Full Description
Studies of language use in social contexts have multiplied in recent decades, yet relatively little attention has been paid to the important area of conflict talk. The eleven studies in this volume fulfil this need, using analytic and interpretative perspectives to examine the disputes of adults and of children. Most of the studies are based on audio or sound-image records of naturally occurring discourse arising in a variety of contexts. These range from street to school, from courtroom to hospital, and from home to workplace. Allen Grimshaw has provided a short introductory chapter and extensive theoretical conclusion to the studies, which come from a variety of disciplines: the authors comprise anthropologists, linguists, sociologists, a lawyer and a psychologist. The book will appeal to researchers and advanced students in all of these areas, and also to counsellors, legal professionals and negotiators.
Contents
List of contributors; Preface; Part I. Introduction: 1. Introduction Allen D. Grimshaw; Part II. The Studies: Learning to Argue: 2. Disputes in the peer culture of American and Italian nursery-school children William A. Corsaro and Thomas A. Rizzo; 3. Serious and playful disputes: variation in conflict talk among female adolescents Donna Eder; 4. Interstitial argument Charles Goodwin and Marjorie Harness Goodwin; 5. The sequential organisation of closing verbal family conflict Samuel Vuchinich; Part III. The Studies: How 'Grown-ups Do It': 6. Ideological themes in reports of interracial conflict Teresa Labov; 7. Oracular reasoning in a psychiatric exam: the resolution of conflict in language Hugh Mehan; 8. Rules versus relationships in small claims disputes John M. Conley and William M. O'Barr; 9. The judge as third party in American trial-court conflict talk Susan U. Philips; 10. Difference and dominance: how labour and management talk conflict Katherine O'Donnell; 11. The management of a co-operative self during argument: the role of opinions and stories Deborah Schiffrin; 12. Silence as conflict management in fiction and drama: Pinter's Betrayal and a short story, Great Wits Deborah Tannen; Part IV. Conclusion: 13. Research on conflict talk: antecedents, resources, findings, directions Allen D. Grimshaw; List of references; Name Index; Subject Index.
