Conversation Analysis On Chinese Conflict Talk Between Mother-in-law And Daughter-in-law

Conflict talk (CT) occurs frequently in daily life, which is complicated and unavoidable. Broadly speaking, it refers to a speech act or speech event, such as opposing, disputing, squabbling, arguing, quarreling and so on. In CT, participants verbally oppose the utterances or actions of others’. Consequently, it is generally a barrier to successful interactive communication. Due to its negativity and disorder, CT has been avoided by linguists until1970s when this common linguistic phenomenon attracted scholars’ attention in various fields, like sociology, anthropology and linguistics.Through investigation, it is found that linguists abroad have explored CT from different perspectives in various contexts, and got fruitful achievements. For instance, they studied the structure and strategies of CT, CT among children, CT in talk shows and other institutions, ethnic and sexual differences in CT and the like. While related studies on Chinese falls far behind in width and depth. Seldom researches have been conducted among families, let alone the interlocultors between mother-in-law (M) and daughter-in-law (D), whose relationship is unique and delicate in China.Based on data, which is chosen from Eight representative TV plays about the relationship between M and D, the present study attempts to investigate Chinese CT between M and D within conversation analysis. Three research questions are deployed to uncover the verbal manifestations, the conversational features in turn-taking system, sequential organization and adjacency pairs, and mitigating strategies of CT M and D deploy. In addition, the thesis interprets some sociocultural factors behind Chinese M-D conflict.The thesis is made up of five chapters. Chapter one is the introduction that follows by the objective and significance of the study, with a final statement of the structure of the thesis. Chapter two makes an overview of studies on CT at home and abroad. Chapter three presents the theoretical base of the study, which is conversation analysis. Chapter four focuses on patterns of Chinese CT between M and D, including verbal manifestation, conversation features in turn-taking system, sequential organization and adjacency pairs of CT between M and D. In addition, some strategies to mitigate their CT and sociocultural factors are analyzed. Last chapter summarizes major findings of the study, points out limitations and suggests for future research.The conversation analysis reveals that main verbal forms of conflict between them include direct negation, opposing questions, mutual comparisons and so on. Concerning conversational features, violation of basic turn-taking rules, like overlap, interruption and repetition occur frequently. With the aid of some figures drawn from dada analysis, the features of sequential organization and adjacency pairs are discussed. Primary mitigating strategies that M and D adopt in CT are disagreements prefaced by agreement, questions as oppositional moves and addressee-shifting. Speaking of the significance of the present study, the investigation of CT between M and D may help further the study on conflict talk and facilitate mutual understanding between M and D in families, improve the interpersonal communication.