ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Upon the completion of this thesis, I would like to express my appreciation and thanks to all the people who have supported me during the process of writing without whom this thesis would not have been possible.
First and foremost, I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Professor Gao Yongchen, for her constant encouragement and guidance in my study as well as my personal growth in the past three years. Her insightful comments, inspirational ideas, and painstaking revisions have helped me make the current version of my thesis much better than it would otherwise have been. Her academic enthusiasm and scholarly attainment have had a great influence on me in the past three years and will influence me in the future.
Second, I would love to express my great thanks to some other teachers in the School of Foreign Languages, Soochow University, whose teaching and enlightenment prove to be crucial to the completion of this thesis. My thanks also go to my classmates and friends, who shared their constructive suggestions and encouraged me during the whole process of my thesis writing.
Last but not least, I am deeply grateful to my beloved family. Their love and support have made my study an exceptionally enjoyable and memorable journey.
Qian R. Y.
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ABSTRACT
Conflict talk is a type of interaction in which hostile acts are exchanged between two or more parties. It is a natural but complicated language phenomenon that frequently occurs in daily interpersonal communication. The term of conflict talk is often used in the broad sense to refer to many linguistic behaviors such as arguing, disputing, quarreling, opposing, and squabbling. Researchers at home and abroad have worked on conflict talk with various approaches, including conversation analysis approach, interactional sociolinguistic approach, and pragmatic approach. The present study makes an attempt to analyze conflict talk from an intercultural pragmatic perspective.
This thesis focuses on the conflict talk in the intercultural context in which Chinese and American cultures are in coexistence. Methodologically speaking, the present study belongs to a qualitative and contrastive study based on the data collected from the films Gua Sha Treatment and Pushing Hands. The theoretical foundations are Verschueren‟slinguistic adaptation theory, Hofstede‟s value dimensions, and Hall‟s high-context and low-context cultures.
The analysis of the conflict talk is addressed to answer two research questions: (1) How do the contextual factors affect people‟s linguistic choices in intercultural conflict talks? (2) What are the cultural constraints on people‟s adaptation failure to those contextual factors?
Based on Verschueren‟s linguistic adaptation theory, conflict talk in intercultural context is caused by the utterer or the interpreter‟s failure in making adaptation to the contextual factors in the physical, social and mental worlds. The different cultural patterns in Chinese and American cultures such as power distance, individualism-collectivism, high-context and low-context cultures are the main constraints on people‟s adaptation failure to the contextual factors.
Key Words: conflict talk; intercultural context; linguistic adaptation; culturalpatterns
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摘 要
冲突性话语是指发生在双方或者多方之间的一种敌对性的交际行为。它是一种普遍而又复杂的语言现象，在日常人际交流中频频发生。冲突性话语是一个广义的概念，涵盖了诸多言语行为，如争执、反驳、争吵、反对、争论等。国内外的研究者们从不同的视角对冲突性话语做了一些研究，其中主要的研究领域包括会话分析，交际社会语言学及语用学。本文试图从跨文化语用的角度对冲突性话语进行分析。
本文的研究重点是中美文化并存的跨文化语境中的冲突性话语。就研究方法而言，本研究属于定性、对比研究，运用 Verschueren 的语言顺应理论，Hofstede 的文化维度理论以及 Hall 的高低语境理论分析电影《刮痧》和《推手》中的冲突性话语。
本文主要探讨以下两个问题：（1）语境因素如何影响着跨文化冲突性话语中人们的语言选择？（2）哪些文化约束导致人们未能顺应那些语境因素？
根据 Verschueren 的语言顺应论，本研究分析得出跨文化语境中的冲突性话语产生的原因是交际双方忽视了对物理世界、社会世界、心理世界中语境因素的顺应。而中美文化模式的差异，如权力距离，个人主义与集体主义价值观，高语境与低语境文化则成为交际双方未能顺应相关语境因素的主要制约力量。
关键词：冲突性话语；跨文化语境；语言顺应；文化模式
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CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................
i
ABSTRACT .....................................................................................................................
ii
摘
要 ...........................................................................................................................
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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION ..............................................................................
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1.1 MOTIVATION FOR THE STUDY ....................................................................................
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1.2 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY ............................................................................................
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1.3 METHODOLOGY AND DATA ........................................................................................
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1.4 ORGANIZATION OF THE THESIS ..................................................................................
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CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW ...................................................................
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2.1 INTRODUCTION TO THE TWO FILMS ............................................................................
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2.1.1 A Brief Introduction to Gua Sha Treatment ........................................................
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2.1.2 A Brief Introduction to Pushing Hands ...............................................................
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2.2 AN OVERVIEW OF CONFLICT TALK .............................................................................
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2.2.1
Definition of Conflict Talk .................................................................................
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2.2.2
Relevant Studies on Conflict Talk ......................................................................
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2.3 THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS ...................................................................................
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2.3.1
Linguistic Adaptation Theory ...........................................................................
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2.3.2
Cultural Patterns ..............................................................................................
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CHAPTER THREE ADAPTATION FAILURE IN CONFLICT TALK ........................
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3.1 THE PROCESS OF CONFICT TALK ..............................................................................
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3.1.1
Three Properties of Confict Talk ......................................................................
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3.1.2
Contextual Correlates of Adaptability ..............................................................
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3.1.3
The Model of Conflict Talk as Failure of Adaptability ......................................
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3.2 FAILURE IN ADAPTING TO PHYSICAL WORLD............................................................
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3.2.1 Time ................................................................................................................
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3.2.2
Space ...............................................................................................................
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3.3 FAILURE IN ADAPTING TO SOCIAL WORLD 27
3.3.1 Power and Solidarity 27
3.3.2 Communicative Norms 30
3.3.3 Kinship 32
3.4 FAILURE IN ADAPTING TO MENTAL WORLD 33
3.4.1 Cognitive Elements 34
3.4.2 Emotive Elements 35
CHAPTER FOUR CULTURAL CONSTRAINTS ON ADAPTATION FAILURE 37
4.1 THE CULTURAL PATTERNS REFLECTED IN THE CONFLICT TALK 37
4.2 PDI AND LINGUISTIC CHOICES 39
4.3 IDV AND LINGUISTIC CHOICES 41
4.4 HC/LC COMMUNICATION AND LINGUISTIC CHOICES 44
CHAPTER FIVE CONCLUSION 46
5.1 CONCLUDING REMARKS 46
5.2 LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY 47
REFERENCES 48
List of Tables and Figures
Table 2.1 Cultures Arranged Along the High-Context and Low-Context Dimension 21
Figure 2.1 The Structure of A Pragmatic Theory 17
Figure 3.1 Contextual Correlates of Adaptability 23
Figure 3.2 The Model of Conflict Talk as Failure of Adaptability 25
Table 4.1 Index and Rank of the Six Value Dimensions for China and the United States 40
Table 4.3 Key Differences Between Collectivist and Individualist General Norm and Family 43
Chapter One
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Motivation for the Study
The history of intercultural communication as a human activity is almost as long as human history itself. The conflict and conflation of primitive nomadic tribes, the trade along the Silk Road, Monk Jianzhen‟s mission to Japan, Marco Polo‟s travel in China, Zheng He‟s seven voyages to the Western Seas, and the immigration in the California gold rush all embody the idea of intercultural communication. As the term suggests, intercultural communication refers to the communication between people from different cultural backgrounds. In the most general sense, it occurs when a member of one culture produces a message for consumption by a member of another culture. More precisely, it is “communication between people whose cultural perceptions and symbol systems are distinct enough to alter the communication event” (Samorvar, Porter & Stefani, 2000: 48).
