A Pragmatic Study On Disagreements In Chinese TV Talk Show "Round Table"

This study takes the Chinese television talk show “Round Table” as data to explore the strategy and sequence organization of disagreements in a multi-talk program,and to figure out whether the sequence organization of disagreements has an impact on disagreement strategies.First,certain changes are made to disagreement strategies of Rees-Miller(2000)to adapt to Chinese data.The quantitative and qualitative analysis are used to study disagreement strategies in multi-participant conversations.Secondly,in terms of the sequence organization of disagreements,three main sequence structures of disagreements in multi-participant conversations are generalized.Finally,the distribution of disagreement strategies in different sequence organizations are analyzed in detail.The analysis shows that disagreement strategies in a multi-talk program give priority to Disagreements not Softened nor Strengthened(44.9%)and Softened Disagreements(40.8%),followed by Aggravated Disagreements(14.3%).Among the sub-strategies of Disagreements not Softened nor Strengthened,contradictory statement holds the most proportion than the other two strategies,i.e.verbal shadowing and clarifying point of view.Among the sub-strategies of Softened Disagreements,hedges and giving facts and reasons occur frequently while partial agreement,humor and impersonalizing speaker to hearer do not often appear.Among the sub-strategies of Aggravated Disagreements,intensifiers come first while rhetorical questions and judgemental vocabulary occur less frequently.The analysis indicates that the sequence organization of disagreements in a multi-talk program is represented by three types of structure.First,disagreements mainly occur between two members,and other members respectively form alliances with the dissident parties by providing supportive feedback,or assist the party to complete disagreements by asking questions,which develops into Two-party Disagreements in Multi-participant Communications.Secondly,while the two persons argue,other members join in the disagreement,thus exerting impacts on discourse structure.It constitutes Multi-party Disagreements in Multi-participant Communications.Finally,in multi-participant conversations,when other members join the disagreement,the initial disagreement party withdraws from the talk and the remaining members continue to further disagreements,which forms Schism of Disagreements and New Two-party Disagreements in Multi-participant Communications.In the quantitative study of disagreement strategies in different sequence organizations,the frequency of three main disagreement strategies in the three structures is consistent with the overall use.Contradictory statements in Disagreements not Softened nor Strengthened are used far more than others,leading to higher percentage of Disagreements not Softened nor Strengthened in three structures.However,with respect to most sub-strategies of three main disagreement strategies,some differences appear.For example,the use of address in the Softened Disagreement,which comes third in the overall,occurs less frequently in Two-party Disagreements in Multi-participant Communications has declined,while more frequently in Multi-party Disagreements in Multi-participant Communications.This can be explained because the speaker needs to use address frequently so as to indicate whom he is talking to or to select the next speaker.In addition,both verbal shadowing and clarifying points of view rank second in the overall but do not show in Schism of Disagreements and New Two-party Disagreement in Multi-participant Communications.Therefore,different sequence structures have an impact on disagreement strategies.This paper mainly explores the characteristics of disagreement speech act in a multi-talk program “Round Table”,which have certain theoretical and practical significance for the understanding of disagreement strategies,sequence organizations and multi-participant communications.