臉書塗鴉牆的異議語使用

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(1)國立臺灣師範大學英語學系碩. 士. 論. 文. Master’s Thesis Department of English National Taiwan Normal University. 臉書塗鴉牆的異議語使用 Disagreements on Facebook Wall. 指導教授：張妙霞教授 Advisor: Dr. Miao-Hsia Chang 研究生：塗易浚. 中華民國一百零三年六月 June, 2014.

(2) 摘要異議語在人與人的互動之中是不可避免的語言產物，即便互動的模式有所差異，仍然是無法避免的。在對話過程中，雙方會提出各自的意見，這時另一方額可以選擇接受抑或持反對的立場。當其中一方提出相異的意見時，如何保留對方的面子/臉(face)是首要目標。本文旨在分析異議語在社群網站臉書(Facebook)的使用情形，以及臉書使用者如何藉由不同的異議語策略來弱化其威脅性的本質，並且將一般對話(Face-to-face communication)之中的異議語使用情形與電腦輔助溝通(Computer-mediated communication)中的異議語使用作對比分析。本研究根據前人研究中的異議語策略(Lin,1999)做了修改與增益，本文提出共 11 種不同的異議語策略，其中包含五項強異議語(strong disagreement)與六項弱異議語(weak disagreement)。分析結果顯示臉書使用者多數使用強異議語而非弱異議語，表示多數使用者並不避諱使用較具攻擊性的語言。然而由於本文蒐集語料之情境(context)多是親朋好友間的對話，這樣的情境反而使得異議語成為情感聯繫上的重要工具。此外，多數使用者會藉由幽默詼諧的表達方式用以修飾強烈反對的語氣。而電腦輔助溝通所具有的幾項特性，包含不同步性(asynchronicity)、可回溯性(retrievability)，也會影響臉書使用者的異議語策略的選擇，在其表現上與一般對話中的策略選擇產生不同的結果。. 關鍵字：異議語，臉書，語用策略，電腦輔助溝通，社群網站. i.

(3) Abstract Disagreement in human interaction is almost inevitable, no matter in what kind of interaction mode. During a conversation, interlocutors keep making assessments to one another, and every assessment of proposition could be either accepted or denied (Pomerantz, 1984). When a speaker attempts to dissent from an opposing viewpoint, to disagree without threatening the prior interlocutor’s face is the primary goal, in terms of Brown and Levinson’s Politeness Principle (1987). The present study aims to analyze how speakers on a social networking site, Facebook, disagree by the use of various types of strategies; and in comparison with traditional Face-to-Face communication, how speakers perform disagreement strategically in the new interaction mode of computer-mediated communication. Adopting Lin’s (1999) categorization of disagreement strategies, the present study proposes 11 types of categories, including five strong disagreement and six weak disagreement strategies. The results indicate that speakers in FB tend to use more aggressive strategies while disagreeing, instead of weak disagreement strategies. However, the context of the data collected in FB is between friends with close-knit relation. This context allows speakers to employ disagreement as a means to enhance their rapport and intimacy with close friends instead of breaking the consensus (Lin, 1999). While using strong disagreement, the subjects also mitigate the aggressiveness with humor or incorporation of other strategies. Besides, the unique medium features of asychronicity and retrievability in CMC change the speakers’ habits of using disagreement strategies, in which the language use of disagreement differs from that in FtF interaction.. keywords: disagreement, Facebook, pragmatic strategies, CMC, SNS ii.

(4) Acknowledgement During these four years of graduate life, it’s more like studying in college once again. I would love to show my gratitude to all those who have given me a hand. Studying for a master degree is not an easy task which can be finished alone. First, I would like to thank my advisor, Professor Miao-Hsia Chang, who leads me into the field of pragmatics – a linguistic field really close to our daily lives. Without her encouragement and advices, it is impossible for me to achieve what I have done now. I am also grateful to my committee members Dr. Kawai Chui and Dr. His-Yao Su, for their insightful comments and constructive suggestions to make this thesis better. Second, I would like to express my gratitude to my friends in NTNU, Bartleby Hsui, Chung-Yin Tsai, Debbie Hsu, Carol Yu-Han Liao, Shu-Yi Liao, Chia-Lin Hsieh and so on. They keep encouraging me and provide me with either material or spiritual support so that I can have confidence in my writing of thesis. Also, I want to thank Becky Wei-Shan Wang for always being with me from the very beginning of my thesis writing, helping me collecting data on the Internet and always having faith in me. Third, I would like to thank my friends, Keni Xiaoo and Vincent Wei-Jay Yang. Although we are not able to get together as before due to our jobs and distance, your support through message or phone calls still supply me with so much power so as to allow me to keep moving forward. Finally, I would love to express my deepest appreciation to my family for their support and let me know there is always a home behind me whenever and wherever I go. Without my sweet family, I would never be able to reach so far and move to the next stage of my life. iii.

(5) Table of Contents Chinese Abstract ........................................................................................................... i English Abstract ...........................................................................................................ii Acknowledgement ...................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents ........................................................................................................ iv List of Tables................................................................................................................ vi List of Figures .............................................................................................................vii Transcription Notations........................................................................................... viii Chapter One Introduction........................................................................................... 1 1.1 Background and Motivation ............................................................................ 1 1.2 Purpose of the Study ........................................................................................ 3 Chapter Two Literature Review ................................................................................. 5 2.1 Turn-taking system, Preference organization and Disagreement .......... 5 2.2 Face and politeness ................................................................................ 9 2.3 Previous studies on disagreement ........................................................ 11 2.3.1 Disagreement in Face-to-Face Communication.................................. 11 2.3.1.1 Pomerantz (1984) ..................................................................... 11 2.3.1.2 Kotthoff (1993) ........................................................................ 16 2.3.1.3 Kakavá (1993, 2002) ................................................................ 18 2.3.2 Disagreement in EFL studies .............................................................. 20 2.3.3 Disagreement in CMC ........................................................................ 23 2.3.4 Disagreement in Mandarin Chinese .................................................... 27 2.3.4.1 Lin, Z.-Y. (1999) ...................................................................... 27 2.3.4.2 Chen (2006) ............................................................................. 32 2.3.4.3 Lin, M.-F. (2008)...................................................................... 34 2.3.4.4 Weng (2008) ............................................................................. 35 2.4 Interaction in CMC .............................................................................. 36 2.4.1 CMC, a new mode of communication ................................................ 37 2.4.2 Mobile Communication ...................................................................... 39 2.4.3 Hybridization of oral and written language ........................................ 41 2.4.4 Facebook ............................................................................................. 43 2.5 Summary ........................................................................................................ 48 Chapter Three Method & Classification.................................................................. 50 3.1 Data Collection .............................................................................................. 50 3.2 Classification Scheme .................................................................................... 53 iv.

