Analysis Of Conlfict Talk Between Parents And

Conflict talk is a common and inevitable language phenomenon in social interaction. It canbe found in many aspects of our daily life. When two parties in a conversation attempt tomaintain their own positions by means of manifestation of negativity against the other party’sopposition that is opposed to one’s own, a conflict talk is generated. A failure to resolve theconflict talk usually poses a negative effect on conversational parties to develop more seriousconflicts.Conflict talk is sensitive. The governing feature of conflict talk is that participants haddifferent positions on the same issue. Effective and appropriate management on the conflict talkbetween parents and teenagers is beneficial to regulate and resolve disagreement and create amore harmonious atmosphere of the whole family. However, the study on conflict talk of parentsand teenagers is limited, especially focusing on the opposition forms. Therefore, the presentstudy is intended to make a pragmatic analysis of the opposition forms on conflict talk betweenparents and teenagers.Based on the previous study of conflict talk and the theory of Conversation Analysis andPoliteness Theory, the present study integrates both qualitative and quantitative analysis toanalyze the conflict talk of the collected data from American sitcom Growing Pains. Qualitativeanalysis aims at investigating the opposition forms used by the parents and teenagers and theface implications of those opposition forms. Quantitative analysis concerns the frequency of eachopposition form as well as differences in the use of those opposition forms by parents andteenagers.Through the analysis and discussion of those data about parent-teenager conflict talkscollected from the pragmatic perspective, findings are as follows. Firstly, there are four mainopposition forms frequently used in conflict talk between parents and teenagers:(1)contradiction(simple negation);(2)rhetorical questions;(3)agreement(partial agreement＆upgraded agreement);(4)format tying. Secondly, in terms of their degree of aggravation to face,those opposition forms from most to least face-aggravating is rhetorical questions, upgradedagreement, simple negation, format tying and partial agreement. Thirdly, it is about thedifference in the use of the opposition forms between parents and teenagers. It is found thatcontradiction (simple negation) and rhetorical question are used frequently by parents andteenagers to upgrade conflict. Besides, the frequency of both these two opposition forms used byparents is higher than teenagers.Findings of the study may provide some theoretical and practical implications. On one hand,the findings of the study color the previous study on conflict talk and shed some lights for the future researches of conflict talk between parents and teenagers with other approaches. Inparticular, using conversation analytical methodology shows how the “natural” structure ofinteraction promotes the continuation of conflict talk between parents and teenagers. Meanwhilewith the combination of Politeness Theory, it can combine specific conflict talk and pragmaticperspective effectively to provide more reasonable pragmatic explanation for language forms andtheir effects in the process of communication between parents and teenagers. On the other hand,the findings of the study indicate that the ways of conflict management affect the outcomes ofconflict talk, and only can reasonable and effective conflict management eliminate theirunnecessary conflict and lessen its negative effects.