400 Verbal Conflict

Verbal Conflict
M Jacquemet, University of San Francisco,
San Francisco, CA, USA
2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Verbal conflict pervades social life. All around the

world, neighbors feud, lovers quarrel, and entire
social groups become entangled in wars of words.
Verbal conflict can be defined as the open, interactional dispute between two or more parties caused
by a clash of goals that the parties perceive to be
incompatible. By deploying their verbal skills, the opposing parties seek to gain a dominant position that
protects or increases their prestige and secures control
over contested resources. Verbal conflict is initiated by
the airing of direct or indirect accusations for which
speakers must take responsibility, that require opponents to reply, and that cannot be withdrawn without complicated negotiations. Verbal conflict allows
speakers to be heard and forces bystanders to take
sides. Even as it interrupts the course of social exchange and leads to interactional breakdown or to the
destruction of particular relationships, verbal conflict
reaffirms the need of social relations and the value
of the social group. All societies have developed communicative mechanisms to handle the social aftermath of verbal conflict. From the Trobrianders
yakala (a session of public insults), to Inuit song
duels, to U.S. conflictmediation sessions, people reenact their conflicts, attempt to reach a solution, and
pledge their solidarity to the values and norms of
their society. Through communicative performances
(both during the conflict and in its aftermath), social
networks are activated and social relationships reconfigured. Thus, verbal conflict does not represent a
deviation from normal social processes, but rather
plays a broad range of functions in constituting
social life.

Background
Verbal conflict provides a unique opportunity to
study the articulation of language and society. Yet
until very recently, we had relatively little knowledge
of how people manage conflict in interaction. Most
studies of conflict suffered from an absence of detailed
primary data, instead electing to present summaries,
reports by informants, or reports from meetings held
to resolve the conflict. There seem to be several reasons for this lack of data analysis. First, the study of
language tended to separate linguistic phenomena
from social experience, treating language as part of a
scientific system rather than as an activity or practice
in the world. As a result, linguistic processes such

as verbal conflict were neglected. Even when language was recognized as a form of social action (as
in sociolinguistics, speech act theory, or the ethnography of communication), it was analyzed for its conversational coherence and negotiated character, not
for it disruptive potential. For instance, researchers
concerned with interethnic communication viewed
communicative breakdowns as the result of interactants interpretative failure due to cultural misunderstanding, rather than the intentional outcome of
speakers animosity. Second, as Kulick (1993: 510)
pointed out, many verbal conflicts were often considered to be private, sensitive, and potentially explosive events, thus raising ethical concerns and
inhibiting or restricting the collection of material.
This may account for the fact that most analyses of
verbal conflict dealt with interactions in public settings (such as courtrooms or media events), ritualized
performances (such as verbal dueling), or childrens
arguments. Third, as suggested by Goodwin (1990:
141), researchers may have avoided studying
conflict because it is negatively valued in the white,
middle-class society from which the majority of
academics are drawn. Since researchers considered
conflict a departure from normal social processes,
they tended either to ignore it or to concentrate
on resolving conflict rather than understanding its
linguistic development. Finally, academics attitudes
vis-a`-vis conflict may have suffered from their cultural gender bias as well: most analyses have focused
on verbal competition and conflict as the domain of
male speakers, since men are considered to be more
verbally aggressive and outspoken, while women
were, until recently, believed to be less prone to conflict talk (but see Eder, 1990; Goodwin, 1990; Kulick,
1993, for an opposite view).
To overcome the limitations of earlier research, contemporary work on verbal conflict looks at language
as a contested field: a battlefield where interactants
(both men and women) are acutely aware of the power
of their (and others) words. Researchers in this field
now combine concepts developed by interactional sociolinguistics, pragmatics, and conversational analysis
(in particular speech community, participation framework, sequential organization, pragmatic context)
with concepts derived from European social theory
articulated by Foucault, Bourdieu, or Williams
(power, ideology, hegemony). This new brand of
conflict research crosspollinates an analysis of language with an analysis of power. Talk is thus analyzed
not only for devices that ensure coherence and cohesion, but also for those mechanisms by which speakers/
hearers bring about conversational breakdowns and

Verbal Conflict 401

transform the communicative context. In this light,

verbal conflict is understood to be a local technology
of power, i.e., a modality for the exercise of power,
comprising a whole set of instruments, techniques,
procedures, levels of application, and targets.

Strategy
In the study of verbal conflict, we must differentiate
between discourse strategy the overall communicative framework that determines the nature and direction to attain ones objective and tactics the
detailed verbal and nonverbal moves set up to achieve
objectives dictated by strategy. During a verbal conflict, opponents strategize about the best way to
establish their position as the stronger, more reliable,
and authoritative one, while using specific communicative tactics that seek interactional, turn-by-turn
dominance.
The overall strategy of verbal antagonists deals
with the representation of their social relationship,
as it is indexed in their communicative practices.
Disputants deploy strategies that endow them with
better opportunities to talk, establish certain regions
of knowledge as authentic and meaningful at the
expense of others (usually endorsed by the opponent),
and link this authenticity to systems of power that
can boost their claims to credibility. Moreover, they
increase their credibility through their ability to evoke
and use relevant domains of knowledge, and by clashing over the rules, conditions, and procedures that
establish what is believed to be true and what is
believed to be false (see Bourdieu, 1991). In particular, speakers seek to establish themselves as having
higher standing than their opponents as the preliminary move to claim authority for their words. For
instance, in Tanna, Vanuatu, during verbal conflict
people routinely claim to be big men that therefore
must be listened to and believed (Lindstrom,
1992); similarly in southern Italy, opponents seek
the status of man of honor as a position from which
to speak the truth (Jacquemet, 1996). In more general terms, people deploy their accent, technical
vocabulary, or communicative demeanor as indexes
of their superior social standing a metonymic indicator of the superiority of their argument over that
of the opponent.
Ruling elites and people in position of authority
seem to be better placed to take advantage of their
superior status to claim credibility for their words.
However, authority does not translate directly into
performance, since ones dominant social position
must still be enacted in talk. The more powerful and
authoritative a speaker is, the better are his or her
chances of influencing the outcome of the conflict,