(6) 3.2.1 Account ............................................................................................... 55 3.2.2 Correction ........................................................................................... 56 3.2.3 Challenge ............................................................................................ 57 3.2.4 Criticism.............................................................................................. 59 3.2.5 Minimal Disagreement Token ............................................................. 60 3.2.6 Dispute ................................................................................................ 61 3.2.7 Modesty............................................................................................... 62 3.2.8 Suggestion ........................................................................................... 63 3.2.9 Pure Humor ......................................................................................... 64 3.2.10 Clarification ...................................................................................... 65 3.2.11 Evasion .............................................................................................. 66 3.2.12 Disagreement with Defense .............................................................. 68 3.2.13 Disagreement with Humor ................................................................ 69 3.2.14 Strong and weak disagreements ........................................................ 70 3.3 Summary ........................................................................................................ 71 Chapter Four Results and Discussion ...................................................................... 72 4.1 Distribution of pragmatic strategies ............................................................... 72 4.1.1 Overall distribution of pragmatic strategies ........................................ 72 4.1.2 Account ............................................................................................... 73 4.1.2.1 Pure Account ............................................................................ 73 4.1.2.2 Account with Defense .............................................................. 75 4.1.2.3 Account with Humor ................................................................ 79 4.1.2.4 Account with Defense & Humor.............................................. 80 4.1.3 Correction ........................................................................................... 82 4.1.3.1 Pure Correction ........................................................................ 82 4.1.3.2 Correction with Defense .......................................................... 85 4.1.3.3 Correction with Humor ............................................................ 87 4.1.3.4 Correction with Defense & Humor .......................................... 88 4.1.4 Challenge ............................................................................................ 89 4.1.4.1 Pure Challenge ..................................................................... 89 4.1.4.2 Challenge with Defense ....................................................... 91 4.1.4.3 Challenge with Humor ......................................................... 91 4.1.5 Criticism.............................................................................................. 93 4.1.5.1 Pure Criticism .......................................................................... 93 4.1.5.2 Criticism with Defense ............................................................ 95 4.1.5.3 Criticism with Humor .............................................................. 96 4.1.6 Minimal Disagreement Token (MDT) ................................................ 97 v.

(7) 4.1.6.1 Pure Minimal Disagreement Token ......................................... 97 4.1.6.2 Minimal Disagreement Token with Defense ........................... 99 4.1.7 Dispute .............................................................................................. 100 4.1.7.1 Pure Dispute ........................................................................... 100 4.1.7.2 Dispute with Defense ............................................................. 102 4.1.8 Modesty............................................................................................. 104 4.1.9 Suggestion ......................................................................................... 106 4.1.10 Pure Humor ..................................................................................... 108 4.1.11 Clarification .................................................................................... 109 4.1.12 Evasion ............................................................................................ 111 4.1.13 Summary ......................................................................................... 112 4.2. Comparison of CMC and FtF Disagreements .................................... 113 4.2.1 Categorization on CMC .................................................................... 114 4.2.2 Comparison of distribution between CMC and FtF studies ............. 114. 4.2.2.1 Correction .............................................................................. 115 4.2.2.2 Account .................................................................................. 116 4.2.2.3 Challenge ............................................................................... 116 4.2.2.4 Clarification ........................................................................... 117 4.2.2.5 Suggestion .............................................................................. 118 4.2.2.6 Evasion ................................................................................... 118 4.3 Aggressive Strategies vs. Passive Strategies ................................................ 118 4.4 Summary ...................................................................................................... 121 Chapter Five Conclusion ......................................................................................... 122 5.1 Summary of the Findings ............................................................................. 122 5.2 Implications and Limitations ....................................................................... 125 REFERENCES ......................................................................................................... 128. vi.

(8) List of Tables Table 1 Table 2 Table 3 Table 4 Table 5. Oral and written aspects of computer-mediated communication Aggressive and Passive Disagreement Strategies Frequency of pragmatic strategies in disagreement Comparison of frequency of pragmatic strategies in disagreement Distribution of Aggressive & Passive Strategies. vii.

(9) List of Figures Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3. Interface of FB message and comment section A comment box in FB Analyzable figure format. viii.

(10) Transcription Notations Conventions for literal translation 1SG first person singular 2SG second person singular 3SG third person singular 1PL first person plural 2PL second person plural 3PL third person plural ASS associative BA ba construction CL CRS CSC. classifier current relevant state complex stative construction. DE DUR EXP GEN NEG NOM PA PFT. de durative aspect experiential genitive negative nominative particle perfective aspect. ix.

(11) Chapter One Introduction. Disagreement is a common speech act that happens every day in daily conversation. It is defined as a type of verbal (or nonverbal) conflict or “oppositional stance” (Kakavá, 1993) based on the prior assessment, a form to break down the consensus in a conversation (Vuchinich, 1988), or the expression of personal point of view which differs from others (Sifianou, 2012:1554). Whenever there is a confrontational stance, there is disagreement, no matter it is stated, unstated, or postponed. People interact with one another on the basis of social norms. The mode of social interaction is influenced by the context, cultural background, and interactants’ characteristics like status, gender, age, and so on.. 1.1 Background and Motivation In previous studies, disagreement has been discussed based on the viewpoint of not only speech act, but a more general position of social interaction (Brown and Levinson, 1987; Goffman, 1967; Leech, 1983; Pomerantz, 1984). Pomerantz proposed preference organization for conversation, which is composed of assessments proffered followed by a second assessment or without a second assessment. In the continuum of preference from the most preferred to the most dispreferred assessment, speakers have to select one alternative among the preference structure in accordance with the context, in which disagreement is usually not favorable. Dispreferred responses are always accompanied by potential offensive intention, and this potential aggressiveness manifestly violates the pursuit of harmony in human interaction. The concept of face is therefore being threatened while dispute is provoked. In order to properly manage this “facework”, it is necessary to explain the concept of “face” and 1.

(12) “politeness”. Politeness theory proposed by Brown and Levinson (1987) endorses the idea that agreement preferred context is more dominant than disagreement. The idea of “face”, a public self-image which people tend to protect, contributes to the concept of face-threatening act (FTA). Brown and Levinson suggest that when interacting with others, a speaker is also running the risk of threatening other’s face when showing disagreements with the previous speaker's assessment. Therefore, speakers have to manage their turns in order to proffer an appropriate disagreeing assessment. Real time oral conversation, especially FtF communication, is the most common mode of human interaction. Studies have shown that disagreement in FtF communication is not always dispreferred. Kotthoff (1993) argues that preference structure is not stable but changes all the time. Depending on the context, disagreements would be welcomed as well. Kakavá’s studies (1993, 2002) support Kotthoff’s idea and indicate cultural difference can lead to different results. It is shown that Greeks tend to use more disagreement, which has positive influence on their relationships. The similar argument can be found in the disagreement study focusing on Mandarin Chinese. Lin (1999) concludes that disagreement used in daily conversation among close friends actually shows rapport between friends already have close-knit relationship. In addition to FtF communication, in recent years, however, CMC has gradually become a major means of communication that cannot be ignored since Internet is now easy to access ubiquitously, at least in major cities of the world. The quantum leap in internetwork and mobile devices allows people to communicate without the limit of time and space, either online or offline. The interaction mode online like blog changes the fundamental one-to-one communication. Bolander (2012) discovers how social and medium factors affect the language use of agreement and disagreement realized on CMC. The interaction mode on CMC varies from context to context. According to the different media like blog and SNS, Internet users perform the same speech act 2.

