Conflict Discourse in Television Series – The Functions and Uses of Silence in Relation to Social Class

Abstract

This study paper investigates the correlation between social class and the use of silence in conflict discourse, by comparing the interactional style and turn-taking behaviour in two television series representing the upper and lower class. To this end, the study analyses conflict conversations inThe Crown (UK) andShameless (US) to show how in both scripts writers use specific linguistic elements to represent how these social classes are depicted in media. While in the aristocracy silence is presented as a salient feature to manage conflict, conflict communication in the working class is presented as constant verbal arguing and violence without interruptions of silence. Therefore, this analysis of communicative conflict behaviour is intended to exemplify the ways linguistic conflict strategies such as silence are used differently in certain class contexts and to seek explanations where these divergences could emerge from.Furthermore, it aims to investigate the influence of speaker’s social status on their usage of specific conflict strategies such as silence and to emphasise its functionality for conflict. On the ground thatboth the US and the UK are English-speaking cultures that are part of the Western world, many studies within silence and conflict have taken both cultures together. In fact, a common assumption from these studies is that both cultures avoid the use of silence.In general, this study attempts to demonstrate that silence is a broad research field and that many factors are interacting in the application of silence, however,due to a lack of research in the area of social class in relation to silence and confict, the discussion of the topic is of speculative nature.