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‘Sustainable Disagreement’ : Well as a Discourse Marker in Crisis Negotiations

Kyung-Hee Suh 1

1한국외국어대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

his study investigates the discourse marker well in two transcripts of the 1993 Waco siege negotiations, paying a special attention to its discursive use as a marker of ‘sustainable disagreement’. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses are carried out with a view to presenting the use of well by participant roles and the intensity of negotiations. Three functional categories are proposed, which comprise marking affiliative, disaffiliative and neutral stance. Special attention is given to the disaffiliative stance prefaced by well, which is frequently used when the involved parties are engaged in ‘sustainable disagreement’: situations in which they are confronting each other, yet are nevertheless seeking to maintain the channels of communication and prevent dialogue from breaking down. The distributive and discursive aspects of well are found to be different in the two sets of data; well is widely and variably employed on March 9th, when there is flexibility for negotiation; its use on April 18th is somewhat limited. The findings of this study will go a long way in proving more nuanced guidance to scholars and practitioners of crisis communications, and will improve our understanding of the power relations in intra- and inter-group settings. (193)

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.