(13) with disparate language behaviors. For example, anonymity and oralized written expression are both characteristics on CMC due to the unique feature of this medium. Therefore, it triggers my interest to investigate the speech act of disagreement in CMC, in which users feel less pressured to avoid threatening other’s face since the change of interaction mode allows user to interact without necessarily seeing one another face to face. That is, interactants on CMC might know one another in real life, but they need not see one another and prevent from losing face. Since disagreement has been classified as one part of conflict speech or dispute, people who initiate the speech act must be highly aware and careful so that the harmony between interlocutors can be maintained. However, anonymity is a feature particular in online community, which is like a double-edged blade and would lead to some pros and cons. Once the identity is unknown, it is easier for speakers to avoid threat or assault when they claim something against others.1 On the other hand, intended or misleading attacks may also break the harmony in online community without the supervision of the public due to the lack of attackers’ identity. Such specific feature on the Internet definitely influences users’ habit of language use so that the present study aims to analyze these CMC features.. 1.2 Purpose of the Study In order to observe if the medium factors of CMC – anonymity, asynchronicity, and hybridization of written and spoken languages – influence language users’ language performance online, the present study aims to analyze the activities of disagreement in the most dominant social networking site (SNS), Facebook,. 1. “Speakers” in the present study refers to online users hereafter, since the focus of discussion is majorly put on computer-mediated communication and Facebook. 3.

(14) especially in one of its major services – Wall.2 The current research addresses three questions – (1) What strategies do the speakers choose to disagree on the social networking site – Facebook? (2) What are the differences between the use of disagreements in natural conversation and Facebook? (3) How does Facebook influence speakers’ language use of disagreement?. 2. Social networking sites refer to Internet platforms which connects people who share racial, sexual, religious, or nationality based identities, or common interests. 4.

(15) Chapter Two Literature Review. 2.1 Turn-taking system, Preference organization and Disagreement Turn-taking is an organization that underlies the regulation and arrangement of the order of speech-making in conversation (Sacks et al. 1974). Under the social norm, age and social status are the standards that govern how people arrange the order. Albert (1964) had come up with the closest idea before the term “turn-taking” was used. He claims that “the order in which individuals speak in a group is strictly determined by seniority of rank” (p.40-41). A teacher who is younger than the students, for example, has the right to speak first due to the higher rank of teachers in the society. Nevertheless, researchers (Sacks et al, 1974) have found that although lots of changes including different sizes of turns happen during conversation, the transition of the conversation is still “finely coordinated.” In addition, although every conversation has construction composed of various elements like ordered turns and turn sizes in diverse situations, turn-taking is an organized system which “would have the important twin features of being context-free and capable of extraordinary context-sensitivity” (Sacks et al, 1974:699). Conversation takes place above the sentential level and involves the interaction between two or more individuals with divergent interests and a process of information exchange (Levinson, 1983). In the process of conversation, different speakers take turns to make assessments. People take turns to speak when they are selected. Or they may select themselves to continue speaking while others keep silent (Sacks et al., 1974). As Levinson (1983) suggests, these units are determined by various features of syntactic structure which might be a sentence, clause or noun phrase. Between turns, speakers may find a pause or turning point, which is based on the prediction by the 5.

(16) prosodic units or intonation units, to compete for the next turn at the end of the “turn constructional units” which we call transitional relevance place (TRP). Through the observance of TRP, interlocutors can know when to speak and take the turns (Sacks et al. 1974). However, there might be insertion sequences of interruption so that the first and the second part of pairs are not actually adjacent; such as the following question-answer pair, which is interrupted by another pair so that A1 is delayed and not adjacent to Q1:. A: May I have a bottle of Mich? B: Are you twenty one?. ((Q1)) ((Q2)). A: No B: No. ((A2)) ((A1)) (Merritt, 1976:333). Natural discourse varies and the context is not as concordant as the written form. An adjacency pair, therefore, usually contains more than two turns due to unexpected inserted utterances which separate the first and second part of the adjacency pair. But when the second pair is not the expected answer, the preference structure is different. Question-question, request-refusal, for instance, are in fact not the favorable responses in normal context. Since the response is not preferred and not expected, the speaker who initiates the first part of adjacency pair would try to lead the conversation to his/her expecting direction. However, many other types of response to the question may be selected, apart from the choice of “answer”, such as ignorance, refusals, or challenge to the presupposition of the question (Levinson, 1983:307). Only one acceptable second is the preferred response, but a great number of other alternatives are potential dispreferred seconds. These dispreferred seconds are potential disagreements in the oppositional stance against the prior assessment. There is a 6.

(17) ranking between the most preferred and the least preferred seconds, and participants of conversation have many alternative choices among these nonequivalent actions (Lin, 1997). With these nonequivalent alternatives, speakers are able to choose one of them and avoid direct conflict provoked by the disagreements. Levinson (1983: 332) indicates that the idea of preference is not about the individual’s desire, but a structural phenomenon close to the linguistic concept of markedness. In terms of conversants’ expectations, it is observed that preferred seconds are typically unmarked and more acceptable due to the expectation. But dispreferred seconds of different first parts of adjacency pairs share a similarity that they are all marked with various linguistic complexity of preface, delay, accounts and so on. Disagreement, according to Levinson (1983), is a type of dispreferred seconds and primarily occurs as a response. It happens when a speaker initiates a proposition and the other speaker takes a different stand. The structure of disagreement is complex and mostly preceded with preface, in comparison with the preferred structure. Indirect disagreement most of the time is mitigated with partial agreement so as to avoid offensive act toward the prior speaker. This type of disagreement is basically equal to so-called “weak agreement/disagreement” according to Pomerantz (1984) since the assessments have been modified in avoidance of aggressive opposition shown through contrastive evaluation. Softening devices like some positive remarks are utilized to save the face of the speaker before expressions of dispreferred disagreement. In the discussion of assessment by Pomerantz, the second assessment is usually relevant with the initial assessment and structured on the basis of the previous assessment to form a pair. Graham (2007:578) has indicated that “all interactions are contextualized and interpreted within the frame of previous interactions and the expectations that grow out of them.” Context is not static but keeps changing in the process of interaction, with the addition of new content of conversation (Sifianou, 7.

(18) 2012:1561). Therefore, disagreement seems to be a sequential interaction instead of a pair. However, the focal point which is emphasized is the relation between first and its successive assessments. For the discussion of disagreement, it is necessary to turn back to the discussion of adjacency pairs since disagreement is one type of extensive forms of adjacency pair. In adjacency pairs like request, invitation, offer, question, hearers have alternatives to either receive or reject them. According to the initial assessment, the second assessment alters with the change of the context. The second assessment may be invited through the first assessment and based on this assessment, the next action chosen by the recipient could be either a “preferred next action” or a “dispreferred next action” (Pomerantz, 1984: 63). Once the second assessment is a bald evaluation with no agreement components or any prefaces, it can be called a strong disagreement, in terms of Pomerantz’s definition. Thus, more varieties are discovered in weak disagreement, such as backdowns, questioning repeats or request for clarification. The delayed statement with prefaced modification also varies with the change of initiative assessment. Two general types are introduced: agreement preferred and agreement dispreferred. Most of the time agreements are preferred undoubtedly. Blimes (1988) explains the agreement preferred situation with participants’ expectations. Agreements are usually invited while speakers performing a speech act. In the circumstance that a speaker performs self-deprecation or self-mockery, however, agreements are dispreferred. An agreement with a prior speaker’s self-deprecation can be interpreted as the criticism to the conversant (Pomerantz 1984:78). Delay devices like silence or hesitation will not be appropriate under such circumstance because silence implies the confirmation of the self-deprecation. In contrast, compliments or disagreements with direct negation are favorable in such a context. The human interaction contains different opinions and stances, and every single 8.

