Apragmatic Study Of Conflict Talk In Computer-mediated Communication

This thesis is a qualitative research on actual, naturally occurring conflict talk. Itcarries out the research creatively in computer-mediated communication (CMC)settings with data extracted from online comment sections of business articles in TheEconomist.This paper investigates three research questions concerning the commonlinguistic devices, the realization process of impoliteness and the pragmatic functionsof conflict talk respectively. By adopting the impoliteness model of Culpeper (2005)and the rapport management theory of Spencer-Oatey (2002) as the theoreticalfoundation, the author comes to the following findings. Firstly, the main devices usedby commentators in conflict talk are aggravated negation, rhetorical questions,imperatives, and a combination of two or more different devices. Secondly, qualityface impoliteness, identity face impoliteness, and association face impoliteness are themain ways of impoliteness realization in conflict talk. Quality face impoliteness isoften achieved by associating others with a negative aspect and using taboo language.Identity face impoliteness is often achieved by doubting the identity of others andassigning others a false or vulgar identity. Association rights impoliteness is oftenachieved by disassociating from others and showing indifference for others. In termsof the relationship between the linguistic devices and impoliteness realization inconflict talk, it is found that imperatives are often used in quality face impoliteness,rhetorical questions are often used in identity face impoliteness, and aggravatednegations are often used in association rights impoliteness. Lastly, the main pragmaticfunctions of conflict talk include saving face, maintaining identity and building groupsolidarity. In terms of the correlation between the realization of impoliteness inconflict talk and pragmatic functions performed by conflict talk, it is found thatstrategies that can realize quality face impoliteness are often used to perform thepragmatic function of saving face, strategies that can realize identity face impoliteness are often used to perform the pragmatic function of maintaining identity, andstrategies that can realize association rights impoliteness are often used to perform thepragmatic function of building group solidarity.After the investigation on the three research questions, it can be seen that conflicttalk, as a linguistic phenomenon, is manifested through different languagerepresentations to form different impoliteness strategies and then to perform differentpragmatic functions. Despite the limitations and drawbacks of the study, its findingscan provide theoretical and practical implications to conflict talk, and shed some lighton future researches as well.