.With the calculation of frequencies of impoliteness strategies and impoliteness response patterns and the analysis of some excerpts of conflict talks,three factors that may influence the choice of impoliteness strategies and impoliteness response patterns in conflict talks are summarized: pragmatic distance,power relations and character.In the first place,the pragmatic distance in intimate female friends is constantly changing.It is in positive correlation with frequencies of impoliteness strategies and impoliteness response patterns.Besides,equality of power is a characteristic of the relationship among intimate female friends.Once the equal power in a relationship is broken,then choices of certain impoliteness strategies and impoliteness response patterns also change accordingly.Lastly,women who are sensitive and easy to be angry tend to adopt rather aggressive impoliteness strategies and offensive-offensive response patterns.On the contrary,women with a tepid character are inclined to explain to weaken their tensions,and they are apt to adopt offensive-defensive response patterns.In the last part,three pragmatic functions of conflict talks among intimate female friends are summarized: releasing negative emotion,ending a relationship and reaching an agreement.It is hoped that this thesis can broaden the research field of conflict talk and impoliteness model to a certain extent,and at the same time deepen the public’s understanding of conflict talks among intimate female friends to attempt to minimize this kind of conflict talk in their daily life and establish a harmonious relationship.