（外国语言学及应用语言学专业论文）《老友记》中的冲突性话语分析.pdf

摘要摘要 话语冲突是一种普遍而且复杂的语言现象，频繁地发生于人们互动交际的过 程中。狭义上话语冲突可指一种言语行为，如不赞同 （disagreeing）和反对 （opposing）等。广义上话语冲突可指一种言语事件，如争论(arguing)， 反驳 (disputing)等。无论从狭义或广义来看，冲突都有一个共同的特征，一方话语与 另一方话语发生冲突，这种冲突表现为交际的一方反对另一方的言行、举止或对 方的观点，继而产生话语冲突。这常常导致交际中断从而成为成功交际的一大障 碍。 话语冲突的研究已经引起了各学科领域的关注，如社会学，人类学及语言学 等分别从不同的角度探讨了话语冲突。 但是因为其语言结构的杂乱无章和语料收 集难度的制约，话语冲突一直没有受到语言学界的足够关注。与国外相比，国内 关于冲突话语的分析更是刚刚起步。 本文试图从语篇分析的视角分析和研究话语冲突这种语言现象。本文的语料 来自美国情景喜剧六人行 （又译老友记 ） 。采用定性和定量的方法，对英 语语境下的冲突话语的起始、激化、结束三个阶段分别进行系统的分析，总结冲 突话语的模式。 通过分析戏剧中的冲突话语，本文得到以下结果：1、在起始阶段，主要有 三种起始模式：表态称述-否定性表态、指令-拒绝和质疑-否定性回答。冲突双方 为了避免冲突深化，更多的倾向于间接的语言表达方式。2、在激化阶段，争论 式和非顺从式是两种主要的模式。 3、在结束阶段的五种模式中，顺从式、第三 者介入式和不分胜负式是戏剧中主要的三种结束模式。 冲突双方有时还会使用和 解让步式来解决冲突。虽然本文是基于情景喜剧的冲突话语研究，但由于戏剧话 语与真实话语具有相似性， 这些研究结果在一定程度上对自然冲突话语的产生和 构建模式也有所启迪。 本文希望通过对话语冲突这一语言现象进行更全面系统的分析，了解话语冲 突产生的原因以及如何有效地避免、缓解、消除话语冲突， 从而对构建和谐社 会起到积极的作用。 关键词：关键词：冲突话语; 话语分析; 模式; 言语行为; 礼貌原则 abstract conflict talk, which is a natural but complicated language phenomenon, frequently occurs in daily communication. in the narrow sense, the term conflict talk refers to a type of speech act, e.g. disagreeing, opposing, and arguing. in the broad sense, it refers to a type of interaction, e.g. the adversarial episode, the contracting routine, oppositional argument, quarrel, and disputes. all these terms have one core common feature, that is, one participant is disagreeing with another when they have different interests or opinions, which often leads to communication breakdowns and creates barriers to successful communication. the study on conflict talk has been conducted in such fields as sociology, anthropology, linguistics, and so on. however, linguistic means of conducting conflict talk among adults did not receive much attention because conflict talk is regarded as a type of disorderly discourse and the data is not easily gathered. compared with the study abroad, the study on conflict talk in china is far from being thoroughly conducted. the present study makes an attempt to analyze conflict talk systematically from the perspective of discourse analysis. methodologically speaking, the present study belongs to a both qualitative and quantitative study based on the data collected from the popular sitcom friends. discourse analysis is adopted to analyze the structure of the conflict talk, in which three phases are analyzed respectively: the initiating phase, the maintaining or escalating phase, and the terminating phase. through the analysis three findings are obtained: (1) there are three formats of initiating conflict talk in the first phase: claim vs. counter claim, directive vs. refusal, and provoking question vs. opposed answer. disputants tend to choose more indirect expressions in order to avoid further dispute. (2) in the phase of maintaining or escalating conflict talk, argumentative and non-obedience are two major formats. (3) among the five formats within the terminating phase, submission, third party intervention, and stand-off are three major formats employed in the sitcom. although these findings come from the dramatic dialogues occurring in the fictional situation, they might shed light on the research of naturally occurring conflict talks because of the similarity between the two kinds of corpus. it is expected that the present study could present a more comprehensive and systematic illustration of this linguistic phenomenon. moreover, the thesis also probes into the social significance of the study on conflict talk by analyzing formats of mitigation and termination of conflict talk and understanding the cause of conflict talk for the purpose of achieving reunification and harmony in communication. key words: conflict talk; discourse analysis; format; speech act; politeness principles 93 上海交通大学上海交通大学 学位论文原创性声明学位论文原创性声明 本人郑重声明：所呈交的学位论文，是本人在导师的指导下， 独立进行研究工作所取得的成果。除文中已经注明引用的内容外，本 论文不包含任何其他个人或集体已经发表或撰写过的作品成果。 对本 文的研究做出重要贡献的个人和集体，均已在文中以明确方式标明。 本人完全意识到本声明的法律结果由本人承担。 学位论文作者签名：孙云雯 日期：2009 年 1 月 9 日 94 上海交通大学上海交通大学 学位论文版权使用授权书学位论文版权使用授权书 本学位论文作者完全了解学校有关保留、使用学位论文的规定， 同意学校保留并向国家有关部门或机构送交论文的复印件和电子版， 允许论文被查阅和借阅。 本人授权上海交通大学可以将本学位论文的 全部或部分内容编入有关数据库进行检索，可以采用影印、缩印或扫 描等复制手段保存和汇编本学位论文。 保密保密，在 年解密后适用本授权书。 本学位论文属于 不保密 不保密。 （请在以上方框内打“” ） 学位论文作者签名：孙云雯 指导教师签名：周国强 日期：2009 年 1 月 9 日 日期：2009 年 1 月 9 日 acknowledgements many people have helped me when i have been working on this study. first and foremost, i would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor prof. zhou guoqiang for his valuable suggestions, guidance and encouragement throughout the course of this work, for his constant willingness to help me with my project, and for his insightful comments and careful proofreading of the final version of the thesis. and also many thanks would be given to all teachers from the school of foreign languages, especially professor chen demin, and professor wang kaihu, who once and for ever support, encourage and inspire me. my special thanks also go to my friends and classmates who have given me continuous assistance and encouragement. their support and understanding have always been the source of energy of my research and life. 1 chapter 1 introduction 1.1 introduction the analysis of discourse refers to the analysis of language in use. (brown brown and levinson, 1987; sacks, schegloff lakoff, 1973). with the further development of da, many discourse analysts abroad have been particularly concerned with the analyses of class conversation, court dialogue, and conflict talk, among which conflict talk is a kind of complicated social and cultural phenomena. being a branch of the field of da, conflict talk has been studied by various scholars since the early 1980s. a growing body of literature focuses on the conflict development, including contributions of different aspects of conflict talk in the area of anthropological linguistics, sociolinguistics, pragmatics and discourse analysis. william corsaro philips, 1990); in family talk and family dinners (schiffrin, 1990; vuchinich, 1990; muntigl, 1998), as well as in talk shows and phone-in broadcasts (bilmes, 1988; hutchby, 1996). the majority of the related research works are in the framework of face theory, which holds that one of the major characteristics of conflict communication turned out to be an increased tendency to use face-threatening acts (cf. muntigl and turnbull, 1998). thus, the present thesis aims at investigating the structural features of conflict talks and the description, proportion, and explanation of strategies employed in initiating, maintaining or escalating, and terminating conflict talks in the framework of an ethomethodological-oriented discourse analysis and speech act theory. all the conflict talks are extracted from the 3 sitcom friends. 1.2.1 dialogue in the sitcom versus naturally occurring conversation the sitcom (situation comedy) first appeared in the united states. it is currently produced all around the world and enjoys great popularity among the people. many countries have accepted this drama style and sitcom has been ranked among the most popular programs on the silver screen. in order to investigate the relationship between social and cultural background and tv programs, it is absolutely necessary and significant to pay attention to this style of program and to explore the development of sitcom in the future. a sitcom is a genre of comedy performance originally designed for radio but today typically found on television. sitcoms usually consist of recurring characters in a format in which there are one or more humorous story lines centered within a common environment, such as a family setting or workplace. according to the definition this drama genre has the following important features: the participants (more than two), the setting, and participation in the action of communication (usually in the form of speech). thus, it is clear that this style relies hugely on the dialogues conducted by characters to delineate its plot. being extracted from a certain kind of dramatic genre, the dialogues under discussion presents a paradox on the stage. on the one hand, when such dialogues move on throughout the drama, it becomes essentially unreal. on the other hand, the dialogue must still appear real. it belongs to a fictional dialogue, spoken or to be spoken by fictional characters, not like real, daily, and naturally occurring conversations for the reason that it is not genuine transcriptions of actual conversations. in spite of the aforementioned differences between fictional dialogues and actual conversations, it does not mean that fictional dialogues cannot be analyzed by the same procedures as actual conversations. on the contrary, dramatic dialogues can be analyzed as actual conversations because the stage conventions for dialogues are not castles in the air; they are based on realities. the principles, norms and 4 