A Study Of Conflict Talk Between Mother-in-law And Daughter-in-Law From The Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

Conflict talk,as a common language phenomenon in interpersonal communication,has attracted the attention of various disciplines in recent years.Many researchers at home and abroad have discussed conflict talk from different perspectives,such as philosophy,sociology,psychology and linguistics.The researches on conflict talk by many domestic scholars mainly involve in conflict talk between children,conflict talk between couple,conflict talk between parents and children,court conflict talk and so on.However,the study of conflict talk between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law is relatively rare.In daily life,the conflict talk between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law is a very common phenomenon.What’s more,the relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law is very important to the harmony of a family.Conflict talk involves privacy,and its occurring time and place are highly accidental,it is difficult to collect naturally occurring conflict talk.Tannen(1990)suggests that the research object of conflict talk can be turned to novels,dramas,movies and TV plays.Schank(1977)also points out that the conflict talk in drama is the same as that in nature,and some of them are even more real than that in reality.Therefore,this thesis will analyze the language patterns of conflict talk at each stage by collecting the conflict talk between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law from four typical Chinese TV series about mother-in-law and daughter-in-law.At the same time,this thesis will explore the causes of conflict talk between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law from the perspective of Verschueren’s adaptation theory,and then will put forward some strategies to alleviate or end the conflict talk between them.Through quantitative and qualitative analysis,this thesis intends to study the following three questions:1.What are the formats of the conflict talk between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law at the initiation stage,the maintenance and escalation stage,and the termination stage?2.What are the reasons for the conflict talk between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law?3.What strategies can be chosen to alleviate or terminate the conflict talk between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law?The findings are followed.Firstly,the formats of conflict talk between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law are as follows:(1)at the initiation stage: accusation,order,expressive statement,and assertion;(2)at the maintenance and escalation stage:negation,explanation,rhetorical question,irony,and swear words;(3)at the termination stage: stalemate,compromise,third party intervention,and converting topics.At each stage,the frequency of the use of each model is different between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law.At the initiation stage,the mother-in-law uses the four formats more frequently than the daughter-in-law,and the most frequently used mode is accusation,followed by the order mode;at the escalation stage,the most frequently used mode is the negation mode,followed by the rhetorical question mode.It is worth noting that although the swear word accounts for the least proportion among the five formats,it can most aggravate the conflict talk between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law;at the termination stage,among the four ways of ending the conflict talk between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law,the stalemate pattern is the most,followed by the third party intervention.As for the third party intervention mode,in most cases,the husband intervenes as the third party;most of the third party intervention methods are active intervention,but only half of the results are effective,which can alleviate the conflict talk between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law;but some third party interventions are ineffective,and some even play a counter effect,further aggravating the conflict.Secondly,according to the adaptation theory,conflict talk between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law usually originates from the physical world,social world,and mental world that do not adapt to each other.The physical world includes temporal reference,spatial reference,etc.;the social world contains communicators’ values,communication norms,social background,etc.;the mental world includes personal emotions,wishes,motivations,etc.Thirdly,the strategies to alleviate or end conflict talk are mainly: using hedges,keeping silence,shifting topics,mutual understanding,mutual respect,etc.