Strategies of im-politeness in situations of conflict

Abstract

This work builds upon an interactional perspective on discourse studies, which implies thinking of interaction as the place where language is constituted and it is, therefore, reflexively constituted by language. The data analyzed were taken from a conciliation hearing at PROCON which took place in a city in the state of Minas Gerais. Conciliation hearings are characterized by the attempt to solve a conflict between consumers (complainants) and suppliers of goods and services (respondents), being mediated by a PROCON’s representative (mediator). Our main focus is to examine how impoliteness/facework strategies are used by the participants involved (respondent, complainant and mediator) in a conciliation hearing and how they can contribute to the conflict resolution.