The Pragmatic Analysis Of Conflict Talk Between Mother-in-law And Daughter-in-law In Chinese Context

Conflict talk, as common yet complicated linguistic phenomenon, is frequentlyoccurred in many spheres and aspects of life. Although there are some other relevantterms used to describe this phenomenon such as oppositional argument, disputing,argumentative exchange, opposition, and disagreement etc., the core nature of it—opposition—always remains stable. It is because of its close connection to people’sdaily life that some researches have been carried out from various perspectives.However, through careful investigation, it is found that linguistic researches on conflicttalk between Chinese Mother-in-law (MIL) and Daughter-in-law (DIL) are ratherlimited, especially from the perspective of pragmatics.Therefore, the present study integrates both qualitative and quantitative analysis tostudy the conflict talk between MIL and DIL based on the framework of conversationanalysis and face-saving theory. The data collected are mainly from two Chinesetelevision series Ma La Po Xi and Shuang Mian Jiao. Qualitative research is adopted toidentify the opposition strategies used by MIL and DIL, and categorize them into fourcategories (mitigated strategy, moderated strategy, aggravated strategy, and antagonizedstrategy) according to their degree of face-threatening. Quantitative research mainlyfocuses on the frequency of each opposition strategy, especially for its variance whilebeing adopted by different interlocutors.Through systematic analysis, the main findings are illustrated as follows. First, theopposition strategies adopted by MIL and DIL can be divided into four categories witha continuum that ranges from mitigated strategy to antagonized strategy. Among them,17specific tactics such as partial agreement, direct disagreement, rhetorical question,upgraded agreement, and swear word etc., are identified. Second, there are obviousdifferences in employing specific opposition strategy between MIL and DIL, which areconstrained not only by face maintenance concerns such as factors of power, distance,and rank of imposition (=severity), but also other contextual factors such as traditionalculture, personal traits and affective element.In conclusion, the present study not only fills the gap of pragmatic research inconflict talk between MIL and DIL, especially on such aspects as the choices ofopposition strategy and its’ contextual restriction, but also sheds light on practicalapplications as well, making people better understand this phenomenon and then avoiding conflict to achieve social harmony.