As a phenomenon, intercultural communication started long time ago; but as a field of study, it didn‟t cause people‟s concern until 1950s as a result of the four trends: convenient transportation systems, innovative communication systems, economic globalization and widespread migrations (Samovar & Porter, 2007). Fast travel, international media, and the Internet have made it easy for people to communicate with each other all over the world. The whole world seems to be shrinking in time and space into a “global village” (McLuhan, 1964).
The removal of physical and even temporal barriers, however, does not mean the reduction of people‟s “cultural distance” (Svanes, 1988). Communication links people together, but culture may drive them apart. With the contact among global villagers increasing, misunderstandings and conflicts continue to rise, as people are divided by different races, religions, beliefs, languages, etc. And even in many situations when people are speaking the same language, they cannot exchange ideas smoothly. Each culture has its own rules concerning the use of language as to what belongs to appropriate social behavior, and reacts to the realities of life in many different ways. Owing to the lack of intercultural awareness, non-native speakers tend to apply the rules of their mother language to the target language, and consequently many messages deviate from the speakers‟ original
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intention. Such kind of interference in communication is generalized as “pragmatic failure” by Jenny Thomas (1983). Rather than being caused solely by grammatical mistakes, it stems from different norms and pragmatic principles that govern linguistic behaviors.
More often than not, pragmatic failures trigger conflict talk, which is a natural and common language phenomenon in daily communication, especially in the intercultural context. Conflict talk is the root to cause conflict events. If the conflict talk between people with different cultural backgrounds does not terminate in peace, misunderstanding and bad feelings will break them up; if the conflict talk at the national level is not taken seriously, international issues like collapse of economy, terrorism, and war will plunge the people into an abyss of misery. Therefore, the present study chooses conflict talk in intercultural context as the research topic.
Another motivation for this study is the consideration of the current trend of development in the international situation. Since the end of the Cold War in 1989, the world has entered upon a process of modern globalization. So far, more than two decades has witnessed breathtaking changes around the world. The word has come true that “globalization is not just a trend, it‟s an imperative” (Jamison, 2004). Meanwhile, the influence of globalization, especially “culture globalization” (Gao, 2006:2), has led to people‟s growing concern about clash of civilizations and awareness of cultural diversity. Besides, China is playing an irreplaceable and influential role on the international arena as an important force in safeguarding world peace and development. In order to survive and thrive in the tide of culture globalization, Chinese culture should react positively by absorbing the essence of foreign culture and transmitting its own. The prospect of building a harmonious society, which China now advocates, calls for elimination or minimization of conflict talk in intercultural communication.
The present author hopes that the study on conflict talk will help us comprehend conflict talk deeply, avoid or terminate it consciously, and hence improve our intercultural communicative competence. In addition, it will hopefully contribute to a better understanding and appreciation of the language, society, and history of Eastern and Western cultures.
1.2 Purpose of the Study
From the academic view, conflict talk should be regarded as a dynamic process of linguistic choice instead of a consequence in communication. Therefore, for the purpose of
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avoiding conflict talk, it is not enough to offer strategies to mitigate it. Its causes should be revealed at the deep cultural level.
The purpose of this study is to analyze conflict talk from an intercultural pragmatic perspective. By collecting and classifying the dialogues selected from the two films, the present study first attempts to identify the conflict talks that happen in intercultural communication. Then it focuses on the causes of the conflict talks both at the pragmatic and cultural levels, aiming at finding out what factors affect our language choices and therefore trigger conflict talk. The objectives can be summarized into two research questions:
(1) How do the contextual factors affect people‟s linguistic choices in intercultural conflict
talks?
(2) What are the cultural constraints on people‟s adaptation failure to those contextual factors?
1.3 Methodology and Data
In terms of research methodology, the majority of present study adopts both qualitative and contrastive analysis within the theoretical framework. The qualitative aspect lies in the interpretation of conflict talk as a dynamic process of language adaptation. And the nature of intercultural communication entails the contrastive method, which can better illustrate the cultural differences that cause conflict talk. The theoretical foundations are Verschueren‟s linguistic adaptation theory, Hofstede‟s value dimensions and Hall‟s high-context and low-context cultures.
The data for this study are taken from two films, Gua Sha Treatment (2001) and PushingHands (1992). They are chosen as research material for the following reasons:
First, although film dialogues are not pure natural conversation, they are composed from real life and supposed to approximate natural conversation. Besides, the naturally occurring interaction is too difficult to capture as conflicts often arise spontaneously. So film dialogues can be treated as a model of natural conversation.
Second, as a form of mass media, film products have been playing a significant role in intercultural communication. Classic film work is the enrichment of typical characters and events, the reflection of society, and the essence of life. Gua Sha Treatment and PushingHands are two classic films that center on Chinese-American cultural differences, and theyhave owned great popularity in the international film industry.
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Finally, the two films are similar in theme but distinct on focal points. They both elaborate the Chinese immigrants‟ dilemma in the U.S., the tension between East and West, the young and the old. Frequently, the vehicle for examining that tension is the family. Although they both take “family” as the vehicle to examine the tension, Gua Sha Treatment mainly focuses on conflicts with outsiders, while Pushing Hands emphasizes conflict within family members.
1.4 Organization of the Thesis
The thesis consists of the following five chapters:
Chapter One functions as a general introduction to the present study, illustrating the motivation for the study, setting the research questions and purposes, explaining the methodology and data collection, as well as the structure of this thesis.
Chapter Two is the literature review part. First, it presents a brief introduction of the two films, the data source of this study. Then it provides an overview of conflict talk, covering the issue of conceptualization, the previous approaches of research on conflict talk, and the perspective of this thesis. Finally it expounds the theories involved and applied for the analysis of conflict talk.
Chapter Three and Chapter Four are the core parts of the study. Chapter Three is designed to answer the first research question by analysing the factors that affect the language use. If communicators fail to make adaptation to the physical world, social world, mental world and their subordinate factors, conflict talk will occur.
Chapter Four is designed to answer the second research question by exploring the cultural constraints on language users‟ linguistic choices.
Chapter Five draws a conclusion. It summarizes the whole study, points out the limitations of this study, and offers some suggestions for future study.
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Chapter Two
LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter briefly reviews the literature of the study. The first section presents a brief introduction of the two films. Then an overview of conflict talk is explored on its definition and relevant studies.
2.1 Introduction to the Two Films
Gua Sha Treatment and Pushing Hands are two classic films that share the theme onChinese-American cultural conflict, and they are both directed from the Chinese perspective and situated in American society. The two films are the source of data in this research, so it is helpful to have a general understanding of their creating backgrounds and the stories.
