A Study On The Conflict Talks In Desperate Housewives From The Perspective Of Linguistic Adaptation Theory

Conflict talk is a very common phenomenon in everyday life. When interlocutors hold different beliefs or have different goals or needs in verbal communication, there is a chance for its occurrence. Sometimes, conflict talk has constructive influences. But if not recognized and handled well, it will be very harmful to the construction of interpersonal relationships and a harmonious society. Thus it also has destructive consequences. Until now, there has been very extensive study on conflict talk. However, the linguistic features of conflict talk have not been studied systematically and the functions of specific linguistic expressions are seldomly explained. Besides, studies on the reasons for its occurrence are not adequate. To this end, the present study intends to study these three aspects of conflict talk:the linguistic features, functions of specific expressions and reasons for the occurrence. This study is based on a pragmatic theory—Verschueren’s Linguistic Adaptation Theory.According to Linguistic Adaptation Theory, using language is a process of making linguistic choices. As a kind of verbal communication, conflict talk is also a process of making linguistic choices. Choices can be made at any level of linguistic form: phonetic/phonological, morphological, syntactic, lexical, semantic, etc. This study describes the linguistic features of conflict talk and the functions of its specific expressions on four levels:lexical level, syntactic level, rhetorical level and grammatical level. As for the reasons for its occurrence, the present study takes the contextual correlates of adaptability into consideration. Verschueren (2000) holds that in communication, interlocutors should make their linguistic choices adapted to the contextual correlates. Thus, failure of making adaptation may lead to conflict talk.Methodologically, this study is a qualitative study of conflict talk, which is descriptive and exploratory in nature. The data are collected from the eighth season of an American TV drama—Desperate Housewives. After identifying, transcribing and classifying the data, the author analyzes these conflict talks, and the following results are summarized:Firstly, lexical features of conflict talk include unconventional use of address forms, frequent use of negators, derogatory adjectives, interjections and swear words. Its syntactic features include the use of rhetorical question, reason-asking question, imperative sentence and if-conditional. Rhetorical features refer to the use of several rhetorical devices—metaphor, irony, hyperbole, repetition and parallelism. Grammatically, the active voice dominates in conflict talk. The grammatical device—subjunctive mood, is often employed.Secondly, the author analyzes the pragmatic functions of specific expressions used in conflict talk with reviewing the settings in the TV drama. It is found that interlocutors have comparatively higher degree of consciousness in making linguistic choices in conflict talk. In general, these specific expressions are used to achieve specific communicative intention, be it expressing certain emotions or delivering opposing ideas.Thirdly, as for the reasons, when interlocutors fail to adapt their linguistic choices to certain contextual correlates, conflict talk may occur. This thesis analyzes the triggering factors from three aspects:interlocutors’physical, social and mental world. Physical world includes such factors as temporal reference, spatial reference and non-verbal factors. Social world incorporates value dimensions, social relationships, communicative norms and some other social-world factors. As for the mental world, failure to make adaptation to personality traits, emotions, motivations, wishes and cognitive elements can lead to conflict talk. Therefore, in communication, if the addresser wants to avoid or mitigate conflict talk, he/she must take these contextual correlates into consideration and make his/her linguistic choices accordingly.The present study enriches the linguistic research on conflict talk and strengthens the explanatory power of Linguistic Adaptation Theory. Describing its linguistic features and analyzing the reasons for its occurrence can help people recognize and properly deal with this pervasive phenomenon.