Conflict Talks Between Father And Child In The Reality Show:Dad, Where Are We Going?

This thesis attempts to conduct a study on father-child conflict talks based on the corpus of 59 conflict talks extracted from the reality show Dad, Where Are We Going? with the guidance of the speech act theory, principles of politeness, face management theory, five communication principles. Qualitative approach is employed to analyze the data and explore the following questions:What are the formats of the initiating phase, the maintaining phase, and the terminating phase in father-child conflict talks and what are the possible reasons for the occurred conflict talks? What resolution strategies can we take to relieve or eliminate father-child conflict talks?Through analyzing the data, this thesis finds that:firstly, claim-counter claim, order-refusal, and provoking questions-opposing answers are the main formats of the initiation stage. Among them, order-refusal and claim-counter claim are used more frequently, which means that the disputants tend to use more direct formats to express opinions. Secondly, there are mainly four formats in the maintenance stage:repetition, negation, raising questions and interruption, among which repetition and negation appear more frequently. Besides, some conflict talks are maintained by combining repetition and negation, repetition and raising questions, negation and raising questions together. Thirdly, concession is the main format in the termination stage. Withdrawal, compromise, topic-shifting, third party intervention formats are also applied in the termination. Recognition and power differences between the two age groups are the main reasons for the conflicts. Lastly, there are some strategies for solving parent-child conflict problems, such as considering the illocutionary force of the words, being polite, protecting others’ face, adapting and interpreting message properly, creating equal communication atmosphere and so on.Since the conflict talks adopted in the reality show have great similarities to those in the real life, this research hopes to make some contribution to understanding parent-child conflict talks and building harmonious parent-child relationship.