(19) interaction comes with a preference in each interlocutor’s mind. Agreement and disagreement naturally derive from this structure of preference due to the frame of the contextualized interaction. Alternatives between the two poles of preferred and dispreferred response form a continuum of preference structure, from most preferred to least preferred. When the adjacency pair inclines to the dispreferred seconds, the initiative of disagreement develops to a sequence of actions of dispute. Dispreferred responses are always accompanied with potential offensive intention, and this potential aggressiveness manifestly violates the pursuit of harmony in human interaction. The concept of face is being threatened while dispute is provoked. In order to properly manage this “facework”, it is necessary to explain the concept of “face” and “politeness,” which are introduced in the following section.. 2.2 Face and politeness Brown and Levinson (1987) believe while people interacting with others, they may run the risk of losing face – a public self-image that people want to protect. It is a part of nature as being a member in the society. Every individual in the society has a desire for being accepted, approved, and respected. This is what Brown and Levinson (1987) call “face want,” which means every member in the society claim himself to have “face” (Lii-Shih, 1988:18). Besides, Brown and Levinson suggest that every speech act is face-threatening, It allows that, face-threatening is inevitable in a performance of speech act. Whenever an interlocutor performs a speech act of disagreement, s/he is running the risk of threatening other’s face. How to save other’s face, therefore, is an important issue during conversation. Since face-saving is important in conversation, Brown and Levinson propose two aspects of face, including negative face and positive face. (p.61) Negative face is the want to be free from imposition and impediment. Positive face, on the other hand, 9.

(20) is the want to be approved and appreciated in public. That is, positive face is threatened when “the addressee’s feeling or want is ignored or not respected by the speaker” (Weng, 2008). Negative face threatening act occurs when speakers impede the freedom of addressee like being requested, warned, or corrected. The want of not doing the FTA seems to be a priority since the interlocutor does not have to make any comment and get involved. The face-saving viewpoint claimed by Brown and Levinson (1987) creates a new vision of politeness. They propose five possible strategies while doing the face-threatening act. Speakers can choose either to do the FTA or don’t do the FTA (i.e. opting out). Once the speakers do the FTA, they can choose to let their intention either explicitly expressed (on-record strategies) or implicitly expressed (off-record strategies). If they want to express the intention explicitly, interlocutors can do the act with or without redressive action. However, it is cautioned that the definition of positive and negative face and “face wants” may vary from culture to culture, and from person to person” since to be polite means to behave and speak appropriately to the social norms of the society (Lii-Shih, 1988). Interlocutors thus need to be careful and speak appropriately to satisfy other’s face wants according to the given context and its social norms. If someone’s face wants cannot be satisfied, it has high possibility to result in a face-threatening act. Dispreferred responses are always considered FTAs. However, disagreement is not always dispreferred and not inherently face-threatening. Early research (see, e.g., Schiffrin, 1984; Tannen, 1984; Kakavá, 1993) has found that disagreement in certain national group disagreement is preferred to agreements, and disagreements serve to express sociability and show intimacy instead of an offensive act (Sifianou, 2012). On the other hand, agreement might be face-threatening sometimes if “they are interpreted as insincere, manipulative or ingratiating” 10.

(21) (Sifianou, 2012:1559). Based on dissimilar cultural or conversational context, to lose or save the face is more complicated than it is supposed to be.. 2.3 Previous studies on disagreement Disagreement has received great attention from conversation analysts. Based on the social norm that harmony is always pursued, researchers have a consensus that disagreement is preferably avoided to gain the solidarity in the speech community (Brown & Levinson; 1987; Lii-Shih, 1988; Lin, 1999). In contrast, agreement is preferred to maintain the interpersonal relationship with other group members. To avoid direct conflict, disagreement has to be toned down with the additional modifications. Therefore, disagreement is more structurally complicated than agreement. It surfaces in various modes of interaction such as, face-to-face conversation (Pomerant, 1984; Kotthoff, 1993) in English, or Greece (Kakavá, 1993, 2002), classroom discourse (Bardovi-Harlig & Salsbury, 2004; Bell, 1998; García, 1989; Edstrom, 2004), computer-mediated communication like online forum (Baym, 1996), blog (Bolander, 2012), and Mandarin Chinese (Lin, 1999; Chen, 2006; Lin, 2008; Weng, 2008). These studies will be introduced and summarized in the following sections.. 2.3.1 Disagreement in Face-to-Face Communication. 2.3.1.1 Pomerantz (1984) In conversation, speakers are constantly making assessments to accomplish an action for certain purposes, like compliment, complaints, self-deprecation etc. When an assessment is made, the interactants can either support or oppose to the assessment. The assessment is defined by Pomerantz as “a product of participation in social 11.

(22) activities and occasioned conversational events with sequential constraints” (p.58). When the presumed basis of knowledge is insufficient or incorrect, the first assessment is denied by the second assessment. According to Pomerantz (1984), second assessment is the subsequent assessment to the prior assessment. In the agreement preferred condition (mostly agreement is preferred, since coordination in conversation is usually pursued), a speaker’s first assessment mainly aims to invite a recipient for the agreement. Several types of agreement are introduced in Pomerantz’s (1984) study. The first type is upgrade. Upgrade agreements is that the assessment responded to the prior one with upgraded evaluative terms. For example:. (1) A: B:. That (heh) s(heh) sounded (hhh) g(hh)uh! That sound’ --- that sounded lovely … (Pomerantz 1984:65). In the first assessment, A describes that something sounded good. To show the strong agreement with the prior assessment, B upgrades good to lovely. The evaluative term lovely strengthens the positive evaluation carried out by A. The second type of agreement is same evaluation. By repeating the prior speaker’s words, the recipient achieves the goal of agreeing with the first assessment.. (2) C: G:. …She was a nice lady – I liked her I liked her too. (Pomerantz 1984:67). G repeats C’s words I like her and the addition of too to show the stronger agreement and clear stance that they share the same attitude toward one thing. Though this type of agreement can also function as the preface of disagreements (which will be discussed later), the fundamental function of same evaluation is to proffer a 12.

(23) preferred assessment of agreement. The third type of agreement is downgrade. A recipient downgrades/weakens the evaluative term of the assessment asserted by the prior speaker and makes the assessment more like a weak agreement. Since the assessment is weakened, downgraded agreements “regularly engender disagreement sequences” (Pomerantz, 1984: 69) and may be classified as weak agreement. The speaker who initiates the topic will use stronger evaluation to upgrade the weak agreement and to express the disagreement.. (3) A: L: A:. She’s a fox Yeh, she’s a pretty girl. Oh, she’s gorgeous! (Pomerantz 1984:68). In example (3), A initiates the topic and praises some girl saying that she’s a fox, which is a metaphor to imply that the girl is amazingly beautiful. However, L downgrades the metaphor and says she’s a pretty girl to slightly disagree with A’s comment. Using pretty to tone down the degree of beauty, L weakens the assessment proffered by A. Hence, the disagreement of L leads to a subsequent disagreement by A. In order to counter-attack L’s comment, A intensifies the degree of beauty with the word gorgeous. The response by L seems to be an agreement, structurally. In fact, the downgrading strategy might be the preface for the following sequential disagreement. Partial agreement is also a type of partial disagreement, which can be considered a kind of weak agreement. Disagreements in agreement preferred situations, on the other hand, are usually prefaced with some delay devices like “no talk, request for clarification, partial repeats, and other repair initiators, turn prefaces, and so on” (p .70). To avoid direct conflict, Pomerantz found that most disagreements are basically constructed with 13.