conventions of use which are applied to ordinary conversation are the resource that dramatists use to create dramatic dialogues in plays. thus, there are a number of respects in which naturally occurring conversations are similar to drama dialogues. frankly speaking, if there were no relation between ordinary conversation and drama, it would be difficult for dramatists to write plays and for us to understand them. it is found that there are certain similarities and differences between dramatic dialogues and naturally occurring dialogues in many aspects both on the macro-level and micro-level, such as the organization of turns and sequences, opening and closing procedures, and turn-taking patterns. hence many stylisticians regard “discourse models as valuable to the study of dialogue in drama” (burnham, 1993: 8, 96) and more generally, in fictional texts. burtons argument is persuasive that literary dialogues could be read as condensed forms of ethnographic observations of naturally occurring talks, and literary authors should be regarded as fellow researchers into the basic structures of verbal interaction. according to burtons discussion, dialogue in the drama sounds like naturally occurring conversation. moreover, when it is used and analyzed as if it were a transcript of real conversation, it is an “extremely powerful heuristic device for the discourse analyst trapped into a way of seeing by other styles of data” (burnham, 1993:96). as drama is one of the most complex forms of art, it is only in recent years that dramatic study has seen its upsurge in stylistics. some stylists, specialized in pragmatics and discourse analysis, have been trying to change the situation. however, as keppler (1994) reports, empirical studies of naturally occurring conflicts among adults and in families are rare. for one thing, as aforementioned, researchers did not venture into this form of ostensibly disruptive behavior. for another, there are several difficulties in obtaining authentic data for the analysis of verbal conflict. disputes usually take place spontaneously, which makes it very difficult to obtain the complete recordings of verbal conflicts. in addition, dispute is often viewed as part of the private sphere, as backstage talk (goffman, 1967) that has to be kept secret. therefore, the investigation of verbal conflict faces a major methodological problem. these problems in obtaining suitable data for the analysis of verbal conflict are 5 reflected in the research on conflict talk. for this reason, a different data source for the present analysis of conflicts is employed. the present investigation is based on a corpus of the conversations extracted from the sitcom friends, under the assumption that the disputes among friends might be comparable to naturally occurring disputes. in fact, several researchers have drawn on dialogues in plays for the analysis of conflict discourse, for example, schank (1977) uses both authentic everyday conversations and fictitious dialogues (from prose and drama) as data for the linguistic study of conflict talk, on the assumption that the differences between conflict talk in real life and fiction are minimal. jaworski (2000) examines the interactional relevance of silence to the dynamics of social relations between the characters in edward albees whos afraid of virginia woolf?. aronsson (1987) argues that, although the script does not offer a direct recording of real disputes, due to its autobiographic aspects, “it echoes authentic struggles once fought” (p.194). rather than considering the fictionality of the data as a drawback, he regards it as a benefit: “the limits of the data presented in the play are fixed by artistic licence, though the play is possibly even more real than reality.” (p.150). therefore, the working hypothesis of this study is that the procedures for the analysis of naturally occurring conversation are profitable for the study of play talk and, conversely, that dramatic dialogue might be a rewarding research object for the analysis of everyday conversation in some degree, and particular for the study of conflict talk. 1.2.2 the sitcom friends friends is an american sitcom about a group of 6 friends (rachel karen green, monica geller, phoebe buffay, joey francis tribbiani, chandler muriel bing and ross geller) in the greenwich village area of manhattan, new york city. it was originally broadcast from 