Communication Strategies in Conflict Discourse: Cross-cultural Experimental Research

Abstract

The paper discusses the choices of communication strategies of confrontation, distancing and cooperation in conflict discourse made by Russian and American university students. The experimental study revealed that both Russian and American male students tend to be more aggressive than females, and that both Russian and American respondents tend to choose the strategy of confrontation when they start the conversation reacting to non-verbal triggers, while in reacting to verbal triggers most respondents chose the strategies of cooperation or distancing. The paper also discusses the language units used by the four groups of students for expressing confrontation.

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Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 236 ( 2016 ) 65 – 70
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
ScienceDirect
1877-0428 © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI (Moscow Engineering Physics Institute).
doi: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2016.12.021
International Conference on Communication in Multicultural Society, CMSC 2015, 6-8 December
2015, Moscow, Russian Federation
Communication strategies in conflict discourse: cross-cultural
experimental research
Andrey G. Fomin
*
, Nataliya S. Yakimova
Kemerovo State University, 6 Krasnaya Street, Kemerovo 650043, Russian Federation
Abstract
The paper discusses the choices of communication strategies of confrontation, distancing and cooperation in conflict discourse
made by Russian and American university students. The experimental study revealed that both Russian and American male
students tend to be more aggressive than females, and that both Russian and American respondents tend to choose the strategy of
confrontation when they start the conversation reacting to non-verbal triggers, while in reacting to verbal triggers most
respondents chose the strategies of cooperation or distancing. The paper also discusses the language units used by the four groups
of students for expressing confrontation.
© 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Peer-review under responsibility of the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI (Moscow Engineering Physics Institute).
Keywords: Conflict; communication; strategy; confrontation; verbal aggression; cooperation; distancing; ethnopsycholinguistics, cross-cultural
study; Russians; Americans
1. Introduction
Conflicts can be witnessed in most spheres of human life and activity, which is proved by the numerous
researches of this phenomenon over the history. Conflicts were mentioned in the earliest literary works (the Bible
and national mythologies) and later on in the works of ancient philosophers (Plato, Aristotle, Confucius, etc.). Since
then this phenomenon has been addressed in social sciences, legal studies, psychology, pedago gy and linguistics.
Conflict studies, which emerged as a separate branch on social sciences, focuses on research of the social nature, the
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: andfomin67@mail.ru
© 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI (Moscow Engineering Physics Institute).