2.1.1 A Brief Introduction to Gua Sha Treatment
Sometimes called coining, spooning or scraping, “Gua Sha” is defined as instrument-assisted unidirectional press-stroking of a lubricated area of the body surface that intentionally creates “transitory therapeutic petechiae” representing extravasation of blood in the subcutis. It involves palpation and cutaneous stimulation where the skin is pressured, in strokes, by a round-edged instrument; that results in the appearance of small red petechiae called “Sha”, which will fade in 2 to 3 days (Nielsen, 2012). Though Gua Sha has been used for centuries as a healing technique in Asia, in Asian immigrant communities by acupuncturists and practitioners of traditional East Asian medicine, in both the clinical setting and homes, little is known in the West. Many westerners hold miscomprehensions about it or take it as a serious case of abuse. A real case happened in Pittsburgh, in 1996. A Chinese couple were accused of child abuse by the local welfare organization because they used Gua Sha to cure their child‟s illness and were deprived of guardianship. Thereafter, they suffered from lengthy lawsuits and misunderstanding from the community. Another real case revealing the incompatibility of oriental culture in American society is that in 1994, a Taiwan immigrant couple were assused of child abuse because they accidently dropped the child. Such cases generate reflections on culture clash and identity complex facing and baffling Chinese immigrants.
Zhen Xiaolong, the director of Gua Sha Treatment (2001) felt the urge to do
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something. He said: “Six years ago (1995), I filmed the TV play A Native of Beijing in NewYork. I‟m convinced that there are shortcomings in this play because it mainly conveys thesurvival difficulties met by the first generation of immigrants in the United States and how they managed to have a foothold materially, but it is in the lack of deep going depiction and analysis on cultural clashes. Years passed and I‟ve been thinking how their life is now, what they are thinking and doing, what new problems they are encountering, what changes have occurred to their belief. These questions led to my new film----Gua Sha Treatment.” (Jiang, 2001)
The story is about an episode of a Chinese immigrant family in the United States. The young couple, Xu Datong and Jian Ning, live in St. Louis and have a lovely five-year-old son named Dennis. Xu Datong is the very picture of a modern successful Chinese immigrant, who immigrated to America eight years ago and has gained great achievements in his career. Having received an award for his work on a video game, he proudly claims that his American dream has come true. However, the sweet dream soon turns into a nightmare by a series of events. One day when the couple are away at work, Dennis becomes ill. His grandfather does scrapping therapy “Gua Sha” to the child because he cannot read the English instruction on the Western pills. Unfortunately, the bruises left by the treatment come to the attention of the American hospital staff and become evidence of child abuse. Dennis is taken away and under the protection of the Children Welfare Agency of the local government. In order to free his elder father of any involvement in the case, Xu Datong confesses to the lord that he did Gua Sha to Dennis. But the differences in Eastern and Western cultures cause the Chinese couple‟s failure to justify the Gua Sha treatment and Xu Datong‟s loss of custody over his son. A happy family suddenly becomes fragmented. When the grandfather learns of the trouble he has unwittingly brought to the family, he reveals the truth to Xu‟s American friend John. Eventually the story ends happily with the accusation withdrawn and the family reunited after John tried Gua Sha treatment himself and realized its medical effect.
2.1.2 A Brief Introduction to Pushing Hands
“Pushing hands” is a term for two-person training routines practiced in internal Chinese martial arts such as tai chi. Pushing hands is said to be the gateway for students to experientially understand the martial aspects of the internal martial arts: leverage, reflex, sensitivity, timing, coordination and positioning. It works to undo a
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person's natural instinct to resist force with force, teaching the body to yield to force and redirect it (From Wikipedia). In this non-aggressive exercise between two people, one achieves balance by offering no resistance and keeping contact with the opponent until they feel they have fused into one.
The director of the film Pushing Hands (1992) is Ang Lee, who became well-known just after the release of the film. He was born in Taiwan while educated in America. On one hand, his Taiwanese upbringing kept him deeply rooted in the Chinese way of being and living. On the other hand, more than twenty years‟ life in America offered him the opportunity to understand Western culture and filmmaking techniques. This intercultural experience has allowed him to display the two worlds in a way no other director has. Together with Ang Lee's two following films, The Wedding Banquet (1993) and Eat DrinkMan Woman(1994), it forms his "Father Knows Best" trilogy, each of which deals withconflicts between an older and more traditional generation and their children as they confront a world of change.
The film Pushing Hands tells a story that goes around a family situated in America. The leading character is a retired Chinese tai chi Professor, Mr. Zhu. His son, Zhu Xiaosheng, works as a computer engineer, who has immigrated to America and married an American woman named Marsha, a freelance novelist. The couple have a son called Jeremy. After retirement, Mr. Zhu went to live with his son, assuming to enjoy his late years. However, the inability to understand English leaves the old man nothing to do but stay at home. He kills time by practicing tai chi, meditating, watching video tapes and singing Peking opera. On the other hand, Marsha is cudgeling her brains for her novel, and the noise caused by the old man makes the bad situation worse. Both Mr. Zhu and Marsha are distressed for the fact that two people under the same roof cannot do what they want and they cannot communicate with each other, either. Though promised to his wife to send his father to an elder people‟s apartment, Zhu Xiaosheng finds it hard to ask his father to leave without hurting his feelings until he learns that Mr. Zhu cares much about Mrs. Chen, a friend he met in the Chinese community. Zhu Xiaosheng and Mrs. Chen‟s daughter attempt to fix up the two old people, but it fails after Mr. Zhu finds their conspiracy and goes away from home. To make a living, Mr. Zhu washes dishes in a Chinese restaurant but is blamed for lake of speed and suffers harsh sarcasm and abuse from the owner. When the owner sends a mob of hooligans to fight the old man away, Mr. Zhu exerts tai chi
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martial art to defend against more than ten people without a step moved. Finally, the old man is taken to the police station, and Zhu Xiaosheng and Marsha see this news event reported on TV. At the end of the film, the old man chooses to rent an apartment in Chinatown and live independently. The two sides gradually adapt to each other‟s culture later although the process is painful.
2.2 An Overview of Conflict Talk
Conflict and its associated talk are pervasive but complex phenomena. Research on conflict has been extensive in numerous fields, such as anthropology, psychology, linguistics, rhetoric, sociology, philosophy, etc. Despite an extensive history investigation into conflict in the social sciences, the study of the actual discourse within conflict episodes and its features is relatively recent (Leung, 2002:1). In this part, the terms of conflict discourse are discussed and the definition of conflict talk for the current study is determined. Then the approaches of previous researches are reviewed.
2.2.1 Definition of Conflict Talk
Conflict, as the name implies, is clash or argumentative state caused by different opinions, benefits, principles, and purposes between groups or individuals. Incompatibility and opposing are the common features of conflict (Bao & Wang, 2007; Barki & Hartwick, 2004). From the issue that is involved, conflicts can be divided into political conflict, ethnic conflict, religious conflict, marital conflict, value conflict, gender conflict, etc.; from the situation where it occurs, conflicts can be classified as group conflict, family conflict, individual conflict, etc.; from the way it happens, conflict is made up of verbal conflict and non-verbal conflict, or behavior conflict. The present author discusses verbal conflict, focusing on conflict discourse as the object of this study.
So far, numerous researchers have attempted to conceptualize to the phenomenon of conflict discourse. The terms abounding in the existing literature on conflict discourse indicate the problems in delineating scope and definition. They may denote narrow to broad concept, such as contracting routine (Boggs, 1978), adversative episode (Eisenberg
＆ Garvey, 1981), aggravated disagreement (Goodwin, 1983), disagreement (Pomerantz, 1984), oppositional argument (Schiffrin, 1985), verbal discord (Krainer, 1988), dispute and disputing (Brenneis, 1988; Kotthoff, 1993), conflict talk (Grimshaw, 1990), quarrel (Antaki, 1994), disorderly discourse (Briggs, 1996), verbal opposition (Kakavá, 2001), and battle
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(Lee, 2008).