(24) prefaced mitigation. Before the disagreement components, silence, delayed utterances (i.e. “uh”, “well”), request for clarification (i.e. “what ?”, “hm”), repair initiators and the like can be viewed as the preface of disagreements. Disagreements with modified preface are basically equal to the so called “weak agreement/disagreement” since the assessments have been modified in avoidance of aggressive opposition shown as contrastive evaluation. On the contrary, if the second assessment is a bald evaluation opposing to the prior assessment, it can be called a “strong disagreement.” This type of disagreement, as usual, is not preferred (Pomerantz, 1984:74). Agreement is preferred since people construct sociability and solidarity based on it. However, “there are nonetheless circumstances in which sociability and support are accomplished by disagreeing” (1984:77). That is so-called disagreement preferred circumstance, in which a speaker self-deprecates him/herself. Disagreements are invited and preferred so as to improve the connection with the interlocutor. The turn shape of response to self-deprecation, according to Pomerantz, is generally occupied by disagreement components. There are routinely no or few “contrastive components before or after the disagreements as part of the unit” (1984:83). Some disagreement components are prevalent, including partial repeats, negations, and compliments. Disagreeing with self-deprecation would contain partial repeat which challenges the previous assessment with rhetorical questions, as illustrated in (4).. (4) Partial repeats B: I’m tryina get slim. A: B: A:. Ye:ah? You get slim, my heavens. Heh heh heh heh hh hh You don’t need to get any slimmah. (Pomerantz 1984:83). Some disagreements are initiated with negations like “no” or “not.” 14.

(25) (5) Negations B: I was wondering if I’d ruined yer- weekend by uh A:. No. No. Hm-mh. No. I just loved to have- … (Pomerantz 1984:84). Second assessments in response to the prior assessment usually include evaluative terms. In order to disagree with the prior self-deprecation, compliments are favorable terms to show a contrastive opinion.. (6) Compliments B:. And I never was a grea(h)t Bri(h)dge plav(h)er Clai(h)re,. A:. Well I think you’ve always been real good, (Pomerantz 1984:85). If there is no overt disagreement made and a long pause is instead used to follow the assessment, the silence will be interpreted as implicitly confirmed by the recipient. That is, the prior self-deprecatory assessment is accepted, as a way to show agreement. Whether in disagreement preferred or dispreferred situations, silence seems to be a dispreferred reaction, either as a delaying device of disagreement or implicit agreement of prior self-deprecation. To sum up, Pomerantz (1984) distinguishes agreement from disagreement according to approval or denial of an assessment. Depending on different goals of the conversation, agreement is expected through the invitation from speakers and disagreement is unwelcome most of the time. Agreements can be achieved through several techniques like upgrade, same evaluation, and downgrade. Disagreements have a more complicated structure since they are usually prefaced. Pomerantz introduced a few types of favorable disagreement components like partial repeats, 15.

(26) negations, and compliments. Disagreements are usually not favorable, but sometimes are preferred. Self-deprecation or self-mockery, for instance, welcomes disagreements and compliments because of the need for positive face-want.. 2.3.1.2 Kotthoff (1993) Kotthoff’s study (1993) is constructed based on Pomerantz’s (1984) preference organization. Kotthoff first provides a definition of “preference” with the quotation of Atkinson and Heritage (1984:53) – “the term ‘preference’ refers to a range of phenomena associated with the fact that choices among nonequivalent courses of action are routinely implemented in ways that reflect an institutional ranking of alternatives.” She suggests that there is a preferred action in every context. If the preferred action is absent, its absence becomes “the basis for further inferences” (Kotthoff, 1993:194). In most unspecified context, according to Pomerantz, agreement is favorable. However, Kotthoff argues that Pomerantz did not see the full picture. Instead, Kotthoff’s main argument is that preference structure is changing while interaction like concession is made, and therefore it reframes the whole structure. For example, an argument in certain contextualized situation can be elaborated and oriented to a disagreement preferred situation. One of such phenomena is called opposition format. By using the repetition of the interlocutor’s central point, the speaker uses the same wording to contradict an extreme opposite assessment (1993:202).. (7) 111 N: 112. … if you buy there for example such a little package of butter, and a and a roll, that then you 16.

(27) 113. have to give nearly a mark. /(?although that?)/. 114 B: 115 116 N:. /That is/ really VERY cheap, for a /sandwich,/ /that is/ cheap for a restaurant. (Kotthoff, 1993:203). In the above example, N superficially agrees with B’s prior assessment by repeating “that is cheap,” but actually “specify the context to the contrary of what B meant” (Kotthoff, 1993:203). This sarcastic contrary repetition shows that the interaction has been oriented to a more provoked disagreement preferred situation. The context determines the function of a stronger agreement. An upgraded agreement functions as different purpose in different contextualized environment. An upgraded agreement is interpreted as strong agreement showing confirmation in an agreement preferred situation, but within a debate it would be a preface for an even stronger disagreement as well. In a context of dispute, interlocutors would lead each other to disagreement and fight for their position. But when there is a concession or absence of strong dissent, the interlocutor would fail to defend his/her own position. Hence, the dispute may change into an agreement preferred context. Since disagreement is a sequential interaction that interlocutors compete for each other’s stance, speakers must “signal the tendency and prepare to change the preference structure again” (Kotthoff, 1993:205) if they want to consolidate their position. Kotthoff indicates that Pomerantz (1984) analyzed her data in an unspecified friendly conversation while her own analysis was undergone in the discourse of a dispute. Thus her results seem to be opposite to Pomerantz’s. By “suspending the ‘normal’ preference order of friendly interaction” (1983:213), Kotthoff argues that preference structure is not stable but changes all the time. Losing position in an argument is also face-threatening (p.213), especially in her results of observing 17.

(28) concessions. This is proved by the fact that the hesitation of speech is common in making concessions. To give in the position in a dispute is face-threatening, since it is found that the speaker who gives in is in hesitation while making a concession. Besides, many reluctance markers found in the concession show that the preference structure can truly be changed in the process of interaction, especially in the context of dispute. But once the preference is set, it would take great efforts for speakers to change the structure. In the present study, we could find the same situation of preference change in SNS. This shows that preference change is suitable in different interaction modes, not only in FtF communication.. 2.3.1.3 Kakavá (1993, 2002) The most important contribution of Kakavá is the investigation of the preference of disagreements in Greek society. The cross-cultural context influence gives linguists a totally new viewpoint to examine the impact of cultural specificity on disagreements. According to Vassiliou et al. (1972), Americans have a stereotype that Greeks love argument and discussion, even before they have any contact with Greeks. The Americans consider the Greeks ‘competitive, emotionally uncontrolled’ and ‘egotistic’ (Kakavá, 2002:1543). Some attitudinal studies mention that Greeks have the universal trait of loving verbal exchange, “keen debate, heated argument, and occasional frenzied verbal duels” (Aschenbrenner, 1986, quoted in Kakavá 2002). These arguments invite the judgment that such Greek nature has negative effect in communication. However, many researchers (Friedl, 1962; Aschenbrenner, 1986; Mackridge, 1992) have proved that this argumentative and competitive nature of Greeks actually has positive influence and it is their ethnic feature to freely express opinions so as to gain solidarity. Kakavá (1993, 2002) uses the term “opposition” to generally call any type of 18.