66 Andrey G. Fomin and Nataliya S. Yakimova / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 236 ( 2016 ) 65 – 70
reasons, types and dynamics of conflicts, ways, methods and means of their prevention and regulation (Kokh, 1997,
p. 21).
Conflicts normally occur in communication, where participants express their reaction of disagreement either
physically or verbally. The psycholinguistic approach allows studying the psychological nature and motif of
conflicts and their realization in the speech since psycholinguistics focuses on the connection between the content,
motif and form of speech activity, on the one hand, and the language structure and elements used in the speech act,
on the other hand (Kubryakova, 1986, p. 16).
People’s communicative behaviour in different communicative situations generally falls into three types:
confrontation (conflict), distancing (withdrawal or acceptance) and cooperation (positive interaction) (Tretyakova,
2000). The choice of the communication strategy by an individual is defined by a number of reasons, both of
biological (genetics, age, gender) and social (background, education, experience) nature.
Gender is a key factor in communication. D. Tannen’s study that focused on comparing communicative
behaviour of boys and girls revealed that girls tend to choose more personal topics, discuss them in smaller groups
and listen to one speaker at a time, while boys tend to address a number of topics simultaneously and to express their
own thoughts regardless of the interests of their interlocutors (Tannen, 1990). Research revealed that in conflict
situations men tend to react more aggressively, since men’s aggressive behaviour is perceived as more adequate than
women’s, according to conventional norms (Eagley and Steffen, 1986; Brandt and Pierce, 2000). However, physical
aggression is considered to be a more common and less inappropriate type of behaviour for men rather than for
women. Thus, women are more likely to express their aggression by verbal means (Ilin, 2010, pp. 160-161).
The situational factor (primarily, the personality and the behaviour of the interlocutor), is important as well in
determining the communicative behaviour. Some of our respondents indicated this in the following reaction to
Situation 1 (‘You agreed to meet with a friend who turns up 20 minutes late. What would you say to him/her?’): “If
it’s a girl, I’d say nothing; If it’s a guy, I’d yell at him”; “I would let it go the first time, but if it happened again I
would just make a joke saying did you get lost?” .
The communicative conflict is studied by social psycholinguistics where it is defined as a verbal confrontation
based on aggression expressed in language means (Sedov, 2002). Thus, verbal aggression is the most common form
of implementing the communication strategy of confrontation. Psychologists proved that verbal aggression serves to
express negative emotions or to attack the self-concepts of other people in order to inflict psychological pain (Infante
and Wigley, 1986). Verbal aggression may occur in a direct (threats, offence, bullying) or indirect form. Indirect
communication, where the meaning of the utterance is not equal to the meaning of the used lexical units, is
characterized by the presence of some implied meanings (Dementiev, 2006, p. 5). Indirect verbal aggression is
expressed in the speech genres of irony, joke, mockery, etc. Verbal aggression may as well occur in the mediated
form (libeling, gossiping, etc.) (Sedov, 2007, pp. 257-258).
Another branch of psycholinguistics is ethno-psycholinguistics – an integrative science, uniting multi-aspect
studies of the speech activity as a type of mental activity with regard to its ethnic and cultural varieties
(Pishchalnikova, 2007, p. 14). Thus, this study will focus on the ethnic peculiarities of communication strategies in
conflict discourse revealed in a psycholinguistic experimental study of Russian and American university students.
2. Methods
The participants of the experiments were 101 Russian students (33 males and 68 females) from Kemerovo State
University (Russian Federation) and 102 American students (35 males and 67 females) from Lock-Haven University
of Pennsylvania (the USA). It was important for the study that all of them were native speakers of Russian and
American English respectively. The educational level and the age of the participants were approximately the same
within the experimental groups and corresponded between the groups, which ensures a high validity of results. Thus,
four groups of respondents were studied: Russian male students, Russian female students, American male students
and American female students.
The Conflict Questionnaire with free-response questions was used. The respondents were asked to write down
how they would react in 10 situations. The collected reactions were in the form of direct speech (e.g. “Fashionably
late I see”), indirect speech (“I would ask my friend why they are so late”) or description (“Before my friend got
there I would wait 10 minutes then call him/her to see if they are ok. After I found out if they are ok I would wait for

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them”). The responses were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively to reveal the choice of the preferred
communication strategy in conflict situations for each group of respondents: confrontation (aggression), distancing
and cooperation. Direct speech reactions were also analyzed to reveal the language units used in expression of
confrontation (verbal aggression).
This paper will focus on the analysis of four situations:
1. You agreed to meet with a friend who turns up 20 minutes late. What would you say to him/her?
2. You find out that somebody has rearranged the things on your office table. What would you say to that person?
3. You came up late for the meeting and your friend who had been waiting for you all the time started yelling at
you. What would you say?
4. You're having a discussion and your interlocutor suddenly interrupts you. What would your (verbal) reaction
be?
Situations 1 and 2 were modeled to identify the respondents’ reaction to another person interfering with their time
(schedule) and space (office table), while Situations 3 and 4 were modeled to study the respondents’ reactions to
verbal abuse and interfering. Situations 1 and 3 imply more informal communication, while Situations 2 and 4 target
neutral or more formal communication.
3. Results
3.1. The choices of communication strategies
In Situation 1 (Fig. 1a) the confrontation strategy is preferred by respondents in all the experimental groups. Still,
about 40 % of American female students and almost 30 % of Russian male students chose the strategy of
cooperation. In Situation 2 (Fig. 1b) the confrontation strategy is preferred by respondents in all the experimental
groups as well. However, over 30 % of American female students chose the strategy of cooperation, and almost 20
% of Russian male students chose the strategy of distancing.
Fig. 1. (a) choices of communication strategies in Situation 1; (b) choices of communication strategies in Situation 2.
In Situation 3 (Fig. 2a) most Russian respondents chose the strategy of confrontation, while most Americans
preferred the strategy of distancing. This choice of the American students shows their inclination towards avoiding
further escalation of the conflict. About 35 % of Russian male respondents and American female students indicated
that they would prefer to be cooperative.
In Situation 4 (Fig. 2b) the female respondents in both national groups would prefer the strategy of cooperation,
while Russian male students would choose distancing or confrontation, and American male respondents are prone to
confrontation. This corresponds to D. Tannen’s research results cited above, which proved that women are better
listeners and prefer having one speaker at a time, while males tend to communicate their ideas regardless of others’
communicative intentions.