The variety in the conceptualization of conflict discourse shows that conflicts can be differentiated in the respect of degree and scope, and that not all conflicts are intense. Sometimes conflicts are conciliatory and only indicate disagreements or difference in opinions between the speaker and the listener (Wilmot & Hocker, 2001). Whatever the terms are, they all have something in common, that is, the speech of the two communicative parties proceeds in a bidirectional and confrontational way (Ran, 2010).
According to Atsuko Honda (2002), conflict can be defined on two different levels. First, in a narrow sense, conflict is defined as a speech activity in which two parties attempt to maintain their own positions by means of opposition, that is, the manifestation of negativity against the other party‟ s opposition that is opposed to one‟s own. Secondly, or more broadly, conflict talk can be viewed as a process of opposition which includes not only the manifestation of opposition, but the whole process of inducement, initiation, development, and management of opposition. Therefore, conflict talk can include various speech acts and speech events, such as arguing, disputing, quarreling, opposing and squabbling.
In social life, conflict discourse is the verbal divergence as arguments, disputes, quarrels, squabbles and the like, which is referred to as “conflict talk” by Allen D. Grimshaw (1990) in his book Conflict Talk: Sociolinguistic Investigations of Argument inConversation. As Ran Yongping (2010) concludes, Conflict talk refers to opposing orargumentative state in speech because of the different ideas of the speaker and the listener, which is a dynamic process (Leung, 2002; Zhu, 2008). It has some kind of mutual cooperative endeavor in both sides‟ speech acts (Leung, 2002).
For the purpose of the present study, the author will follow Grimshaw (1990) and use the term conflict talk when discussing such phenomena in the broad sense of conflict. In a word, conflict talk refers to verbal divergence as arguments, disputes, quarrels, squabbles and the like, caused by a real or perceived incompatibility of values, intentions, cognitions or other factors between interdependent individuals or groups.
2.2.2 Relevant Studies on Conflict Talk
Since the publication of Discourse Analysis by Z. S. Harris in 1952, the term “discourse analysis” has been taken up as an area of study in a variety of social science disciplines, including linguistics, anthropology, sociology, cognitive
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psychology, and international relations. Each discipline is subject to its own assumptions, specific theoretical perspectives, and analytical approaches such as functional grammar, ethnography of communication, conversation analysis, speech act, pragmatics, and interactional linguistics. However, despite that conflict is a common phenomenon in social interaction, little attention was paid to conflict in the area of discourse analysis until late 1970s. The reason is many-sided, one of which is that conflict talk is often seen as
“disorderly discourse” (Briggs, 1996) in which few language researchers wanted to dabble. The difficulty in getting extensive, diverse, and authentic materials of conflict talk also blocked it out of discourse analysis.
With the development of research in discourse and improvement in acquisition of conflict corpus, interest in conflict talk rose gradually. From late 1970s to early 1980s, researchers abroad began to study conflict speech as they started to pay attention to the language phenomenon of argument. Some scholars (Brenneis & Lein, 1977; Boggs, 1978; Eisenberg & Garvey, 1981) study children‟s argument, regarding argument as the opposition to the prior utterance. Jacobs and Jackson (1981) assert that argument in daily communication functions not only as a speech act, but also as a process of interactive communication, which means that argument is not an act that simply displays the disagreement between the two parties. Schiffrin (1985) also sees argument as a kind of underlying action which manifests different perspectives and opinions. From the perspective of speech act, argument is an illocutionary act with the purpose of persuasion; nevertheless, the process may be tortuous, for example, the occurrence of contradiction and conflict in speeches.
Before 1990s, most researches on conflict focused on conflict events rather than the language expressions of conflict talks. Then the 1990s saw the emergence of new
perspectives and approaches, like Grimshaw (1990). Kakav á (2001) reviews the
researches on conflict talk and divides them into three angles: 1) concerning about the
language structure (e.g. disagreement pattern) and contextual constraints (e.g. situation,
event, status of the participants); 2) concerning about the communicative strategies in
response; 3) concerning about the construction and realization of ideology and ego.
In domestic academic circle, researchers‟ attention on conflict talk began in the 21st century. Chen Xiaochun (2001) first introduced the term “dispute discourse” in domestic studies, which should be consistent with the term “conflict talk” in this thesis. The
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approaches taken in conflict talk studies include conversation analysis (CA), pragmatics, sociolinguistics and cognitive linguistics.
Previous studies at home and abroad are carried within different disciplines and lay emphasis on different aspects on conflict talk, and yet on the whole, most of them are carried from three approaches: CA approach, interactional sociolinguistic approach and pragmatic approach.
2.2.2.1 Conversation analysis approach
Conversation analysis was developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s principally by the Sacks and his associates (1974). Inspired by ethnomethodology (Garfinkel, 1967), CA theory sees conversation as a social activity with orderliness and explicit rules. This approach has been adopted to investigate the formal properties and organizational patterns of conflict talk. Within the framework of CA, conflict talk is examined from roughly three aspects.
The first one is conversation style in conflict talk, which manifests in the use of questions, ways of reply, repetition of utterance, preference in topics and so on. In daily conflicts, for instance, questions and repetition are common ways of reply when the hearer rejects the speaker or points out the speaker‟s misunderstanding. Previous studies are carried on the basis of gender differences in a view to disclose the inner connection between conversation style and conflict talk. For example, Goodwin (1990) studies argumentative style of African American boys and girls; Tannen (1990) studies conversation style of men and women in direct confrontations and thinks that women usually would adopt some language strategy to avoid conflict.
The second one is structure pattern in conflict talk, which includes move, turn-taking, adjacency pair, preference organization, etc. Pomerantz (1984) proposes that “dispreferred organization” with silence and delay is often performed to indicate conflict in communication. Zhao Yingling (2004) studies the sequential organization of conflict talk in Chinese and concludes the patterns of the initiating, oppositional, and terminating moves of conflict talk.
The third aspect is expressive features, namely, voice, intonation, verbal signals and nonverbal signals like gestures, eye contact and facial expressions. Boggs (1978) finds that conflict talk in children is triggered by linguistic signal “not”. Kendon (1992) studies how Italians express verbal conflict with clenched fists.
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The CA approach highlights the rules and sequential organization of conversation. It focuses on the process of conversational management itself and suggests that conflict can be avoided by changing the interactional structure of the conversation without referring to contextual, cultural, or psychological factors. However, those factors outside language are essential to explain how meaning is produced and interpreted. Thus, to some extent, CA approach is inadequate as a model to analyze conflict talk.
2.2.2.2 Interactional sociolinguistic approach
Interactional sociolinguistics is an interdisciplinary field of research that stems from linguistics, anthropology, and sociology. In the domain of interactional sociolinguistics, conflict talk is regarded as a social process, as Grimshaw (1990:4) indicates that “social scientists are interested in specification of the operation of conflict as a social process”. He also regards that “the social variables, such as power, gender, and contextual constraints (e.g. settings, institutional rules), all contribute to the variation of conflict talks”. Due to its diverse origin, studies from this approach cover a variety of topics.
