Application Of Face Negotiation Theory To Classroom Conflicts

Conflict, an intrinsic and dynamic part in human life, is an "emotionally-laden, face-threatening" experience, overflowing with perceived incompatibility of values, expectations, face concerns, or conflict styles between a minimum of two interdependent parties. It is a universally acknowledged truth that conflicts permeate people's daily life and can arise spontaneously at any time, over any issues or in any situations, and the classroom setting is of course no exception. Classroom conflicts are the perceived and/or actual disagreement, opposition or contradiction between teachers and students within the classroom setting. So far a great deal of literature has been devoted to the theoretical and empirical foundation regarding the concrete conflicts between teachers and students, but there is scarcely explicit or acknowledged definition and categorizations of classroom conflicts. The present study then tries to identify common classroom conflicts occurring between Chinese college teachers and students.Classroom conflicts may have an adverse impact on students, for it could decrease the efficiency of class delivery, affect students'mental wellbeing and educe irrational communication behaviors; therefore it is of vital importance to explore and examine how students resolve their conflicts with their teachers and their preferred conflict management style.Conflict is a face-threatening process, for it involves the unfolding contact of self and face. Face is "a metaphor for our self-image vis-a-vis the public". Conflict resolution is viewed as a face-negotiation process, because in any conflict situation, people have to take into considerations protecting self-face, honoring or attacking other-face and maintaining mutual face. Moreover, people's conflict management styles are always culturally-loaded. In order to illuminate students'preferred conflict styles and to identify factors that contribute to their preference, one intercultural communication theory Face Negotiation Theory is adopted in this paper to apply its core concepts, assumptions and propositions into the classroom setting to test its validity, while deepening the understanding of how college students handle the classroom conflicts Hopefully, the findings of this study will enable both college teachers and students to gain a helpful insight into and understanding on classroom conflict, which may facilitate both teaching and learning and invite a warm and sympathetic learning environment.