Verbal Family Conflict: A Discourse Analytical Perspective

Conflict talk, which is a kind of general and complicated phenomenon, widely exists in daily interpersonal communication. The claim, criticism, blame, order, question and suspicion of the speakers in the speech interaction may result in listeners'colliding response. Those words that usually cause the argument, quarrel, dispute, opposition, retorting between both sides involved are called conflict talk. That is, communicators' disagreement on their views, attitudes, and opinions of the same matter is expressed as conflict on their discourse. At the early time, experts from abroad paid much attention to the study of conflict discourse in debate, while in recent years, more and more researches on conflict talk have appeared and produced great fruits at home and abroad, with perspectives becoming diversified. Here we try to analyze family conflict talk from the pragmatic perspective.This thesis mainly adopts the qualitative and quantitative research methods in the empirical study. The data of this study are mainly derived from the talk show Xing Fu Mo Fang, broadcasted in Dragon TV from Monday till Friday every week. This program mainly helps the parties deal with some family conflicts through the intervention of the third party. We transcribe and generalize the real data, and then analyze the main reasons for family conflict using Scollon's Discourse System theory. Based on this, several kinds of common manifestations and conversions of conflict talk are discussed. Finally this thesis concludes the mitigating strategies using Verschueren's theory of adaptation, especially emphasizing the importance of the third party.Analyzing the family conflict talk will be in favor of the solution of family problems rather than intensify the original conflict; aiming to remove the misunderstanding and estrangement between family members, this research will bring a bright future for family life--mitigating the life burden and promoting the healthy development of personal relationship and increasing the kinship. Moreover, harmonious and happy families will be greatly helpful for the construction of a harmonious society.