Some researchers do contrastive studies on strategies of conflict talk, for example, the measures of getting rid of conflict, mitigating and intensifying conflict from the view of cross-gender difference, like Goodwin (1990) and Tannen (1990), who have been mentioned above. In the recent years, Farris (2000) analyzes a videotaped communication among girls and boys in a mandarin Chinese speaking preschool in Taiwan and hold that “gender is constructed via cross-sex conflicts”. Others do from the view of cross-cultural difference. Corsaro and Rizzo (1990) conduct a comparative study of children‟s conflict talks between an Italian and an American nursery-school. Williams (2005) analyzes conflict talks between a pair of Chinese American mother and daughter.
There are researchers who are interested in the conflict talk in certain social settings, for example, conflict in family (Vuchinich, 1990), in trail-court (Phillips, 1990), in workplace (O‟Donnell, 1990), and in online chat room (Du, 2006). There are also researchers who study conflict talk in certain literature genres like in fiction and play (Schiffrin, 1990; Gao, 2006). Recently, the importance of sociological factors (e.g. power, social status, personal relations) is gradually acknowledged and they are incorporated into analyses and interpretations of conflict talk. Kakavá, (2002) studies the cultural and contextual constraints in Modern Greek conflict; Gong Shuangping (2011) discusses power relations in conflict talk.
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In conclusion, the strength of interactional sociolinguistic approach lies in studying conflict talk in the specific context. Conflict behaviors are determined by social variables.
2.2.2.3 Pragmatic approach
The studies within pragmatic approach are overlapping with those within interactional sociolinguistic approach in that pragmatic theories are widely used to investigate the causes, mechanism and strategies of conflict talk as a social process.
“Face” and “politeness” are frequently studied notions in this approach. Eder (1990) finds that young women are learning communication strategies in how to resolve conflict and how to control distress resulting from both ritual insults and more subtle affronts/ assaults on personal “face”. Jiao Aihui (2010) employs the Politeness Principle to explore the format of conflict talk between friends.
Relevance Theory is also adopted by some domestic researchers to explore the cause of conflict talk. Zhao Zhongde and Zhang Lin(2005) conclude that conflict talk occur for the lack of relevance. First, the basis of relevance is the mutual-manifestness of the participants, and disagreement appears when the participants fail to reach mutual-manifestness. Second, the positive cognitive effect contributes to the speech relevance while the negative one tends to result in conflict.
“Face”, the Politeness Principle, and the Relevance Theory offer some insight into the cause of conflict talk, but they cannot explain why people would violate the principle and rules. Then some researchers resort to linguistic adaptation theory, for example, Jia Jieting (2007) and Zuo Hongyan (2010) attempt to explore the deep-rooted cause of conflict talk from physical world, social world, and mental world.
To sum up, in domestic and foreign fields, the research on conflict talk is largely conducted from CA approach, interactional sociolinguistic approach and pragmatic approach. There are fewer researches on conflict talk carried by Chinese scholars because of a relatively shorter research history on this topic. Moreover, in the domestic field, little has been done in the analysis of conflict talk in the intercultural perspective. So this study is going to combine pragmatic theory and cultural patterns with a view to analyze the cause of conflict talk in an intercultural context.
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2.3 Theoretical Foundations
2.3.1 Linguistic Adaptation Theory
The linguistic adaptation theory was first put forward by J. Verschueren in 1987. Later on it was continuously improved and enriched until the publication of the book Understanding Pragmatics (1999).
Unlike traditional way of viewing pragmatics as an additional component of a theory of language alongside with phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics, all of which share the common character of possessing a fixed analysis unit, Verschueren treats pragmatics as a functional perspective by defining pragmatics as “a general cognitive, social, and cultural perspective on linguistic phenomena in relation to their usage in forms of behavior” (Verschueren, 1999:7).
According to Verschueren, making adaptation is the key to the organism‟s survival in their process of solving and gaining the dynamic balance between the environment and themselves. Language use is also a process of adaptation, which consists of “the continuous making of linguistic choices, consciously or unconsciously, for language-internal (i.e. structural) and/ or language external reasons” (ibid.: 55-56). These choices can be situated at any level of linguistic form: phonetic/ phonological, morphological, syntactic, lexical, semantic. Besides these internal choices, there may be external options such as socially or functionally distributed types of variation.
Moreover, not only the speaker has to make choices in the process of linguistic production, but also the hearer makes choices when interpreting and understanding what the speaker says. Both types of choice-making are of equal importance for the communication flow and the way in which meaning is generated. However, not all choices, whether in production or interpretation, are made with equal consciousness: some choices are made very consciously while others are made completely automatically (Jia, 2007).
2.3.1.1 Three properties of language
The reason why language users could make choices is due to the variability, negotiability, and adaptability of language.
Variability is the property of language which defines the range of possibilities from which choices can be made (Verschueren, 1999:59). It means that language users have access to variable options, and the range of possible options cannot be taken as anything
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stable or static. It is changing constantly rather than being fixed once and for all. Therefore, during the process of communication, both sides have a series of choices and each choice may create new ones.
Negotiability is the property of language responsible for the fact that choices are not made mechanically or according to strict rules or fixed norm-function relationships, but rather on the basis of highly flexible principles and strategies (ibid.: 59). It implies that the choice-making on the both sides of the speaker and interpreter is never determined by any fixed factor. Furthermore, the choice once made can be permanently renegotiated whether by the speaker or the interpreter.
Adaptability is the property of language which enables human beings to make negotiable linguistic choices from a variable range of possibilities in such a way as to approach points of satisfaction for communicative needs (ibid.: 61). It means that linguistic choices are made in accordance with concrete communicators and context.
The three properties introduced above are inseparable. Variability and negotiability are the foundation of adaptability and make it possible, and adaptability is embodied in the process of variability and negotiability. They interact on each other and illustrate the dynamic feature of language.
2.3.1.2 Four angles of adaptability
Linguistic adaptation could be achieved from four inter-related angles, including contextual correlates of adaptability, structural objects of adaptability, dynamics of adaptability and salience of the adaptation process.
First, contextual correlates of adaptability potentially include all the ingredients of the communicative context with which linguistic choices have to be interadaptable. The range goes from aspects of the physical surroundings to social relationships between speakers and hearers and aspects of the interlocutors‟ state of mind (ibid.: 66). Communicative context consists of language users, physical world, social world and mental world. Any contextual aspect is ready to play a role once it has somehow been activated by the communicators‟ cognitive processes.
Second, since making choices takes place at all possible levels of linguistic structure that involve variability of any kind, the adaptation process is situated with reference to different structural objects of adaptability, ranging from sound feature and phoneme to discourse and beyond, or to any type of interlevel relationship. The principles of
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“structuring” are also involved.
Third, dynamics of adaptability involves an account of the actual functioning of adaptation process, that is, the ways in which communication principles and strategies are used in the making and negotiating of choices of production and interpretation.
Finally, salience of the adaptation process is a result of mental operation. Since linguistic choices are mental activities, they involve cognitive and psychological factors. Some choices are made unconsciously and automatically whereas others are consciously and purposefully. That‟s why salience varies in the adaptation process with different states of cognition and psychology.
These four angles or aspects can be seen as necessary ingredients of an adequate pragmatic perspective on any given linguistic phenomenon (ibid.: 67). They do not undertake separable tasks for the pragmatic perspective; they have different functional loads to carry within the overall framework. A description of the relationship between them is demonstrated in the following figure (ibid.: 67).
