Managing conflict on WhatsApp

Abstract

This study investigates family conflict talk in a computer-mediated environment from a language-in-interaction focus. It is based on two different data sets of six WhatsApp groups that feature arguing British families, and of six WhatsApp groups that feature arguing Spanish families. It looks at the different linguistic strategies that participants deploy when taking up opposing stances on a given issue. Through a detailed discourse analysis of the conflict-based episodes in English and Spanish, the results not only show a differentiated linguistic process in the way(s) in which the study participants managed conflict, but also suggest that smartphone-mediated interpersonal conflict needs to be understood as an attempt to inhabit legitimate subject positions in and through discourse.