(29) oppositional stance against the previous action. Disagreement is regarded as an argument actually realized in more than two oppositional turns. An argument is an activity that interlocutors exchange opinions to either challenge or support the others for a position (2002:1538). Different from Pomerantz’s binary classification of weak (mitigated) and strong disagreements, Kakavá categorizes disagreement strategies as a continuum into three parts: “mitigated”, “strong yet mitigated”, and “strong.” In addition, Pomerantz categorizes disagreement based on linguistic markedness, while Kakavá includes not only linguistic but also paralinguistic cues (i.e. intonation contours, turn shapes, and patterns of sequences of talk) to judge aggravated correction. In Kakavá’s study (2002), Kakavá describes general strategies that are found in all contexts. The first strategy “initial disagreements followed by accounts” are favored in classroom context. The speaker explicitly disagrees with a previous assessment and then provides a more specific point of the claim. The second one is “personal analogies.” With this strategy, the one who disagrees does not oppose the other directly but “creates a situation analogous to the one under discussion” (Kakavá, 2002:1554). Two patterns of this type are described in Kakavá’s study, positioning an interlocutor or positioning oneself. The “personalization” of the argument changes the stance into a strong one and involves the addresses into the situation. Generally, in Modern Greek competitive argument among people has positive influence on their relationships. Disagreement or “opposition” (in Kakavá’s explanation), is not dispreferred but a catalyst for interactional relationships and also a means of “expressing sociability” (Sifianou, 2012:1556). Though Kakavá’s (1993, 2002) studies aim at the discussion of disagreements in modern Greek discourse, her theoretical base is basically composed of English theory (Sacks, 1973; Pomerantz, 1984; Leech, 1983). The subjects in Kakavá’s studies include not only native Greeks but also bilingual Greek-Americans, and her analysis comparing Greek social norm 19.

(30) and American social norms further implicates the importance of theoretical background in English disagreements. Therefore, Kakavá’s study (1993, 2002) should be focused on the cultural specific disagreement preferred discourse comparing to American culture. Her research influences the present study to discuss that the preference of disagreement involves contextual variables, such as culture.. 2.3.2 Disagreement in EFL studies EFL studies on disagreement mainly aim to investigate the development of disagreement acquisition and the language transfer between L1 and L2. The following review focuses on studies which discuss cultural and social influence of language use of disagreement, and shows the impacts of L1 culture on L2 acquisition. Bardovi-Harlig and Salsbury (2004) observed 12 learners of English and their interaction with native speakers, and their study was based primarily on Pomerantz’s (1984) framework. Regardless of the learners’ improvement on language performance, their pragmatic ability of making disagreement does have significant improvement. Due to the stereotype of native speakers’ use of disagreement, at the very first stage the EFL learners choose to use bald disagreement without mitigation. At the second stage, they would start to use some agreement components included in their disagreement act. On third stage, the learners acquire the skills of hesitancy and delaying the disagreement within a turn. Lastly, they acquire how to postpone the dispreferred disagreement in a sequence of turns. Bell (1998) researched into Korean EFL students’ development of disagreement strategies based on Brown and Levinson’s theory of politeness. Korean EFL students are influenced by their L1 while acquiring disagreement so that a preference of negative politeness strategies is observed in this study. Another important finding is that the factor of age greatly influences the use of strategies while speakers disagree 20.

(31) with others. When facing elders with higher status or age, the subjects employ more politeness strategies. For example, lack of disagreement while speaking to teachers seems to be a politeness strategy due to the distance of teacher’s higher status in the society. The avoidance of disagreement, in Brown and Levinson’s theory, is one type of politeness strategy. Besides, there are some disagreements observed among the conversation of students. Most dissent observed in the data is initiated by the elder students. Thus it is found that the ones with higher social status or elders have a tendency to use less or even no mitigation in the dispute. García (1989) and Edstrom (2002) studied the disagreement expressed by Venezuelan EFL learners. The former discussed two face-threatening speech acts, disagreeing and requesting by native Americans and Venezuelan EFL students. In this study, the strategies used by students are called stylistic devices, which can be generally categorized into three types: confrontational, non-confrontational, and impersonal. Confrontational device is a concept, which resembles the idea of Pomerantz’s strong disagreement, a type of more direct opposition with little or no mitigation. Non-confrontational devices like downtoned suggestion and giving reasons are relatively indirect and avoid threatening others’ face. The last type, impersonal devices, is to include a third party who is absent and exclude speaker him/herself.. (8) L1 I didn’t make any noise. S. but maybe she heard somebody else, and it echoed in her apartment (0.2) okay, I’ll check with her again Maybe she made a mistake okay? (García, 1989:312). 21.

(32) In (8), L1 includes a third party who is absent in the conversation, and tones down the impersonal accusation with maybe. Being accused to make the noise, L1 denies the accusation made by S (the superintendent) through accusing the other person she. Indefinite pronoun and collective nouns are used so as to avoid directly pointing to the third party. Disagreeing with the other’s assessment of accusation, L1 successfully avoids direct disagreement and threatening other’s face. The analysis showed that native speakers of English preferred impersonal and non-confrontational stylistic devices, while the Venezuelans preferred the opposite strategies. Edstrom (2002) argued against García’s (1989) findings that Venezuelan females tend to employ a confrontational style of disagreement and indicated the insufficiency of data collection in specific contexts. To complement García’s study, Edstrom elicited her data from a more natural context: casual conversation. Though the results are similar to Garcia’s that more confrontational disagreements are found, there are still a considerable number of non-confrontational disagreements. Individual differences like professional training and personality, as well as the status and power between interlocutors can affect the results of the study. Comparing with previous studies using discourse completion task (DCT), Edstrom indicates that eliciting data from natural speech is the most practical method, either DCT or role play cannot show the full picture of language use of disagreement. From the abovementioned research, it can be seen that L1 cultural and social norms have great impact on the EFL learners’ acquisition of disagreement in L2. Disagreements in English are stereotyped as direct without mitigation. English EFL learners thus tend to express bald disagreement with English at the very first stage of acquisition. With the advanced language ability, they gradually learn to modify their disagreements and perform appropriately. 22.

(33) 2.3.3 Disagreement in CMC Disagreement in CMC seems to be a trend which cannot be ignored. Since the 1990s, computer and the Internet have become thriving in the information explosion era. Since then, CMC has played a significant role in human interaction. This unnegligible force has attracted linguists’ attention and a large body of research has been devoted to the linguistic phenomena in this unique medium. From traditional one-way interaction like blog and online forum to the two-way interaction of instant message like ICQ1 and MSN Messenger, the interaction mode on CMC never ceases evolving to bring convenience for human life. In recent years, with the development of mobile devices (smart phones, tablets, wearable devices like Google Glasses or smartwatch), social network sites (SNSs) have increasingly become indispensable to people’s social life. Researchers thus investigate not only language phenomenon but social interaction in CMC. One of the earlier studies about disagreement on CMC is Baym’s (1996) study, which discussed agreements and disagreements in one CMC online newsgroup called Usenet. Though Baym believed CMC is a hybrid form of speaking and written language, the written part is more dominant than speaking. Without the help of interactive features like gesture, intonation, or facial expression, writers need to convey the message explicitly, foresee the possible situation, and pretend to talk to diverse audience (Ong, 1982; Chafe, 1982). Comparing the differences between oral conversation and Usenet, the language production of the same form may lead to different functions. For instance, hesitation in oral conversation often prefaces a disagreement. In CMC, however, response to a post may delay for hours, even a few days, so that hesitation never functions as a preface of disagreements. Hence, it is. 1. ICQ is an online media company providing communication tools, content and services to an online community of millions of users worldwide. (http://www.icq.com/info/about.html) 23.

