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Article published In:
Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada/Spanish Journal of Applied Linguistics
Vol. 37:2 (2024) ► pp.518–552

Disagreeing without tears

The interactive process of mitigating disagreement in a Chinese venture capital reality television show

ORCID logo | Zhejiang University,
| Bank of America,
ORCID logo | Zhejiang University,
Disagreement, while generally seen as an act threatening interlocutors’ face, is indispensable in particular contexts. Based on an in-depth linguistic and paralinguistic analysis of 12 cases of disagreement from a Chinese venture capital reality TV show We Are the Hero, we found that in this special context disagreement was a ‘dispreferred’ moment, but also an informative, educational, and amusing occurrence with multiple functions. While disagreements were frequently initiated (particularly by the investors), they were mostly indirect, carefully mitigated by participants with linguistic devices such as explanations, private verbs, questions, humor, as well as paralinguistic devices such as friendly facial expressions and movements. Furthermore, disagreements, especially aggravated ones, were often interactively mitigated by both on-stage participants (particularly the host) and the post-production team in an interestingly cooperative way. The interactive process of mitigating disagreements not only saved the interlocutors’ face, but also contributed to the multiple purposes of the show. Our findings suggest that politeness, as an invisible hand behind communicative acts, is still present despite the ‘conflict’ that characterizes this form of TV show.
Keywords: disagreement, face threat, mitigation, politeness, reality TV show
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
    • 2.1Disagreement and its mitigation
    • 2.2Disagreement and its mitigation in the Chinese context
    • 2.3(Im)politeness and disagreement in reality television shows
  • 3.Data and setting
    • 3.1Setting
    • 3.2Selected cases and data processing
  • 4.Analysis and results
    • 4.1Classification and functions of disagreements
    • 4.2The interactive process of mitigating disagreement
      • 4.2.1Identification and classification of primary mitigating devices
      • 4.2.2The interactive mitigation of disagreement
    • 4.3Aggravated disagreement and interactive mitigation
  • 5.Discussion and conclusion
  • References
Published online: 29 February 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/resla.22003.zha
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