Conversation Analysis Of Doctor-patient Conflict Talk

Conflict talk is a quite common language phenomenon in a society where interpersonal communication is getting closer while potential conflict is being more obvious. Previous researchers have already discussed the conflict talk in many aspects.Researches on conflict talks in daily life, institution and semi-institution all make progress. The doctor-patient conflict talk belongs to institutional conflict talks. Recent years, as the conflicts between doctors and patients become much fiercer, great achievements are made on studies of interactions between doctor and patient.Nevertheless, the outbreak of conflict between doctors and patients are always violently and quickly. Thus little of them can be recorded. Studies concentrating on doctor-patient conflict talk are still insufficient. The present thesis focuses on the structure of doctor-patient conflict talks, concerns how a doctor-patient conflict talk starts, proceeds and ends. Researches on how doctors and patients take, hold as well as quit turns are also conducted. This thesis tempts to find the rules and features adopted by the participants in the conversation and help to make a better understanding of the doctor-patient conflict talks.The conceptual framework is conversational analysis. This thesis is an empirical study of doctor-patient conflict talks. The data of conflict talks are collected from five TV series and there are altogether 23033 words, 118 episodes. Qualitative method is adopted when the transcribed data is analyzed to find out what language patterns are took in a doctor-patient conflict talk. Quantitative method is employed on the basis of qualitative analysis. The research concludes the frequency of patterns used by doctors and patients, summaries the preference rate of move and countermove adopted respectively by doctors as well as patients.The study reveals that the overall structure of doctor-patient conflict talks consists of three parts: the initiation, the opposition and the termination. The initiation is an important part of a conflict talk as whether an interaction could develop into a conflict largely depends on the initiation. Based on the data collected, the research concludes three types of initiation of the doctor-patient conflict talk. They are claim vs. counter claim, direction vs. objection, question vs. oppose. Each type has its variations. As a vulnerable party in the institutional discourse, the patients are more likely to initiates a conflict. The opposition of the conflict talk starts from the third turn and continues to the terminate part. In a doctor-patient conflict talk, the process is complex, containing several turn-takings. The opposition mainly includes oppositional moves and responses: direct negation; rhetorical question; repetition and interruption. Each pattern has its variations. Every conversation has a termination.Conflict talk is no exception. Termination here means the present conflict talk can't carry on. The conflict may not be resolved but the conversation ends. Usually the termination of the doctor-patient conflict talks has follow situations: reconciliation,concession, one party prevails, and conflict unsolved. Comparatively, doctors are more likely to send the termination signal. They want to avoid enlarging the conflict.One is for their social status as conflicts with patients influence their social position.One is for their career requirement. When the situation is out of control, doctors also choose to withdraw from the spot as to keep its safe.Based on conversation analysis theory, the research attempts to enrich the study of doctor-patient conflict talk, extend and demonstrate the scope of conversational analysis. Meanwhile,for doctor-patient conflict belongs to institutional discourse,this study can also provide a reference for other studies on institutional discourse.Furthermore, as for the social significance, conflicts can be reasonably used as a strategy to achieve one's aim and to promote social harmony.