A Discourse Analysis Of Conflict Talk In Chinese Talk Shows

The present study aims to investigate conflict talk in a Chinese talk show, i.e. Cui's Talk Show from the perspective of discourse analysis. As a kind of media discourse, talk show exhibits semi-institutional nature remarkably, bearing characteristics of daily conversation and institutional discourse. Therefore, exploring conflict talk in talk shows deserves much consideration. Based on 15 hours of interviews downloaded from internet and available transcripts in Cui Yongyuan's blog, conflict episodes are identified and translated. The researcher adopts a combination of quantitative and qualitative studies to explore the conflict patterns and conflict management strategies through the following three facets:(1) How conflict is expressed or structured in semi-institutional discourse; (2) What kinds of conflict management strategies are adopted by participants in talk shows to mitigate or end conflict; (3) How are conflict patterns and conflict management strategies distributed in the corpus.In the light of the above three facets, major findings are obtained. Some structures of conflict talk may violate universal conversational structures with reference to conversation analysis, namely, interruption, disagreement, and evasion. In addition, regarding conflict management strategies, five strategies are identified and elaborated, i.e. agreement token, mitigation markers, humor, opposing questions, and accounts. In particular, accounts and mitigation markers are the most frequently used strategies by the participants to mitigate or end the conflict. Through a systematic analysis of conflict patterns and conflict management strategies in Cui's Talk Show, it suggests that conflict talk is a fundamental part of talk shows, with which the dramatic effect can be achieved and the public's interest can be stimulated.The present study elaborates how conflict is structured and how conflict is softened, thus enables the public better understand the mechanism of conflict production and enhances their capability in managing conflict. Meanwhile, the application of conflict knowledge in education can promote the development of quality education. However, this study has limits on account of the writer's limited academic capacity, thus the field of conflict talk in talk shows need further cultivation.