(34) shown that the context of the medium may change the structure of disagreement. In Internet-mediated communication, anonymity is one of the main dissimilarities to oral conversation, allowing the users to neglect maintaining or saving the face of others, and thus making CMC a more hostile and competitive environment. Overall, users on Usenet discourage the behavior of dispute and flaming arguments, and users should follow the same social norm as that in oral conversation. In sum, Baym emphasizes the great influence of medium on language use. As a hybrid of mass and interpersonal communication, Usenet requires the users to actively “invoke the previous context on which their contributions are built” (Baym, 1996:343). In order to realize how language functions on CMC, it is necessary to systematically compare different types of CMC, including synchronous and asynchronous communications, for us to understand similarities and dissimilarities between CMC and oral interaction. Bolander (2012) explored the responsiveness of dis(agreement) in personal/diary blog and shows how the social and medium factors affect the language use in CMC. Personal blog is chosen as the genre of his study since personal/diary blog is so prominent in blogging as a sub-type of blogs that it can represent the prevalent language use on the Internet. Blogs possess several features as a CMC medium (similar to the present study focus: FB). The first feature is asynchronicity; that is, writers and readers do not have to be online simultaneously. The communication on the blog is a unidirectional one-way message transmission. Second, the messages are basically permanent and retrievable. All the messages left on blogs are archived and can be retrieved any time, as long as they are not deleted. The third feature is related to the previous one. All the posts on blogs are mainly composed in written form. Either bloggers’ posts or readers’ comments are presented as texts. Lastly, the main page of the blog will show the latest posts. The posts appear in a reverse chronological way so that readers can read the newest information directly without 24.

(35) rolling the webpage. The comment section provides a platform for readers to get involved and interact with bloggers. This unique platform thus produces multifaceted agreements and disagreements, as Bolander (2012:1609) described:. the comments section can entail one-to-one (reader to blogger, or blogger to reader), or one-to-many (reader to blogger and readers, reader to readers, or blogger to readers) participation. Applied to disagreements and agreements, this means that it is potentially possible for disagreements and agreements to be authored by the blogger or a reader and for them to be directed at the blogger, a reader, or even a group of bloggers and readers.. The main focus of the social factor which is discussed in this study is “participation framework.” The participation framework on blog can be divided into two smaller factors:. “one-to-many participation structure and. imbalanced. participation structure” (Herring, 2007). The two special features are manifest through the peculiar comment section in blogs. One-to-many participation structures include various interaction forms as shown in the quotation from Bolander (2012:1609). The imbalanced participation structure is related to the rights and obligation of bloggers and readers.. (Bolander, 2012:1611). As clearly shown in the above table, bloggers have more power and obligation 25.

(36) while interacting with readers as well as maintaining the blog. On the contrary, readers have no obligation and can choose to participate in the posts of blog either actively or passively. The interaction on blog is on the base of interactive comments and posts. “Without a post a comment cannot exist; a comment is, in other words, always responsive to another entry” (Bolander, 2012:1611). The interaction in blog is highly related to the comment section which shows the importance of responsiveness. The responsiveness on the blog can be signaled through naming, pronoun, and quoting. Quoting is a system device available to all users so that they tend to signal responsiveness through quoting instead of the other two ways. Since the special message format of comment section is so complex, interactants have to signal responsiveness. The asynchronicity of Internet communication not only breaks the limit of time and space, but it also results in the consequence that the messages left require to be explicitly directed to a specific turn. The responsiveness in blog is important, especially while making agreements or disagreements. The results show that a large proportion of agreements and disagreements are found in the responses to the bloggers’ post from the readers. Also, readers’ responses to other readers are more explicit than to the bloggers. This study shows how the medium and social factor influences the construction of language use in CMC, and it provides a direction for further research on the relation between language use and different media. Baym’s (1996) study indicates the incomparable feature of hybrid form of mass and interpersonal interaction in CMC such as online discussion forum. The Internet has revolutionized the behavior of human interaction. Without the help of nonverbal features, online communication breaks the limit of oral conversation and creates a new interaction mode which is featured with anonymity and asynchronicity. The secret identity on the Internet allows speakers to freely provoke arguments with no supervision of social norms. Spatiotemporal restraint is no longer a barrier so that 26.

(37) speakers have sufficient time to organize their thought and clearly convey the message. Bolander (2012) presents the interaction on blog, which highly resembles the target medium of the present study, FB, in term of either interactive patterns or medium format. With highly resemblance in many ways, blog and FB are used for different purposes and each of the media has its attraction to the different target users though. More features on FB and the interrelation with language use and medium factors will be introduced.. 2.3.4 Disagreement in Mandarin Chinese. 2.3.4.1 Lin, Z.-Y. (1999) Lin’s research on disagreement mainly focuses on the pragmatic strategies and linguistic features that people use in uttering disagreements. All her data are spontaneous daily conversation between close friends. The environment and place of conversation is therefore minimized; that is, formality is minimized and this allows participants to feel relaxed. Tape-recording technique was used to observe the conversation of friends. There are a total of nine conversations collected. Since gender is a variable discussed in the study, there are three conversations for each category, including male-to-male, female-to-female, and mixed-gender conversation. Lin’s categorization of pragmatic strategies is based on Beebe & Takahashi’s (1989:207) and Muntigl & Turnbull’s (1998:229) disagreement strategies. There are eight strategies in total, including correction, account, challenge, defense, evasion, partial agreement, clarification and suggestion. A “correction” disagreement appears when a speaker in turn 1 (T1) makes an assessment and the interlocutor in turn 2 (T2) considers the content or information of prior assessment as inadequate or not true; then, the interlocutor corrects the content and provide the fact that s/he believes is 27.

(38) true. (9) CORRECTION B: 我..跟我媽..去台北跟┌我妹見面啊 T1 A: f └喔: ..隔..隔天是禮拜天 hoN T2 B: 沒有..禮拜六 (Lin 1998:34). “Account” is a strategy of disagreement but less face-threatening. The interlocutor provides explanation and reason why s/he is against the previous assessment. Disagreements with explanation reduce the intensive atmosphere of the potential conflict so that the speaker whose assessment is denied would feel more convinced of the content of disagreement.. (10) ACCOUNT T1 A: 對啊..那你怎麼花那麼多錢…┌你夠[會花(台語)] T2 B: └沒有啊..電腦..上課要用的電腦維修一下..本來只花一萬塊啊..就一花就三萬多啊 (Lin 1998:34). “Challenge” is a more aggressive way to disagree with others, comparing to the other strategies in the present discussion. It is defined as questioning the prior assessment and demanding that the speaker provide evidence to support the claim. Meanwhile, the speaker supposes that the evidence never actually exists (Muntigl & Turnbull, 1998:230).. (11) CHALLENGE T1 A: 可是我真是很替我弟高興..因為它至少追到那女生：我弟真的很不錯啊..沒騙你...假如你不嫌棄年紀的話.. ┌[笑]你可以考慮一下 28.