1994 to 2004 with 10 seasons and more than 200 episodes. the show has been broadcast in more than 100 countries and still continues to attract good ratings for its episodes in syndication. from the 10 years run, the show had won 6 emmys, including one for outstanding comedy series. it also received a golden 6 globe, 2 screen actors guild awards, and 56 other various awards with 152 nominations. below is a brief introduction of these 6 main characters and more detailed storylines and formats can be found in the appendix: rachel green, who is a popular schoolgirl of the past, is now a spoiled brat living off her fathers finance. in an attempt to start a new life after running out on her wedding, she shares an apartment with an old best friend monica gellar, and eventually befriends the other 4 and monicas older brother, ross. monica gellar is a compulsive neat freak, who has trouble with her love life. monica was teased when she was in high school for being overweight. however, now a head-chef at a top restaurant in manhattan, she has lost all her excessive weight, and just wants to start a family with the right guy to complete a happy life. ross gellar, older brother of monica, has always had strong love feelings for rachel. as a successful professor of science he is often teased by the other 5 friends about his profession. ross has experienced many misfortunes in life, including 3 divorces and bringing up a child with his lesbian ex-wife. ross now is devoted to finding a girl to settle down with, without a divorce, and makes it his personal goal to share happiness with rachel. phoebe buffay was brought up as a fatherless child. she is a ditzy yet loveable hippy, who has become a personal masseuse. despite liking her profession, her dream is to become a star in the music industry and bases her songs on her life experiences. the other 5 friends secretly believe that phoebe will never make it, but still encourage her to write. phoebe often performs at the central perk coffee house, and strongly believes in herself. chandler bing is a financially secure data processor, who relies on humor as a defense mechanism. despite being rich, the other 5 have no idea what his profession is, and chandler is a wimpy, average looking cigarette addict, who has never had a serious relationship. will he ever get it, and is she just round the corner from him? joey tribbiani, despite being close to all the friends, is especially open with chandler, who is also his roommate. joey is a small time actor, who desperately wants fame and fortune, and chandler has high hopes of joey and helps joey with money for acting lessons and professional photographs. despite being a relatively bad actor, joey is an 7 adorable, sensitive guy, who is very successful with women, but needs to become famous and rich to complete his successful life. 1.3 research methodology and data collection as schank (1977) notes, several studies have shown that from the perspective of conflict analysis “disputes in plays are comparable to naturally occurring ones” (p.20), some plays may even be “more real than reality” (p.24). therefore it is feasible to adopt a discourse analytic approach to probe the organization of such constructed conflict talk. besides, the framework provided by garvey and shantz (1992) is also employed for analyzing conflict talk by locating four dimensions. first, orientation: is it playful or serious? second, format: is it ritualized or non-ritualized? third, frame: is it real or non-real (i.e. pretend)? and fourth, mode: is it aggravated or mitigated? according to their framework, the present study sources are serious and real ones. structurally, the analyzing approach employed here consists of three moves: initiated parts, maintained or escalated parts, and terminated parts. methodologically speaking, the present research integrates both qualitative and quantitative analysis. it is also data-driven and theory-driven at the same time. all the data and transcriptions are collected directly from the episodes in season 2 and season 3 of the popular american sitcom friends. 1.3.1 qualitative approach the qualitative approach of coming up to the present pragmatic pattern of conflict talk consists of the collection of data and the identification and categorization of the data with regard to linguistic forms, structural formats, communication functions, etc. 1.3.2 quantitative a