A Discourse Analysis Of Conflict Talk Between Couples From The Perspective Of Impoliteness

Conflict talk is a universal language phenomenon in everyday communication. It is registered as conflictive speech acts like opposing, quarreling, arguing, etc. between interactants. It is generally believed that conflict talk has a negative effect on interpersonal relationships and is associated with impoliteness. According to Culpeper (1998), impoliteness is a communication strategy which is face-threatening in nature and may result in conflict. Since they are deployed by the speaker intentionally or deliberately, or even maliciously in some cases, its communicative effect is negative in nature. Researchers at home and abroad had conducted a number of studies on conflict talk from various perspectives, with sociolinguistics and pragmatics as the mainstream.Following the pragmatic perspective, this study carries out an empirical research on conflict talk between couples, with qualitative research method adopted. The analysis of the data taken from TV talk show《现场45分é'Ÿã€‹ follows the general model for analysis of oral discourse proposed by Psathas (1995). Firstly, record the dialogue; secondly, transcribe it from oral language to written language; thirdly, analyze the data and finally, report the findings.Taking Bousfield’s Impolite Principle and the Response Framework as its theoretical foundation, the research findings show that most of the on-record impolite strategies identified by Bousfield can find their realization in the data except for threatening or frightening, and none of the off-record impolite strategies have been realized in the data. Meanwhile, the author put forward the strategy of verbally attacking the other party’s elders. Furthermore, when performing face-threatening acts, the speaker may adopt a single strategy and give it a repetitive use or combine more than one strategy. Then, the observation of the response to a face threatening act reveals that either party of the couple may choose to counter an offensive speech act with offensive strategies which is manifested by the prominent existence of OFF-OFF pairings. Finally, the author sums up that conflict talk between couples not only embodies the universal features of conflict talk of being bi-directional and confrontational, it also has intentional and destructive to interpersonal relationship as its main pragmatic features.Being different from the previous studies on conflict talk which aims at the exploration on how to avoid conflict, this study is designed to find out what the strategies are and how they are used may initiate or escalate conflicts. It may promote the understanding between both parties and is significant for the building of a harmonious family and society.