(39) T2 B:. └[笑]. . 他不是有女朋友了啊.. 你有沒有搞錯啊 (Lin 1998:35). Challenge is an active way to disagree with others, while “defense” is a passive way to protect addressee after being challenged. When a speaker makes an assessment which is against the addressee, the addressee can choose to protect himself/herself and make a counter-disagreement.. (12) DEFENSE A: 那你爸 lei? B: T1 A: T2 B:. 沒有跟去啊 ....haN. 把你爸丟在家裡喔..┌不..不? └他也不想去啊 (Lin 1998:36). “Evasion” refers to the cases when a receiver in T2 holds a different opinion, choosing to evade the disagreement instead of direct confrontation.. (13) EVASION T1 A: 不是說下到：12.. eh[無無(台語)]下到二月底之後..然後就...就開始就┐ T2 B: └我不知道..不過早上：看今天氣象.. 是說：..恩：..禮拜六禮拜天又有一股..比較.. 強烈的..冷..冷氣團..算鋒面又要來了..所以溫度又要下降了 (Lin 1998:36). Partial agreement, in Pomerantz’s (1984) definition, is a type of weak agreement. The agreement components prefaced the disagreement as delay devices. That is, the focus is not the preceding agreement, but the disagreement.. 29.

(40) (14) PARTIAL AGREEMENT T1 A: 不會吧..不會..我覺得她沒有對我很好..你們怎麼都覺得她對我很好 T2 B: 對啊..沒有很好只是蠻疼愛的 (Lin 1998:37). When the hearer misinterprets or has a problem interpreting the speaker’s utterances, “clarification” is a solution to solve this miscommunication.. (15) CLARIFICATION B: heN 啊.. 冬天很冷.. 夏天很熱.. 這種還是人.. 人住的地方嗎 T1 A: T2 B:. 那你什麼意思啊.. 我們都住了幾年了啊.. ┌你說住這在這裡都不是人 └沒有我是說.. 這個.. 我是... 我是說... 這個房子裡.. 住在這個房子裡 (Lin 1998:35). A relatively less face-threatening and indirect way to disagree, “suggestion” is a pragmatic strategy by which interlocutors provide different opinions and advices for addressees.. (16) SUGGESTION B: 我弟真的是很厲害.. ：我弟就這樣.. 一直去追她啊.. 然後為了追她.. 那每天在那邊畫圖給她.. 就是.. 畫女的肖像 A: 喔天啊[笑]結果呢？ T1 B: 然後這樣.. ┌反正就是追得很辛苦 T2 A: └我覺得可能送花比較有用吧.. 每天畫那個幹嘛 (Lin 1998:37-38). Analyzing the frequency of the strategies used in the data, Lin has found that the subjects tend to use more competitive strategies (i.e. Challenge and Correction) while 30.

(41) disagreeing with the addressees. Due to the minimized formality in Lin’s study, it is argued that the main motivation to employ relatively more face-threatening strategies is to “shorten the social distance by giving a direct and explicit utterance…the interlocutors thus enhance integrity and intimacy” (Lin, 1999:39). In addition, the participants make use of mitigated features to tone down the disagreement. Using aggressive disagreement and mitigated features at the same time actually does not imply that they are in contradiction to each other. Harmony is not the only goal while having interaction with others; solidarity also plays an essential role in the conversation. The disagreements superficially threaten other’s face, but the underlying implication is to be sociable and cooperative. Particularly in such informal and casual context, disagreement can be a catalyst to improve the relation between friends. The violation of Cooperative Principle (CP) (Grice, 1975) in the data is prevalent. Since interlocutors’ major concern is politeness, through the combination of pragmatic strategies and mitigated features the interlocutors is searching for the balance in between. The gender difference in this study is contradictory to general image that men speak more aggressively than women do. As a matter of fact, female participants in this study are active and fearless to express their opinions, though most happened while the females are talking to friends of their own sex. Lin’s categorization, however, is problematic. Lin provides brief definition of every single category based on her data, but some definitions in fact are deficient and lead to confusing results. The overlap components of CORRECTION and DEFENSE might blur the line.. CORRECTION is the act of correcting the inadequate content of. the prior assessment, while DEFENSE is the protection against the challenge by prior speaker. A defender protects the previous assessment made is owing to the recognition of inadequate content proposed by the prior speaker. Obviously, the definition of DEFENSE is constructed on the basis of CORRECTION. The inadequate content could be 31.

(42) either related to the defender or not. Lin’s definition is too narrow since a defender is protecting the idea or belief s/he made in T1 but not specifically personal dignity. ACCOUNT is another strategy which may be not actually necessary. Since DEFENSE is usually comprised of part of explanation to convince others that the disagreement is supposed by objective evidence instead of subjective judgment. Therefore, a more specific definition of ACCOUNT is needed. EVASION which Lin defined as the receiver chooses to evade the disagreement made, is also problematic. In example (13), B responds with 我不知道 wǒ bù zhīdào “I have no idea” at the beginning so that Lin considers it an “evasion.” But the following explanation seemingly aims to provide a backup for B’s disagreement. According to Lin’s classification, in this case the disagreement should be classified as ACCOUNT instead of EVASION. Lin’s categorization implicitly entails some overlapping definition and may cause confusion while classifying the pragmatic strategies, a reclassification of pragmatic strategies is needed so as to clarify the subtle differences among the strategies.. 2.3.4.2 Chen (2006) Chen’s study emphasizes the interlanguage performance of disagreement by Chinese EFL speakers in Taiwan. The purpose is to investigate how the contextual factors would influence the disagreement strategies chosen by EFL learners at different proficiency levels, and also how they transfer their mother tongue (Mandarin Chinese) while choosing the strategies. The expectation of this study is to provide further suggestion for the pedagogical system of English teaching in Taiwan with the research achievement. The subjects are comprised of 60 Chinese and 60 English native speakers, as well as 30 EFL learners with low and high proficiency respectively. 32.

(43) Through Discourse Completion Task (DCT) and Scaled-response Questions (SRQ), she examined participants’ both speech production and perception while coding with disagreements. Before the experiment is conducted, Chen compares Chinese politeness with western politeness principles, particularly about the definition of “face” in eastern and western cultures. Chen quotes Mao’s (1994) study and two major differences are found between the two heterogeneous cultures. The first one is the “overall conceptualization of face” (Chen, 2006). “Self-image” in Brown and Levinson and public image in Chinese society is the deviation between this two. In western culture, the face wants and interests are primarily individual desire. In Chinese culture, however, the face wants is from external pressure of social norm and highly related to the community (Mao, 1994). Individualism of North American culture and collectivism of East Asian culture are also taken into consideration from a sociological point of view. The two different social values contribute to the verbal behavior of interlocutors from different cultural backgrounds. Individualist societies focus on personal needs and interests while collectivism tends to sacrifice personal interest to achieve communal benefit. The second difference between western and Chinese is their different contents of face. Mao (1994) indicates that Brown and Levinson’s negative face refers to “a person’s need to be autonomous from others” while Chinese mianzi refers to “a person’s desire for public acknowledgement of their prestige or reputation.” This comparison also reflects what is previously discussed that the cross-cultural differences result in the discordant interpretation of politeness and face. The results show that Chinese speakers are highly aware of the concept of face so that they have higher tendency to avoid direct disagreement, and even no disagreements are expressed by them. Opposite to Chinese speakers, English speakers 33.