The Study Of Impoliteness In Conflict Talk Between Married Couples

Politeness Principle, which is always considered as an indispensable part of the study of pragmatics, has been researched and studied for many years and has always attracted researchers and scholars‘ high attention both at home and abroad. By contrast, impoliteness study, which is observed and proposed later by western researchers and scholars, has a strong trend of attracting more and more linguists‘ attention and stress. However, among numerous linguists who are studying impoliteness phenomenon, Culpeper‘s theory has caught everyone‘s eyes and made a supplement in linguistics studies. Impoliteness is a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary linguistics study. It can run into a multi-angle and interdisciplinary academic research from different perspectives of study, such as sociological perspective, psychological perspective, social psychological perspective and so on. Meanwhile, the study of conflict talk is considered as a research direction of impoliteness languages and impolite acts, for it is a prevailing and ubiquitous phenomenon in everyone‘s daily life. And therefore more and more researchers pay their high attention to conflict talk. This thesis is mainly put forward by Professor Culpeper‘s impoliteness strategies and his dynamic response patterns, regarding them as its basic theoretical framework. In this thesis, the discourses of conflict talk between husbands and wives are discussed and analyzed with series of the American light comedy television show Modern Family, aiming to figure out and answer three main questions as follows:((1) What are the impoliteness strategies commonly used in conflict talk between couples in American TV play Modern Family?(2) What are the response patterns in conflict talk between couples in American TV play Modern Family?(3) What are the main pragmatics functions of conflict talk between couples in American TV play Modern Family?Through the analysis of the corpus of this paper, most of the impoliteness strategies that are proposed and summarized by Culpeper have applied to all data in this thesis. Then, according to Culpeper‘s dynamic response patterns, this paper has put forward a conclusion after exploring and studying conflict talk between couples, which we can categorize and classify response patterns of conflict talk between married couples into three types, they are offensive-offensive pattern, offensive-defensive pattern, and offensive-compromise pattern. And further, this thesis could certainly draw a conclusion that conflict talk not only just has negative pragmatics functions to married couples‘ relationship but also has positive pragmatics functions to them. There are some possibilities that married couples could vent their emotions and could express their feelings, could have a better understanding with each other in some situations through conflict talk. Hence, the relationship between married couples becomes more harmonious and intimate so that conflict talk could have an obviously positive effect on married couple‘s interrelationship.