A Pragmatic Analysis Of Conflict Talk Between Parents And Teenagers In Gossip Girl

Conflict talk is considered as a kind of contrary state owing to different viewpoints or positions between two parties in communication.It is a common yet complicated linguistic phenomenon in people’s social interaction.Since the 1970 s,researchers from abroad and in China have explored conflict talk from many perspectives,including ethno-methodology,psychology,sociology and linguistics.They emphasize different aspects of conflict talk,employ different research approaches and gain different research results.However,these studies mainly focus on conflict that happens between couples,lovers,children and other family members.There are few studies on conflict talk between parents and their children,not to mention parents and teenagers.In addition,the existing researches on conflict talk that occurs between parents and teenagers do not comprehensively elaborate the formats,causes and methods to avoid conflict.Therefore,this thesis attempts to make a pragmatic analysis of conflict talk between parents and teenagers.It will explore its formats,causes and strategies of alleviating conflict.This research aims to supplement and enrich the research of this field and enhance mutual understandings between parents and teenagers.The research questions to be analyzed in this thesis are listed as follows:(1)What are the formats of conflict talk between parents and teenagers?(2)How is conflict talk initiated,maintained/ escalated and terminated in GossipGirl?(3)What are the causes of conflict talk between parents and teenagers?Based on Conversation Analysis and Politeness Theory,this thesis establishes its own theoretical framework.In the 1960 s,Harvey Sacks,Gail Jefferson and Emanuel Schegloff established Conversation Analysis,which consists of turn-taking structure,adjacency pairs,preference organization,the management of overlapping talk,etc.(Sacks,Schegloff & Jefferson,1974).This research mainly analyzes conflict talk between parents and teenagers from the aspects of turn-taking structure,adjacencypairs and preference organization.As for Politeness Theory,this study is primarily based on Leech’s Politeness Principle as well as Brown and Levinson’s Face Theory.In 1983,Leech put forward Politeness Principle,including Tact Maxim,Generosity Maxim,Approbation Maxim,Modesty Maxim,Agreement Maxim and Sympathy Maxim.In the late 1970 s and 1980 s,Brown and Levinson proposed the concept of“Face”,“Face-saving Theory” and “Face-threating Act”.This thesis integrates Conversation Analysis and Politeness Theory to explore the formats of conflict talk and probe into its causes.This study makes qualitative and quantitative analysis of conflict talk between parents and teenagers in the first four seasons of American television play Gossip Girl.First of all,it collects 90 examples of conflict talk between parents and teenagers as sources and explores the formats of initiating,maintaining or escalating and terminating conflict talk.Furthermore,it expounds the causes of conflict talk and puts forward some strategies to alleviate conflict talk.This research mainly analyzes the formats of conflict talk in the initiation stage,maintenance or escalation stage and termination stage.Initiating formats consist of accusation,order,assertion and request.It is found that accusation and order account for primary formats of initiating conflict talk,33.3% and 31.1% respectively.Assertion takes up the proportion of 20%.By contrast,the format of request is the least method of trigging conflict,accounting for only 15.6%.The reasons are listed as follows.To begin with,parents and teenagers have different values and viewpoints due to generation gap.Most parents do not believe their children have the ability to tell right from wrong.Out of a sense of responsibility,they often make accusation or give order to teenagers.Furthermore,America is a country which emphasizes freedom and individualism.Teenagers believe that they are entitled to the right to express their viewpoints as well as complete freedom and independence.Therefore,American teenagers are inclined to express their own views when facing parents’ accusation and order.This will definitely threaten their parents’ face,leading to conflict talk between them.Besides,assertion is also a very important factor to trigger conflict because both parties believe that they have the right to express their ideas.In addition,the format ofrequest is least utilized in that both sides tend to accept the request of the speaker rather than refuse it.Maintaining or escalating formats contain negation,opposing question,explanation and repetition.The format of negation is most utilized by parents and teenagers(45.6%),while repetition is the least employed(10%).The proportion of opposing question is a little more than that of explanation,24.4% and 20%respectively.As America is a country with low-context culture,in which people enjoy equal and democratic relationship.Parents and teenagers tend to show their disagreement in a direct way during this stage of conflict talk.This is why negation represents the primary format of escalating conflict talk.On the contrary,the format of repetition is least utilized because both sides are capable of expressing their ideas clearly instead of just repeating the same utterance.Although the format of opposing question is not a very direct method to argue with the opponent,it can indicate blame and complaint of the speaker.Hence,it is also often employed by speakers during conflict.In addition,the format of explanation usually causes more conflicts,so it is not an effective way to persuade others.Terminating formats comprise submission,compromise,third-party intervention,focus-shifting and withdrawal.The dominating format is withdrawal,occupying35.6%,followed by submission(30%),while the least popular format is focus-shifting,taking up only 7.8%.The format of third-party intervention and compromise shares similar percentage,14.4% and 12.2% respectively.This is caused by the fact that most western people tend to think in linear way and are characterized by logic and rational thinking.Thus,they will generally choose to withdraw when they realize it is meaningless to continue arguing or to submit when they are convinced by the opponent.That is also why the format of focus-shifting is least utilized by American parents and teenagers.After the initiation of conflict talk,it goes through several turns.During this process,the conflict talk is escalated and intensified.Eventually,it is terminated in certain format.The analysis of the format and process of conflict talk between parents and teenagers in Gossip Girl is carried out in this part of the research.On the basis of the analysis,this thesis also investigates the causes of conflict talk between parents and teenagers,including violation of preference organization,violation of politeness theory and other causes.According to Conversation Analysis,adjacency pairs are two closely-connected utterances.There are many responses to the second part of an adjacency pair.The preferred alternative is socially desirable and simpler,while the dis-preferred alternative is socially negative and more complex.Parents and teenagers tend to violate preference organization and choose dis-preferred alternative during conflict.Besides,they may violate politeness theory and do face-threatening acts to others.Furthermore,there is a variety of reasons trigging conflict,including generation gap,psychological causes and lack of effective communication.Through the analysis and discussion,this study also puts forward some strategies of alleviating conflict talk,which consist of adherence to preference organization and politeness theory and other strategies such as effective communication,enhancement of emotional control and EQ as well as self-examination.Parents and teenagers should select preferred alternative as reply to avoid conflict.Meanwhile,speakers are well-advised to save face for other participants and avoid threatening others’ face.Furthermore,both parents and teenagers should learn to control their emotion.In addition,they ought to do self-examination after conflict instead of blaming each other.In conclusion,this thesis makes a comprehensive analysis of the formats and causes of conflict talk between parents and teenagers,and proposes some pragmatic strategies to alleviate conflict talk.This research is of great theoretical and pragmatic significance.On the one hand,it deepens people’s understandings of this phenomenon and fosters their communicative competence.Besides,it widens the research area of conflict talk and supplements its research field.On the other hand,it develops the communicative competence of parents and teenagers and facilitates the harmonious relationship between them.More importantly,it contributes to building harmonious family and society.But there are also some limitations that should be mentioned.For instance,dueto limited space,only 90 examples of conflict talk in one American TV play are analyzed in this thesis.Researchers are well-advised to explore more data from more typical American televisions around parents and teenagers in order to gain more accurate outcome of the study.In addition,a conflict talk is involved with many factors,such as education degree,social experiences and emotion control,thus researchers should consider more variables to ensure the credibility of the results.