CONTEXT
Locus
STRUCTURE Meaningful
Processes
functioning
DYNAMICS
Status
SALIENCE
Figure 2.1 The Structure of A Pragmatic Theory
A combination of “contextual correlates” and “structural objects” of adaptability can be used to define the “locus” of adaptation phenomena which covers the inter-linguistic and extra-linguistic coordinates in the communicative space of a speech event. “Dynamics” of adaptability concerns the “processes” of adaptation with regard to the development over time of the relationship between context and structure. “Salience” of adaptation sheds light on their “status” in the realm of the consciousness of human beings involved. In a word, the “meaningful functioning” of language is the result of a dynamic process operating on context-structure relationships at various levels of salience (ibid.: 69).
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2.3.2 Cultural Patterns
Culture is an intricate concept that scholars in various disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, business management, communication have attempted to define. The definitions range from all-encompassing ones (“it is everything”) to narrower ones (“it is opera, art, and ballet”). One of them that includes most of the major territory of culture on which scholars currently agree is proposed by Bates and Plog (1990): culture is a system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts that the members of a society use to cope with their world and with one another, and that are transmitted from generation to generation through learning.
As noted in the definition, cultures are complex, multidimensional, all-pervasive, and consist of numerous interrelated cultural orientations as beliefs, values, norms, attitudes, and material aspects. A useful umbrella term that allows us to talk about these orientations collectively is “cultural patterns”, which refers to both the conditions that contribute to the way in which a people perceive and think about the world, and the manner in which they live in that world (Samovar, Porter & Stefani, 2000: 61).
Much taxonomy has been devised by anthropologists, social psychologists and communication scholars to analyze key behavioral patterns found in particular cultures. There are three well established classifications. The first, originally developed by Geert Hofstede (1980), identifies four value dimensions that are influenced and modified by culture. Later, a study conducted by Bond led Hofstede to add a new fifth dimension to his model. Recently in 2010, a sixth dimension was identified thanks to the research of Micheal Minkov (2007). The second grows out of the anthropological work of Kluckholm and Strodtbeck, who introduced five value orientations and five categories of beliefs and behaviors. The third is Hall‟s high-context (HC) and low-context (LC) cultures. In the present study, Hofstede‟s value dimensions and Hall‟s HC and LC cultures are used.
2.3.2.1 Hofstede‟s value dimensions
Hofstede (1980) asserts that values are “a broad tendency to prefer certain states of affairs over others”. There are three types of values: universal values, known to all the people; cultural-specific values, only proper for one particular culture; peculiar expression or deviations of individuals within cultures, which are aspects of subjective culture. He built a comprehensive model which argues that people differ in the extent to which they endorse six dimensions of values: power distance (high versus low), individualism versus
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collectivism, masculinity versus femininity, uncertainty avoidance (high versus low), temporal orientation (long-term versus short-term), and indulgence versus restraint (Hofstede, Hofstede & Minkov, 2010).
The first cultural dimension is power distance, which is defined as “the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally” (Hofstede et al., 2010: 61). Power distance deals with human inequality in the range of wealth, prestige, status and influence. In high-power-distance countries, people believe that social members are not equal in this world and that everybody has a rightful place. Social hierarchy is prevalent and institutionalizes inequality (Samovar, Porter & Stefani, 2000: 71). On the contrary, people in low-power-distance countries hold that inequality should be minimized. They believe that they are close to power and should have access to that power (ibid.).
The second cultural dimension is individualistic orientation versus collective orientation. In cultures that tend toward individualism, the individual is the single most important unit in any social setting. The specific features are presented as follows: An “I” consciousness prevails: competition rather cooperation is encouraged; personal goals take precedence over group goals; people tend not to be emotionally dependent on organizations and institutions; and every individual has the right to his or her private property, thoughts, and opinions. These cultures stress individual initiative and achievement, and they value individual decision making. (Samovar, Porter & Stefani, 2000: 68). Conversely, collectivism means greater emphasis on the following aspects: A “we” consciousness prevails: identity is based on the social system; the individual is emotionally dependent on organizations; organizations invade private life and the clans to which individuals belong; and individuals trust group decisions (ibid.).
The third one is masculinity versus femininity. Hofstede uses the two words to refer to the degree to which masculinity and femininity traits are valued. In cultures that value masculinity as a trait, gender roles are differentiated: men are taught to be assertive, tough and focused on material success whereas women modest, obedient, and devoted to family. On the other hand, in femininity-valued cultures, gender roles are more equal and fluid: men need not be assertive; caring and nurturing behaviors are stressed for both men and women.
The fourth cultural dimension is uncertainty avoidance, defined as the extent to which
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the members of a culture feel threatened by unknown situations. It focuses on the tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity within the society. High-uncertainty-avoidance cultures reveal a low tolerance for uncertainty and a high preference for stability by establishing formal rules, seeking consensus, and believing in absolute truths and the attainment of expertise. In contrast, low-uncertainty-avoidance cultures are less rule-oriented, more willing to take risks, more flexible, and more likely to accept conflicts.
The fifth dimension, long-term orientation versus short-term orientation, initially called “Confucian dynamic”, was found by Bond and added by Hofstede to his former research results later. It describes societies‟ time horizon. Long-term oriented societies attach more importance to the future. They foster pragmatic values oriented towards rewards. In short-term oriented societies, values promoted are related to the past and the present, including steadiness, respect for tradition, preservation of one‟s face, reciprocation and fulfilling social obligations.
The sixth dimension is indulgence versus restraint. Indulgence stands for a tendency to allow relatively free gratification of basic and natural human desires related to enjoying life and having fun. Its opposite pole, restraint, reflects a conviction that such gratification needs to be curbed and regulated by strict social norms (Hofstede et al., 2010: 281).
Although Hoftede‟s cultural dimensions theory has been criticized in that the country score is unreliable in some cases (Spector, Cooper & Sparks, 2001), The model has been applied in the practice of many domains of human social life, and has been checked for validity more than any other cultural values (Ambos & Schlegelmilch, 2008).
2.3.2.2 Hall‟s HC and LC cultures
Edward T. Hall, an American anthropologist, offers another effective means of examining cultural similarities and differences in both perception and communication. He categorizes cultures as being either high or low context, depending on the degree to which meaning comes from the settings or from the words being exchanged (Hall, 1976). The word “context” is defined as “the information that surrounds an event; it is inextricably bound up with the meaning of the event.” (Hall & Hall, 1990: 6)
A high-context (HC) communication or message is one in which most of the information is either in the physical context or internalized in the person, while very little is in the coded, explicitly transmitted part of the message (Hall, 1976:79). It is characterized by its indirect, nonverbal reliance mode talk and listener-sensitive values.
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Meaning is conveyed through gestures, the environment, and even silence. A low-context (LC) communication is just the opposite; i.e., the mass of information is vested in the explicit code (ibid.). It is characterized by its direct verbal mode talk and speaker-oriented values. According to the Halls, although all cultures contain some characteristics of both high and low variables, most can be placed along a scale showing their ranking on this dimension:
Table 2.1 Cultures Arranged Along the High-Context and Low-Context Dimension
High-Context Cultures Low-Context
Japanese Chinese Korean African American Native American
Arab Greek Latin Italian English French
American Scandinavian German German Swiss
(Samovar, Porter & Stefani, 2000: 80)
The general characteristics of HC and LC cultures reflect the differences in communication style across national cultures. But the study of HC and LC cultures mirrors the differences at a deeper level in modes of thinking, interpersonal relationship, and particularly cultural values.
