Analysis Of Conversational Structure And Gender Construction In Chins Polylogue

This dissertation,applying Conversation Analysis and constructional theory,is a systematic descriptive study,theoretically and empirically,to Conversational Structure and Gender Construction in Chinese Polylogue.Analyzing a self-built corpus of 170,000 words,we find that Chinese has its own characteristics on conversational sequence and its organization,such as turn,reactive token,turn-taking,turn-controlling strategies,conversational duet,overlap,interruption,repair and alignment.Based on this analysis,we build up a conversational analysis system of Chinese polylogue.On the other hand,by combining gender with CA,this dissertation finds it different between men-talk and women-talk.By an empirical study and systematically description,this dissertation finds the way of constructing a gender language.To be specific,the aim of men-talk is for argument,and to construct an active,dominating,masculine,hegemony,professional,and independent identity.By contrast,women-talk is aimed to emotional communications and intimate relationships,and to construct a close,cooperative and perceptual feminine identity.This dissertation consists of nine chapters,including an introduction,seven main chapters,and a conclusion.Each chapter has its emphasis from different perspectives and the seven main parts are coherent with each other.The Introduction generalizes the focal points and the significance of the dissertation.It introduces the scope of the present study,the theoretical basis,the goal,the methodologies,and the corpus under investigation.Chapter one is a Literature Review of the relevant researches on discourse analysis,conversational analysis and gender language both domestic and abroad.On the basis of their researches,the problems remained to be solved on conversational analysis of Chinese polylogue and gender language.Chapter two clarified the concept and judgment criterions of turn and reactive token,which are two units of conversational analysis.Through an analysis of turn and reactive token of men and women in polylogue,the research intends to discover and describe their similarities and differences,and finds that women language is specificater,the use of over-token and turn taking of women are more frequent and diversified,all of which construct women talk into an "all-together-now" model.Chapter three discusses the mechanism of turn-taking sequence.This part summarizes and repaired some misconceptions in previous researches,and thus builds up the turn-taking rules of Chinese polylogue.Chapter four discusses the turn-controlling strategies and gender construction in Chinese polylogue.This chapter focuses on strategies of the two session roles:the ccurrent speaker's strategies of turn-assigning and turn-maintaining,and the current listener's strategies of TRP-judging and turn-claiming.When seizing the "scarce resource",men and women performed differently in turn controlling.In a word,women tend to obey the law of "one at a time",while men start to talk when "I want to talk".Moreover,these characteristics constructed a "harmonious,balanced women-talk" and a "competitive,hegemonic men-talk".Chapter five discusses the "abnormal" conversational sequence and gender construction.This chapter describes and re-defines interruption,overlapping and conversational duet in Chinese polylogue,and compares the different applying strategies by men and women,and finds that the atmosphere of women-talk is harmonious and interactive as women use more conversational duet and tend to adjust the topic and way of conversation according to the feeling of listeners to show their cooperation.The atmosphere of men-talk is intense and conflicting as men tend to control the turn and insist on their own argument by interrupting the current speaker,to construct an authoritative image.By clarifying the concept,types and trajectory of the repair,Chapter Six finds that in addition to the four types of repair described by Schegloff et al.(1977),there are "self-initiate together-repair" and "other-initiate together-repair" in Chinese polylogue.What's more,"together-repair" is favored over "other-repair",and there is no significant preference between "self-initiate" and "other-initiate" in Chinese.These differences construct Chinese more inclusive than English.Moreover,we compare the different preference types in men-talk and women-talk.The differences showed that men tend to exhibit their authoritative,professional and independent characteristics,and women are more cooperative.It also constructed "all-together-now" women-talk.Chapter seven analyzes the types and reasons of alliance in Chinese polylogue and discusses gender construction in alignment.Four aspects of gender construction would be under discussion.Firstly,women's alignment is more diversified than man,and it doesn't matter whether women agree to each other or not.By contrast,men ally for the purpose of strengthening their view.Secondly,alignment is a purpose for women while is a tool for men.Thirdly,men-talk focuses on transferring information and reaction,while women-talk focuses on creating and maintaining a harmonious communication atmosphere.Women built,display and maintain friendship by alliances.Men persuade others by alliances,demonstrating a strong,professional and authoritative character.Finally,in mixed polylogues,topics with gender tendency affects the consistency of gender in alignment.Chapter eight is the conclusive part.It summarizes the main points of the present study,and discusses the remaining problems and drawbacks of this dissertation.