A Study Of Conflict Talks Between Family Members In American TV Drama Modern Family From The Perspective Of Exchange Structure

Conflict talk refers to the argumentative state between individuals or groups because of their differences in the aspects of interests,insights,purposes and principles.It plays an important role in people's daily communication and thus attracts the attention of many language researchers from home and abroad.Many scholars have conducted their researches from the perspectives of semantics,sociolinguistics and ethnomethodology.However,previous studies are mainly concerned with the conflicting events.Few studies have focused on the structure and interactive features of conflict talk and the way in which conflict talk arises.In 1975,Sinclair and Coulthard put forward the theory of exchange structure on the basis of classroom conversation.They have proposed a descriptive framework for analyzing spoken discourse and suggest the following descriptive units: act,move and exchange.These units are ordered in a hierarchical manner such that acts combine to form moves,moves combine to form exchanges.Therefore,this thesis uses the exchange structure as its theoretical framework,chooses the sitcom Modern Family as its research data and selects typical 120 conflict talks as the object of study.It aims to explore the exchange structure of conflict talks between family members of the same generation and between different generations.This thesis adopts both qualitative and quantitative methods to deal with the following research questions:(1)What is the exchange structure of family conflict talks and what are the move patterns that constitute this structure?(2)What are the act patterns of conflict talks between family members of the same generation?(3)What are the act patterns of conflict talks between family members of different generations?Through a detailed analysis of 120 conflict talks in Modern Family,it has the following results:First,in terms of the move patterns,the conflict talks in Modern Family are mainly composed of four moves,that is,initiating move,responding move,challenging move and follow-up move.Among the four moves,there are two patterns.One is initiating move-challenging move-follow-up move.It means that the conflict talks instantly appear after challenging move.The other is initiating move-responding move-initiating move-challenging move-follow-up move.In this pattern,since the conflict talk is not generated in the second move,the addresser will continue to initiate the conversation and the addressee will respond with a challenging move.As a result,the conflict talk arises.But no matter what kind of pattern it will take,a total of107 conflict talks begin with the initiating move and end with the the follow-up move.The proportion of conflict talks between family members of the same generation and between family members of different generations is varying in terms of the responding move and the challenging move.The percentage of responding move is higher than the challenging move between family members of the same generation.However,the case is exactly the opposite between family members of different generations.In the case of follow-up move,it tends to mitigate the conflict talks between family members of the same generation.Sometimes,the conflict talks may come to an end by the third party's intervention.On the contrary,follow-up move is more inclined to exacerbate the conflict talks between family members of different generations so that the conflict talk turns into a very intense one.Second,in terms of the act patterns,the initiating acts,especially the informative and elicitation,are the main acts in the family members of the same generation,and the proportion of directive acts is relatively low.This shows that the function of the initiating acts between family members of the same generation are mainly to obtain information.After the initiating acts,family members tend to give an indirect negative response to express their internal dissatisfaction with family members of the same generation.In the follow-up,family members are supposed to use those supportive acts or recognition of the words to mitigate the intensity of the conflict talks.However,the initiating acts are based on elicitation and directive between family members of cross-generation.This suggests that the initiation of conflict talksbetween family members of different generations tends to show that parents have issued some kind of command to the children,which opens a conflict talk.After the initiation,the conflicting parties are inclined to use direct opposition or a further initiation of another directive to achieve their challenges.When it comes to the follow-up between family members of different generations,the follow-up from children often tends to make a concession,which might lead to a more intense conflict talk.Parents are more likely to give a confrontational reply when the follow-up is from them.Both of the two situations will intensify the original conflict talks.Thus,it can be concluded that conflict talks between family members of the same generation is not as fierce as those between family members of different generations.Through the analysis and discussion of conflict talks between family members,the significance of this study is as follows: first,the research may help further summarize the move patterns and act patterns of conflict talks between family members of the same generation and those between different generations based on the exchange structure.Besides,the study will help people better understand this language phenomenon,facilitate mutual understanding between family members,thus effectively avoiding and mitigating conflicts.Besides,it is of great significance concerning establishing a harmonious family relationship between family members as well as a harmonious society.