| Conflict is an interactive behavior that exists everywhere in social activities of human life. When presented in the form of language, it is called conflict talk. Conflict talk is a complicated language phenomenon which commonly occurs in daily communication. It is a hostile interactive behavior that happens between two or more parties. In the narrow sense, conflict talk refers to a kind of speech act, which includes disagreeing, opposing, and arguing. In the broad sense, it refers to a kind of interaction, which includes quarrels and disputes. Researchers who are interested in conflict talk from home and abroad have worked from different fields, such as sociology, anthropology, psychology, linguistics and so on.This thesis attempts to analyze conflict talk among family members from a pragmatic perspective. The study is based on the data collected from the American sitcom Modern Family through both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Several theories have been adopted to help analyze the conflict talk data, such as speech act theory, conversation analysis theory and politeness theory.Through the analysis three findings are obtained:(1) Conflict talks among family members are mainly caused by the negative and positive face attack.(2) In the initiation stage, there are mainly three formats:counterclaim, opposing question and contradiction. In the maintenance or escalation stage, there are mainly non-obedience and argumentative formats. In the termination stage, there are mainly six formats.(3) Family members in Modern Family are intended to adopt counterclaim, argumentative and submission to initiate, maintain and terminate the conflict talk.It is expected that the present study could present a more comprehensive and systematic illustration of this linguistic phenomenon. By understanding the cause and formats of conflict talks in the sitcom, it is also important to arouse the attention of family members to avoid conflict and construct a harmonious living environment. |
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