68 Andrey G. Fomin and Nataliya S. Yakimova / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 236 ( 2016 ) 65 – 70
Fig. 2. (a) choices of communication strategies in Situation 3; (b) choices of communication strategies in Situation 4.
The analysis of communication strategies in the studied situations revealed that both Russian and American
respondents tend to choose the strategy of confrontation when they start the conversation, reacting to non-verbal
triggers (Situations 1 and 2), while in reacting to verbal triggers (Situations 3 and 4) most respondents chose the
strategies of cooperation or distancing. Generally, male respondents tend to be more aggressive than females, as the
former choose the strategy of confrontation more often, the only exception being Situation 2 where Russian women
tend to be the most confronting in protecting their private space. Another general conclusion is that American male
students tend to be more aggressive (prone to confrontation), while American female respondents tend to be less
aggressive than the Russian participants of both groups. This surprising finding contradicts the common stereotypic
picture of the American society as having a higher level of gender equality. The only exception was Situation 3,
where both groups of Americans are more prone to distancing.
3.2. The choices of language units expressing the strategy of confrontation
Most respondents indicated that they would express their disagreement verbally rather than physically, thus the
strategy of confrontation is expressed by verbal aggression whose markers appear in their answers at the lexical,
syntactical and stylistical levels of the language. Since the answers were collected in the written form, we can spot a
number of graphic markers as well.
At the lexical level Russian respondents tend to use offensive nominations, e.g. истеричка (“hysteric person”),
“тормоз”, “капуша” (“slowpoke”), while Americans largely use the lexical unit hell: “What the hell, why you
late?”, “Where the hell were you”, etc. Russian respondents also indicated that in some situations they might use
obscene words, which is more common for males than for females.
To emphasize their emotional attitude to the situation both Russians and Americans would choose the lexical
units belonging to the spoken style: “Че так долго?” (“Why so long?”), “Че за фигня?” (“What the crap?”),
“Заткну его/ее и объясню ситуацию” (“I’d shut them up and explain the situation”); “Buddy, I’ve been waiting
for 20 mins!”, “Gee man, what took ya so long?”, “I’m kinda annoyed”, “Shut up!”. However, in more formal
situations American female respondents might use more formal vocabulary to express their attitude to the conflict
cause, e. g.: “Do not disrespect my personal space”, “I would appreciate it if you...”
At the syntactical level male respondents chose much shorter sentences than female students, e.g. “Don’t ever
touch my desk again” vs “I would like it if you wouldn’t touch my desk”. American female respondents tend to use a
lot of complex sentence structures, especially in more formal situations, e.g. “If the time didn't suit you, we should
have talked about another time”, “I would appreciate if you wouldn't touch my personal things since they are not
yours”. American female students also tend not to divide their utterance into sentences by any punctuation means
(“Excuse me this is my office table and I didn't ask to move anything can you tell me why it's not the way I had it?”,
“Listen I'm sorry I'm late”), while Russian male respondents frequently divide their sentences into further segments:
“Кто это сделал? И зачем?” (“Who did this? And why?”).