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Chapter Three
ADAPTATION FAILURE IN CONFLICT TALK
In this chapter, the data will be analyzed and discussed by looking into the contextual factors that affect people‟s linguistic choices. The process of conflict talk is to be illustrated in the first section; then the failure in adapting to the physical, social, and mental worlds is to be explained with data from Gua Sha Treatment and Pushing Hands.
3.1 The Process of Confict Talk
Verbal communication is a process of linguistic adaptation, and conflict talk in verbal communication is caused by the failure of adaptability. Before examining the failure of adaptability in the conflict talk, the process of conflict talk should be clarified in the first place.
3.1.1 Three Properties of Confict Talk
According to Verschueren‟s linguistic adaptation theory, the possibility of making linguistic choices depends on three properties of language, namely, variability, negotiability, and adaptability. As a verbal communication process, conflict talk is entitled with these three language properties.
First, there is a wide range of choices that are accessible to language users. The variability of conflict speech is embodied at all sorts of levels. For example, when speakers are conveying conlict, the choice of raising the volume and tone is based on the phonetic level; the choice of using negative word like “no” is based on the level of morphme; the choice of using imperative sentence and rhetorical question is based on the syntactic level.
Seconed, the choice-making on the both sides of conlict participants is never static or fixed once and for all. Negotiability in conflict talk means the same idea can be expressed via different linguistic choices and the same linguistic choices can generate different communicative effects. The negotiation process begins when speakers make linguistic choices based on highly flexible communicative principles and strategies to escalate or mitigate conflict.
Finally, adaptability is the property of language which enables human beings to make
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negotiable linguistic choices from a variable range of possibilities in such a way as to approach points of satisfaction for communicative needs. The communicative needs are always generated from specific context and therefore require linguistic choices that adapt to contextual factors. As often as not, speakers consciously or unconsciously fail to adapt to those factors, and then arouse conflict talk.
3.1.2 Contextual Correlates of Adaptability
The three properties of conflict talk are closely related, among which adaptability is at the core of language use (Verschueren, 1999: 63). As discussed in Chapter Two, contextual correlates of adaptability is one of the four inter-related angles that contribute to the achievement of linguistic adaptation. These potentially include all the ingredients of the communicative context with which linguistic choices have to be interadaptable. The range goes from aspects of the physical surroundings to social relationships between speakers and hearers and aspects of the interlocutors‟ state of mind (ibid.: 66). A sketchy summary of the contextual correlates can be presented as Figure 3.1 (ibid.: 76).
Figure 3.1 Contextual Correlates of Adaptability
Utterer (U) and interpreter (I) are presented as focal points of communicative context, since they are indispensable to make production choices and interpretation choices respectively. U and I are also important in that they choose contextual elements from the physical, social, and mental worlds. It is worth mentioning that 1) U and I represent functional entities or social roles rather than real-world people, so the nature of linguistic
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utterance is influenced by the type of U and I; 2) the contextual aspects of the three worlds are not strictly separated (hence the dashed lines are used).
As is shown in the above figure, the solid lines represent the communicators‟ lines of vision, and the part which is both within the three worlds and the vision is supposed to be activated by the communicators‟ cognitive process. Since communicators simultaneously live in the three worlds, their production and interpretation choices are influenced by their conditions in the communicative context. This point is to be further addressed later.
3.1.3 The Model of Conflict Talk as Failure of Adaptability
Jia Jieting (2007) formulates a general process of conflict talk in light of Verschueren‟s linguistic adaptation theory, which describes and explains the dynamic adaptation of language use. The model of the process is used here for the convenience of analysis. (Figure 3.2)
Figure 3.2 The Model of Conflict Talk as Failure of Adaptability
In this model of conflict talk, language users are engaged in verbal communication which involves language use, and language use embodies constant linguistic choices at all sorts of levels. The variability of conflict talk is the source of choices, and both the utterer and interpreter participate in the negotiable process of choice-making in which the utterer produces utterance and the interpreter decodes it. When making choices, however, the
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utterer fails to adapt to the contextual factors in the physical, social and mental worlds or the interpreter neglects those factors, which lead to conflict talk. The model helps us to understand the cause of conflict talk, which is the concentration of the present study.
3.2 Failure in Adapting to Physical World
Time and space are the most rudimentary physical background related to dialogues. As noted by Verschueren, “Temporal deixis and spatial deixis are the most studied, and most visible ways of anchoring language choices into a physical world.” (Verschueren, 1999: 95) Both the utterer and the interpreter are influenced by temporal and spatial factors in the process of making linguistic choices.
3.2.1 Time
According to Verschueren, “time” is a relative notion rather than an absolute value in relation to language, and that it interferes with a lot of other considerations”(ibid.). Take greetings for example. “Good morning” is commonly used when people meet each other for the first time in the morning and “Good evening” after dark. They are usually appropriate considering the stretches of time, but if someone meets the same person for the second time on that morning or evening, they are no longer appropriate linguistic choices. Also, both “Good evening” and “Good night” are used in the evening but the former can be used upon meeting or parting while the latter can only be used upon parting at a time (ibid.).
When we talk about temporal factors, or temporal reference, it is worth attention that temporal reference includes event time, time of utterance and reference time. Event time refers to the time when the event happens. For example, Beijing held the Olympic Gamesin 2008. The phrase“in 2008”in this sentence is the event time. Time of utterance servesas the deictic center. For example, There is a speech contest tomorrow. The phrase “tomorrow” here is the deictic center of the utterance. Except the time of utterance, utterance may also place events in relation to a deictic center. “Often relations to such a reference time are indicated with temporal adverbs such as when, after, before, and the like” (ibid.: 96).
Moreover, temporal reference is characterized by a significant degree of indeterminacy. Consider the example: Today the world has become a global village. The temporal phrase “Today” does not only refer to the day of speaking, but also a time period
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that we cannot tell exactly how long it is.
In communication, if language users fail to take temporal reference into consideration or fail to recognize the time view employed by the other part, misunderstanding and conflict talk will break out.
Example 1:
The doorkeeper: Hey, hey, hey!
Datong: Merry Christmas!
The doorkeeper: Mr. Xu? Hey, man! You are going to be arrested all side if you come
here.
Datong: Oberman, this is Christmas Eve. I just should get back to my
family.
The doorkeeper: No, no, no, no. You can’t do. Look, you’ve always been a good tenement. You never cause me in, but I can get into some deep shit if I help you violate the restraining gun. Sorry.
(After being refused by the doorkeeper, Xu is climbing the 19th floor of the building from the sewer to get into his flat.)
----Gua Sha Treatment
The conversation happens on Christmas Eve. After Xu Datong loses the case, he has to separate himself from his wife and son. But on Christmas Eve, when his son Dennis is expecting him at home, he dresses up as Santa Claus and attempts to deceive the doorkeeper. Unfortunately, he is recognized and driven out by the doorkeeper.
Here, Christmas is a temporal factor that Xu Datong is adapting to when he tries to defend himself and persuade the doorkeeper. But obviously the doorkeeper is adapting to another temporal factor, that is, the time when Xu Datong is forbidden to see his son. In this example, the failure of making adaptation to each other ‟s temporal reference results in the direct opposition.
