A Pragmatic Study Of Disagreement From The Rapport-Management Perspective

Disagreement is a kind of common responsive speech act in our daily life.It has the characteristic of face-threatening and it functions pragmatically differently(causing conflict or promoting communication)in context from the perspective of interpersonal pragmatics.Although scholars at home and abroad have made some achievements in the study of disagreement,most of the researches are on the basis of Face Theory and Politeness Principle.Few of scholars have studied the impact of disagreement on interpersonal relationships.Therefore,to make up for the deficiencies of disagreement research,the present study tries to explain how people manage interpersonal relationships in the process of realizing disagreement from the perspective of language production.The interlocutors will use different types of disagreement in various contexts which show different rapport-orientations and conduct particular pragmatic functions.Therefore they can manage the interpersonal relationships.In order to find out disagreement's impact on interpersonal relationships between the interlocutors,current research tries to study disagreements from three aspects: the types of disagreement,the rapport orientations of disagreement and the pragmatic functions of disagreement within Spencer-Oatey' Rapport Management Model.All the data that are used in the study are collected from the modern urban TV series The First Half of my Life.The present study uses the qualitative method.The result of this study shows that there are seven types of disagreement which are Irrelevancy Claim,Challenge,Contradiction,Counterclaim,Claim,Contradiction+Claim,Challenge+Claim.Generally speaking,the expression of disagreement includes not only the rapport-enhancement orientations and rapprotmaintenance orientations,which have positive impact on the construction and maintenance of interpersonal relations,but also the rapport-neglect orientations and rapport-challenge orientations,which destroys interpersonal relations.The rapportorientation of each expression of disagreement will change according to the specific context.The pragmatic functions of disagreement can be classified into six kinds: reminding the addressee of facts,repairing or denying the message,defending oneself,stating personal stance,making a proposal or giving an order,making a comment.The final outcomes of rapport management show that disagreement does not always cause conflict or have negative influence on interpersonal relationships,and it can also promote communication or have no obvious influence on interpersonal relationships.The thesis studied disagreement from a new perspective,hoping to enrich the research methods of disagreement,deepen people's understanding of disagreement and provide a certain taking point for the study of disagreement in interpersonal relationships in the future.