Conflict Talk In The Joy Luck Club From The Perspective Of Face-negotiation Theory

Since the end of 20 th century,linguistic scholars have increasingly concentrated their research on conflict talk which is recognized as a distinctive speech activity.Actually,conflict talk is an important feature of daily communication and also a source of drama in literature.The globalization makes it possible that people with different culture backgrounds interact more frequently which undoubtedly has caused more conflict talks in their communication,thus ushering in more intercultural conflicts,which in turn indicates the necessity and significance of doing researches on conflict talk.As is known to all,when conflict talk occurs,the participant's face is inevitably harmed so he will try all means to uphold or save his face.To some degree,the process of conflict talk is the process of the negotiation of face.People from different cultural backgrounds use different facework in dealing with conflicts.The Joy Luck Club is a famous novel typically showing cultural differences in dealing with conflict talk between Chinese and Americans.This thesis tries to figure out features and underlying reasons of conflict talk in The Joy Luck Club by careful and thorough reading from the perspective of face-negotiation theory,pointing out the four obvious features of conflict talk in The Joy Luck Club: interruption,repetition,stress and disagreement preference.Then the paper goes further to find out the five termination formats of conflict talk by analyzing: topic shift,compromise,third-party intervention,withdrawal and stand-off.The four features and five termination formats in the novel point to the fact that different facework is preferred by Chinese and Americans because of different cultures.Chinese tend to avoid conflicts and employ indirect strategies to reduce the risk of hurting others' face,while Americans tend to use direct strategies to face the problem and then solve the problem because Chinese who advocate collectivism and harmony have high concern for their own face as well as the group's face while Americans who advocate independence,equality,individualism,freedom and autonomy have relatively low concern for face.The research is central in helping people realize the potential causes of misunderstanding and conflicts in communication,thus promoting mutual understanding and facilitating intercultural communication.