Conflict Talk
Sociolinguistic Investigations of Arguments in Conversations

An examination of language use in the important area of social conflict.

Allen D. Grimshaw (Edited by)

9780521335508, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 19 April 1990

368 pages, 4 b/w illus.
23.6 x 15.7 x 2.8 cm, 0.648 kg

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.

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.

Subject Areas: Child & developmental psychology [JMC], Anthropology [JHM], Sociolinguistics [CFB]