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Article published In: Language and Dialogue
Vol. 6:3 (2016) ► pp.370–395

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Confrontation and collaboration in the course of the election debate

 | University of Massachusetts Amherst (USA)
Published online: 8 December 2016
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https://doi.org/10.1075/ld.6.3.02vas
The study explores verbal conflict in an institutional context and examines how the election debate format and the moderators’ actions contribute to the emergence of confrontation between themselves and the debaters, what communicative practices the debaters use to resist an institutionally preferred form of interactivity, and how the moderators manage this situation. The findings show that conflict arises around face concerns and violations of the institutional order. The debaters make a number of moves to challenge the moderators and the debate format, such as addressing questions to the moderators, criticizing the moderators, disagreeing with them, refusing to respond to their questions, explicitly questioning the rules of the debate, and aligning with other candidates. The moderators manage conflict by giving the floor to another candidate, minimally acknowledging a candidate’s move, providing an account for their action, agreeing with a candidate, indicating a violation of institutional rules, and not responding to a candidate’s move.
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