Analysis Of Conflict Talk In Fortress Besieged From The Perspective Of Rapport Management

Conflict talk is defined as the opposition of opinions, positions between one another in verbal communication in such forms as arguments, dispute, etc. by Grimshaw (1990), which will inevitably influence the harmony between interlocutors. Among the studies done on conflict talk, researchers abroad have mainly focused on the initiation, development or termination of conflict talk in contexts such as TV talk shows, and some real-life situations, and studies on conflict talk in literary works are insufficient. Meanwhile domestic scholars tend to study conflict talk by selecting different fragments from many literary works to demonstrate their findings, also leaving space for systematic research on conflict talk in literary works.Many scholars suggest face as the best way to analyze conflict talk (Culprper,2005; Bousfield,2007b; Limberg,2009), based on which, Rapport Management Theory by Helen Spencer-Oatey (2000) has provided a new access to approaching conflict talk, suggesting that threat to interpersonal harmony can be classified into threat to face and threat to sociality rights. In light of the theory, conflict talk may threaten interlocutors’ quality face and social identity face and their equity rights and association rights in terms of sociality rights.In accordance withGrimshaw’s (1990) and Honda’s (2002) definitions of conflict talk, an operating definition has been summarized for this research:the process of opposition of opinions, positions etc. between at least two parties in verbal communication, from the very initiation till the termination of opposition. In this research 60 examples have been selected out of Fortress Besieged, and under Rapport Management Theory thesis author studies how conflict talk is initiated by different types of speech acts, how the interlocutors respond to the initiated conflict with different rapport orientations in mind and how the conflict talk comes to end reaching different rapport management outcomes.Present research achieves the following findings:1) four types of speech acts may trigger conflict talk in Fortress Besieged:expressives, representatives, directives and commisives ranked by percentage. Face is more likely to be threatened compared with sociality rights in the selected examples.2) In response to the triggered conflict talk,6 types of strategies can be chosen to manage interpersonal rapport in line with interlocutors’rapport orientations, among which criticism or negative evaluation and explicit disagreement are the most frequently used two types. Responses to conflict talk can be categorized into two types, conflicting response and mitigating response. The former outnumbers the latter.3) 3 rapport management outcomes can be reached along with the termination of conflict talk in 8 ways. Rapport in 48 examples has been reduced in the end,10 maintained and 2 enhanced.Research on the initiation of, responses to and termination of conflict talk in Fortress Besieged helps to deepen our understanding of contributions of the three phases respectively and as a whole to theme development and characterization in the story. Meanwhile, this research hopes to shade some light on how to avoid conflict and how to manage conflict talk in real-life occasions when it occurs. Thus it contributes to maintaining harmonious interpersonal relationship in life. Simultaneously, analysis on literary works from the perspective of both linguistics and literature proves to be a good way to explore the work and helps the broader application of linguistic methods.