A Study Of Conflict Talk In Pearl S.Buck's Peony From The Perspective Of Cross-cultural Communication

Conflict talk is considered as a common linguistic phenomenon,frequently occurring in our daily life.It is also called adversative episode and oppositional argument by scholars.Since1980 s,the term of conflict talk has been widely applied in various different fields including anthropology,psychology,sociology,linguistics and so on.However,the research concerning conflict talks in cross-cultural works does not receive much attention.As the culture bridge of cross-cultural communication,Pearl S.Buck,who was an American writer,tried to show the differences between two cultures based on a large number of conflict talks in many of her works.Therefore,this thesis chooses 43 conflict talks in Peony.Through using qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis,this thesis analyzes conflict talks in Peony from the perspective of cross-cultural communication based on conversational analysis,conflict talk theories as well as speech act theory,.The main research questions include: firstly,how do conflict talks in Peony start,develop and terminate? Secondly,what are the possible causes of the conflict talks in Peony? Finally,what are Pearl S.Buck?s attitudes towards the conflict between Chinese culture and Jewish culture?The research results demonstrate that there are mainly three formats in the start of conflict talks in Peony,respectively,claim and counter claim,order and refusal,provoking questions and opposing answers.Among them,claim and counter claim accounts for a large proportion,indicating that characters in the novel tend to direct ways to express their views.In the development of conflict talks,it mainly includes argumentative,negation and non-obedience.Argumentative accounts for a large proportion.In the termination of conflict talks,it can be found that there are three formats,respectively,submission,third-party intervention,and stand-off.Among the three formats,the format of submission ranks the first.Through conducting qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis of conflict talks in Peony,it can be concluded that the main causes of the conflict talk in the novel are ethnocentrism and acculturation.The research also shows that Pearl S.Buck encourages people from different cultures to have a mutual understanding and tolerance with respect to cultural differences objectively.Meanwhile,she also advocates intermarriage and preserves cultural diversities in the mutual penetration.