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At the stylistical level female respondents of both nationalities tend to use exaggerations: “скажу, что я жду ее
уже 20 лет” (“I’d say I’ve been waiting for her for 20 years”), “I’ve been waiting forever!” Another very
common means of communicating disagreement within the strategy of confrontation is using sarcasm: “Извини,
что говорю, когда ты перебиваешь” (“I’m sorry I’m speaking while you’re interrupting me”); “От зеркала не
могла так долго оторваться?” (“Were you unable to tear yourself off the looking glass?”); “Fashionably late I
see”; “Thanks for being on time (sarcastically)”.
Both Russian male and female students used stylistic means is alluding to culturally significant phenomena to
express their intention of confrontation: “Я тебе не Брюс Всемогущий, что бы развернуть машину и проехать
пробку” (“I am no Bruce Almighty to turn my car back and bypass the traffic jam”); “Муля, не нервируй меня
больше” (“Mulya, don’t make me nervous again” – a phrase from a well-known Soviet film).
At the graphic level Russian respondents, especially females, tend to use extensive punctuation, e.g. “тебе часы,
что ли, подарить?!” (“should I gift you a watch?!”); “надо ходить быстрее!!!” (“you should walk faster!!!”),
“Вам же можно опаздывать, а я чего???” (“If you can be late, why can’t I???”). At that, American respondents
tend to omit punctuation marks even in the questions (“where the hell were you man”, “Could you please not
interrupt me while I’m speaking thank you”). Russian respondents also used smileys to suggest some additional
emotional connotations: “=)”, “:)”, etc.
The emotions are also expressed by Russian students by means of interjections spelt the way they would be
pronounced, e. g.: “Э э э й” (“H e e y”), “А-а-а! Мой упорядоченный хаос!” (“A-a-ah! My structured chaos!”),
“ЭЭЭ, кто тут все переложил?” (“EEE, who’s rearranged everything here?”).
Another aggressive graphic means revealing the strategy of confrontation is the use of capital letters, which are
used to indicate screaming. Such examples occur in the responses of all the experimental groups to Situation 2: e.g.
“КТО это сделал?” (“WHO did this”) and “DON'T EVER DO THAT AGAIN”.
The analysis of the speech genres (tactics) used by Russian and American respondents to express the strategy of
confrontation (aggressive communicative behavior) proved our previous findings (Fomin and Yakimova, 2012) that
Russian male students tend to choose the communicative tactics of indignation, mockery and threat, while Russian
females would prefer using the tactics of indignation, sarcasm and reproach. As for the Americans, they tend to
choose the tactics of indignation, sarcasm and withdrawal from communication, and American female students are
also prone to using reproach. These differences can be explained by gender stereotypes and distribution of gender
roles in the society as well as by cultural peculiarities.
4. Conclusion
The experimental study proved that Russian and American male and female students tend to choose different
communication strategies in situations involving conflict discourse. Both Russian and American male students tend
to be more aggressive than females. Another finding is that both Russian and American respondents tend to choose
the strategy of confrontation when they start the conversation reacting to non-verbal triggers, while in reacting to
verbal triggers most respondents chose the strategies of cooperation or distancing.
The study focused on the language units used by four groups of students for expressing confrontation, since this
strategy was chosen most often by the respondents of all the experimental groups: 54 % of the Russian males and 56
% of the Russian female students, 62 % of the American male students and 42 % of the American females (in this
group the strategy of cooperation was the second most common choice – 38 %). The analysis revealed some
national peculiarities in the chosen lexical, syntactical, stylistical and graphical means. In both the Russian and the
American experimental groups females tend to be more expressive than males in expressing their disagreement.
The obtained results can be used in cross-cultural studies and cross-cultural communication, since better
awareness of another culture’s peculiarities ensures better mutual understanding between the representatives of the
cultures and avoiding communicative failure. The research method can be used in further diachronic studies or in
studying and contrasting other nationalities.

70 Andrey G. Fomin and Nataliya S. Yakimova / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 236 ( 2016 ) 65 – 70
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