从会话分析视角解析电影《通天塔》中的文化冲突

论文总字数：51307字

摘 要

文化冲突一直是跨文化交际中一个复杂而普遍存在的现象。冲突看似产生于不经意之间，在其表象之下却总有着深层的文化原因。因此，如何有效地识别文化差异，化解文化冲突便成为跨文化交际中国内外学者研究的重要问题。跨文化冲突是指不同文化类型间的对抗和冲突，属于一种特殊的排斥、对立现象，主要存在于不同文化和亚文化。在跨文化交际中，冲突究竟是由什么原因引起的,将是本文探究的主要问题。

《通天塔》作为电影领域表现文化冲突的代表作品，更是很好地突出了这一现象。美国、摩洛哥、墨西哥、日本这四个国家的文化，各自具有其独特性，各种文化在客观上也存在着差异。当具有不同特性的文化发生碰撞时，就增加了文化冲突的可能性。本文对电影《通天塔》中的人物对话进行了真实的转录，保留了其中拼写、语法、词汇等错误。文中将冲突类型划分国际范围和国内范围两种，并使用会话分析理论，旨在探究电影中人物的话轮转换、人物会话风格以及会话策略等如何体现了跨文化交际中发生的文化冲突现象。并通过对会话的分析，探究会话都具有哪些特征可以揭露出文化冲突，并解释了发生跨文化冲突的原因，如：文化偏见，价值观的不同，强文化与弱文化的碰撞等。最后，在总结归纳文化冲突原因的基础上提出了研究的局限性以及未来研究的方向。

关键词： 跨文化冲突，《通天塔》，会话分析

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………..….1

English Abstract………………………………………………………………..…….2

Chinese Abstract……………………………………………………………………...3

Table of Contents………………………………………………………………..……4

Transcription Conventions…………………………………………………………..5

Chapter One Introduction…………………………………………………………...6

1.1 Background of the Study…………………………………………….………….6

1.2 Significance of the Study……………………………………………………….6

1.3 Layout of the Thesis…………………………………………………………….7

Chapter Two Literature Review…………………………………………………….8

2.1 Definition of Intercultural Conflict……………………………………………..8

2.2 Previous Studies on Intercultural Conflict at Home and Abroad……………….8

2.2.1 Studies Abroad……………………………………………………………..8

2.2.2 Studies at Home……………………………………………………………9

2.2.3 Research Gap……………………………………………………………...10

Chapter Three Research Methodology…………………………………………….11

3.1 Research Question..………………………………………………………....…11

3.2 Theoretical Framework—Conversation Analysis………………………..……11

3.2.1 Definition of Conversation Analysis...……………………………………11

3.2.2 Three Aspects of Conversation Analysis………………………………….11

3.3 Introduction of the Movie Babel………………………………………………12

3.4 Data Collection………………………………………………………………...13

Chapter Four Data Analysis and Discussions……………………………….…….14

4.1 Inter-national Conflict…………………………………………………………14

4.4.1 Conversation Analysis…………………………………………………….14

4.4.1 Discussion………………………………………………………………...17

4.2 Intra-national Conflict……………………….……………..………………….18

4.2.1 Conversation Analysis…………………………………………………….18

4.2.2 Discussion…………………………………………………...……………21

Chapter Five Conclusion…………………………………………...………………23

5.1 Major Findings…………………………………………...……………………23

5.2 Limitations and Suggestions for Further Study……………………….………24

References…………………………………………………………...………………25

Transcription Conventions^[1]

Symbol Meaning

… Ellipses indicate talk omitted from the data.

(1 minute) The number in brackets indicates a time gap.

(.) A dot enclosed in brackets indicates a pause in the conversation of less than two-tenths of a second.

[ Square bracket between lines indicates the overlapping turns.

= Equal signs are latching symbols. They indicate that there is no interval between the end of an earlier talk and the start of the next piece of talk.

Oh: no:: Colon(s) indicate that the prior syllable is prolonged; the more colons, the more the syllable or sound is prolonged.

Wait a mi- A hyphen shows a sudden cutoff of speech.

If it breaks Underlining shows speaker emphasis.

(( )) A description enclosed in double brackets indicates a non-verbal activity, such as ((laughing)). Alternatively double brackets may enclose the transcriber’s comments.

( ) Empty brackets indicate that some talk was unclear or audible.

↓↑ Pointed arrows indicate a marked rising or falling intonation shift, which are placed immediately before the beginning of the shift.

(NL) A bracket with NL inside means the language is a none-English language.

(SL) A bracket with SL inside means the language is sign language.

Chapter One Introduction

1.1 Background of the Study

With the development of science and technology, the enhancement of comprehensive strength of all countries, the tide of constant globalization has impact on every country, tying up economic relationships among countries in today’s world, and any uncertainty of one local market may affect another seemingly distant market. In the interest of occupying a place in the world market, countries exercise all sources to popularize their products to the rest of the world, showing by the growing data of import and export commodities and the flourishing number of Multi-National Corporation in most of countries. However, due to the differences in cultural and historical background, the lack of necessary understanding of others’ national culture will lead to cultural conflict in intercultural communication. Therefore, there is great practical significance of the research on cultural conflict and integration in intercultural communication.

Babel is a film that exhibits the friction between countries, religious groups and people because of cultural differences. The word ‘Babel’ comes from the Old Testament in the Bible. According to the eleventh chapter of Genesis, people from all over the world spoke the same language from the outset. At that time, human beings wanted to build a tower to prove that they were equal to anything because of their pride. God felt very angry about humans’ arrogance. Humans were distributed to every corner of the world, their languages distinguished from one another. Hence, the tower dream vanished into thin air and people could no longer communicate with, talk and listen to each other.

The film Babel applies this classic plot in the Bible as a metaphor, twelve people, four countries, three different fates and an accidental gunshot intertwined. What happened in 11 days almost covers all the misery in the world and all the misfortunes derive from impeded communication and intercultural conflicts.

1.2 Significance of the Study

Intercultural conflict is a performance of the contradiction between different cultures. The film Babel fully demonstrates diverse cultural conflicts in intercultural communication, reflecting cultural differences of different nations, religious groups and people, a suitable case for research of cultural conflict. By analyzing the current researches in related fields at home and abroad, it is apparent that scholars have paid more attention to the phenomenon of intercultural conflicts between developed countries and religions than to a specific case for analysis. What’s more, scholars usually analyze intercultural conflicts from the general direction of the sociological or linguistic points of view. Few carefully classify the reasons of intercultural conflicts from specific conversations of different races and different groups of people.

Therefore, this article will focus on intercultural conflict by means of conversation analysis, using the film Babel as a particular case. By analyzing the structures, strategies, and styles of conversations, the thesis is intended to study the intercultural conflict phenomenon of different nations, groups and religions demonstrated by the film. In other words, the thesis is projected for the characteristics of conflict conversations and the reasons for the occurrence of intercultural conflict based on the conversations and plots in the film.

1.3 Layout of the Thesis

This paper is composed of five chapters, which can be divided into three parts. The first three chapters are grouped into part one, which is the theoretical foundation of the study. As the most important chapter of this paper, chapter four can be seen as part two, which analyzes conversations to demonstrate the intercultural conflict in the film Babel. Chapter five is the third part, which brings the thesis to a conclusion and explains the limitation of this study.

To begin with, chapter one initiates with a general introduction to the present study including the background and significance of the study.

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