On The Developmental Model Of Implicit Conflict Talk

Previous studies on conflict talk mainly focus on explicit conflict talk in which theparticipants‘goals are expressed clearly or obviously. However, research on implicitconflict talk is rare. Yang (2012) first coins the term and analyzes its occurrence. Shedefines ICT as the kind of conflict talk in which the goals of participants conflict but theyare expressed in an implicit way. And she uses the Principle of Goal as theoretical basis toexplain its usage in communication. Although her study mentions the developmentalmodel, no detailed analysis is made. This paper attempts to explore how participants‘goalsinfluence the development of implicit conflict talk.According to the principle of goal, there exist three types of relation between thecommunicative goals of the participants: goal agreement, goal conflict, goal neutrality. Inthe situation of the goal-conflict, the participants are less likely to cooperate with eachother and very often conflict talk emerges. The goals function throughout talk and drivethe talk to develop. The process of talk is the process of pursuing goals.Through collecting examples of implicit conflict talk from TV series, movies, plays,novels, this thesis applies the principle of goal to the analysis of the development of ICT.Through the analysis, this thesis finds two directions of ICT‘s development: ICT‘stermination and ICT‘s development into ECT or indirect CT. When participants‘goals areachieved, cancelled or influenced by a third party‘s intervention, ICT terminates. Whenparticipants insist on their goals, ICT develops into ECT or indirect CT. The insistence ofgoals by both parties or triggered by the third party‘s intentional or unintentionalintervention leads ICT to ECT. When one party expresses the goal indirectly to the otherparty through the third party, ICT develops into indirect CT.