3.2.2 Space
Space does not simply refer to the environmental conditions where communication takes place. As a contextual correlate of adaptability, spatial concepts extend beyond mere spatial deixis. In many areas of human experience, standard metaphors are formed based on spatial concepts, which can indicate time (e.g. after tomorrow), sound (e.g. a high
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voice), status (e.g. upper class), and social relationships (e.g. close friends).
Similar to the concrete event time in temporal reference, there are absolute spatial relations in spatial reference (e.g. South-North, East-West) and intrinsic orientations. Besides, spatial reference is usually related to a perspective, which can either be utterer space or reference space. The former means that the deictic center is the utterer; the latter indicates that the deictic center is anything outside the utterer, e.g. the interpreter.
In face-to-face communication, the utterer often makes his/her perspective coincide with that of an interpreter, or utterly adapt to the interpreter‟s perspective with a view to realize communicative needs. Failing to take spatial factors into account will lead to conflict.
Example 2:
Xiaosheng: And when can I start reading your new book?
Marsha: There is no new book, can't you tell? Shit Alex, are you as out of it as
your father?
Xiaosheng: You don't know my father.
Marsha: I have spent every single day in the same room with that man since he
showed up here a month ago. Alex, it's impossible. He's taken over my
work room. I just don't have the space to think.
Xiaosheng: Not enough space? In China, this house is big enough for four families.
----Pushing Hands
Marsha is a freelance novelist who works at home. Since the arrival of Xiaosheng‟s father, she has spent every day with the old man in the same house, which appears to be a disaster to her creation.
The conflict talk begins with Marsha‟s complaint about Xiaosheng‟s father, and escalates as the issue of “space” is brought up. In Marsha‟s perspective, she requires personal space that is quiet and loose, but the existence of his father-in-law makes it impossible. When she says “I just don‟t have the space to think”, the spatial reference that she is adapting to is the space without disturbance. However, in Xiaosheng‟s perspective, the house is big enough for four families, since it is natural and traditional in China that three or four generations live under the same roof, sharing together family time and space. So he neglects Marsha‟s spatial reference and responds with a strong disagreement.
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3.3 Failure in Adapting to Social World
Adaptation to social world is a more complex and subtle process. “There is no principle limit to the range of social factors that linguistic choices are interadaptable with. Most of them have to do with properties of social settings or institutions” (ibid.: 91). Within these social settings or institutions, many linguistic choices are subject to the social relationships of dependence and authority, or power and solidarity, “not only between utterer and interpreter, but also between utter and/or interpreter and any third party that either figures the topic of the discourse or is otherwise involved” (ibid.).
Meanwhile, Verschueren proposes that “Culture, with its invocation of norms and values, has indeed been a favorite social-world correlate to linguistic choices in pragmatic literature” (ibid.: 92). As has been talked about earlier, culture is complex, multidimensional, all-pervasive, influencing communicative settings and communicative norms.
In addition, other social-world dimensions such as gender, age, kinship, profession, level of education, and social class also influence linguistic choices. In this thesis, the social relationships of power and solidarity, communicative norms and kinship are discussed as typical social factors in conflict talk.
3.3.1 Power and Solidarity
The concepts of power and solidarity, initiated by Brown and Gilman, are two dimensions for language comprehension, vertically and horizontally, and reflect the social relations between the addresser and addressee. “Social settings and institutions impose many types of principles and rules on the ways in which certain types of linguistic acts can be performed, or who has the right to perform them. They even determine the „performability‟ of certain acts under specified circumstances” (ibid.: 92). Social relationships of power and solidarity evolve from those principles and rules, and guide peoples‟ linguistic acts. Power and solidarity relationships in a society have much to do with its interpersonal relationships, including parenthood, friendship, and couple relationship.
3.3.1.1 Parenthood
Example 3:
Datong: Dennis, I want you to apologize to Paul.
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John: It’s no big deal.
Datong: Yes, it is. Come on, apologize to Paul.
(Dennis keeps playing the game.)
Datong: Say you are sorry.
John: Kids fight and make up. Let it go.
Datong: Come on, I count three. One... two... two and a half.
(Dennis spitting with fury, Datong hits him on the head.)
Datong: Say you are sorry.
Dennis (crying): He said you were a stupid.
Grandpa: 当面教子，背后教妻，啊？(Disciplining your son in public, and
disciplining your wife avoiding others’ eyesight.)”
----Gua Sha Treatment
The scene shows a typical Chinese way of disciplining children in public. When Datong hears that Dennis hits Paul, his boss John‟s son, he feels powerful and responsible to discipline Dennis. So Datong makes adaptation to his power as a father and chooses to give orders. On the other hand, Dennis‟s failure in adapting to this parenthood factor and ignorance to his father‟s words is seen as a challenge to Datong‟s authority. Then the conflict talk worsens into conflict movement, Datong hitting Dennis on the head.
Example 4:
Jeremy: Mum, can I watch cartoon?
Mr. Zhu: 来，杰米，吃块肉。吃肉长肉，啊。(Here, Jeremy, have some meat and
put some meat on your bones!)
Jeremy: 我不要，谢谢。(I don't want it, thank you.)
Marsha: Jeremy, finish milk and you can watch TV.
Mr. Zhu: 说什么？(What did she say?)
Xiaosheng: 喝光奶才可以看电视。(If he finishes his milk, he can watch TV.)
Mr. Zhu: 美国教小孩，好像做买卖，什么都谈条件。这小孩吃饭都不专心，还
有什么是值得专心的呢？(To teach children in America is like to do
business, talking about everything on terms. If children can't concentrate on eating, what else can they concentrate on?)
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Xiaosheng: 是呀，爸。(You are right, father.)
Mr. Zhu: 还有这美国动画，完全是怪力乱神，唯恐天下不乱。哪可以给孩子看？
简直是鬼打架。咱们古有明训……(And, these American cartoons are
only adding weirdness and violence to this messed up world. For children? It's just a mess. Our sages said...)
Xiaosheng: 爸，吃饭吧！您别介意，是怕您菜凉了。(Dad, eat! Don't get upset. I'm
just afraid your dinner's getting cold.)
----Pushing Hands
The conversation happens at the dinner table in which four family members are
engaged. When Jeremy declines the meat Mr. Zhu passes to him, Mr. Zhu‟s authority as a
patriarch is frustrated. Then the negotiation between Marsha and Jeremy further collides
with his view on children education and parenthood. Mr. Zhu presents his idea
disapprovingly to Xiaosheng, who tries to mitigate the conflict at the first time but loses
patience as Mr. Zhu keeps lecturing, and then the communication breaks down. On
Marsha‟s part, solidarity is more preferred in the relationship between parent and child in
which Jeremy has the freedom to follow his own will under the condition that he fulfill the
obligation. Although there is no verbal exchange between Mr. Zhu and Marsha, the conflict
talk in essence is caused by their failure in adapting to each other‟s parenthood.
3.3.1.2 Friendship
Example 5:
Datong: I don't want to talk to you.
John: Datong, I'm so…very sorry. I am trying to tell you...
Datong: I said I don't want to talk to you. Would you please give me a break?
John: I couldn't lie. They knew everything.
Datong: Leave me alone! I don’t have the time or the intention to help you to justify
your action. I just want to get my son home to get my life back.
John: And that's why more than ever you need this job!
Datong: I considered you as my friend, but you sold me out. How the hell do you
expect me to work with you again?
John: I just told the truth! You shouldn’t have hit Dennis.
----Gua Sha Treatment