but this outcome cannot be taken for granted: it

is ultimately decided by their communicative performance. In the give-and-take stream of talk that characterizes verbal conflicts, the structurally weaker but
communicatively better equipped participant could
shape the local development of the interaction in
such a way as to neutralize the possibility that the
stronger party would resort to extra-communicative
means to achieve his or her agenda (such as using
violence or appealing to powerful social connections).
Verbal conflict acquires an extra dimension when it
occurs in public. The presence of a third party an
audience seriously impacts the development and
outcome of the verbal conflict and is considered by
most researchers as a necessary element for conflict
resolution. Moreover, verbal conflicts play a crucial
role in publicizing and condemning social violations.
As early as the first decades of the 20th century,
Malinowski highlighted the social-control function
of public verbal conflicts. In his study of the Trobrianders laws and customs, he argued that incest and
other forbidden behaviors came to be viewed as
crimes only when they became public through verbal
conflict. In discussing an incest case, he observed that
public opinion was neither outraged by the knowledge of the crime to any extent, nor did it react
directly it had to be mobilized by a public statement
of the crime and by insults being hurled at the culprit
by an interested party (1926: 79). In contrast to
gossip, which transmits its messages along a one-toone line and is thus subjected to serious noise distortion, the yakala, or public expostulation, broadcasts
its message over an open field to the entire audience.
Such speech has clear originator and target and
reaches everyone within earshot, and its value-heavy
content assures that it cannot be dismissed as idle
talk or ignored all together. Verbal conflicts force
the audience to act to try to restore the social order
disrupted by the conflict.
The presence of an audience during verbal conflict
forces the opponents to engage in various strategies to
gain the audiences support. Even if an imbalance
exists in instituted authority or social power, successful performances will depend upon the participants
ability to modify the contextual frame of the exchange
(i.e., the relative positions/roles/attitudes of the participants in the interaction) by setting up the conditions
that would allow ones argument to be heard. In particular, to capture the audiences support, speakers
attempt to frame their arguments as embodiments of
shared beliefs and understandings. Such framing is a
primary strategy by which individuals and groups
attempt to legitimize their perspectives. As Brenneis
(1988: 227) argues, verbal conflicts create accounts
of disputed incidents, where the effectiveness of these

402 Verbal Conflict

accounts depends in large part upon the degree to

which they meet audience expectations of sensibleness, appropriateness, and good form. In a similar
vein, Goodwin (1990) studied telling stories about an
antagonist as one of the most successful strategies for
restructuring the social organization of an ongoing
conflict, transforming passive overhearers of the conflict into active participants, and thus altering the
participation framework (i.e., the ensemble of interactive roles potentially available to participants in
the speech event). The creation of an account that is
detrimental to the opponent not only avoids unilateral exits or direct replies from the antagonist (always
an option in the back-and-forth format of accusations
and counters typical of a verbal conflict), but since it is
directed to all participants, it also allows the creation
of power alliances between the storyteller and other
participants, who are drawn into the conflict by the
compelling power of the story.
The narrative dimension of verbal conflict involves
two levels of possible dispute: the speakers act of
saying something reprehensible and/or inflammatory,
and the actual report about the opponents reprehensible and/or objectionable acts. This tension between
narrative performance and narrated event brings to
the fore the relationship between the pragmatic and
the referential dimensions of a verbal conflict. As
Irvine (1992) queried, is the narration perceived as
more inflammatory than the narrated event, or vice
versa? And if the violation is present in both, which is
to be taken more seriously? These questions point to
the varieties of contexts (cultural, linguistic, and situational) that different communities take into account
in their handling of verbal conflicts. For instance,
some communities (such as the working-class white
communities in the Carolina Piedmont studied by
Heath, 1983) are mostly concerned with narrated
events, while others (such as the AfricanAmerican
groups studied by Abrahams, 1963; Labov, 1972)
focus on the narrative performance. Discourse strategies in verbal conflicts are therefore tailored to a
particular communitys primary focus: in the former,
the issues of representation, accountability, and responsibility come to the foreground, while in the
latter, emphasis is placed on verbal skills, inventive
counters, and quick delivery.

Tactics
While verbal opponents rely on discourse strategies
for the overall plan of their dispute, various verbal
tactics are deployed throughout the sparring of the
battle. Among the many techno-political devices
employed on this level, special attention has been
recently given to speech moves able to elicit particular

responses or establish new conditions for the reception of the conflict. In particular, from public debates
to institutional fights to private squabbles, researchers
have been focusing on the disruptive but empowering
quality of direct speech (straight talk) associated
with verbal conflict. Three such devices of primary
importance are contextualization tactics, recourse
to metapragmatic statements, and tactical use of
insults.
Contextualization tactics are communicative practices that both produce representations of the social
world in accord with a given ideology and seek to
persuade others to comply with these representations.
Such tactics are found in all societies and usually
consist of three parts: the decontextualization of an
event from its occurrence in a particular space and
time, its entextualization into a discourse with a more
controllable set of truth values, and the recontextualization of this discourse within a communicative
frame set up to legitimize it (see Bauman and Briggs,
1990; Silverstein and Urban, 1996). For instance, the
speaker may elect to embed an opponents statement
within his or her own speech while inverting its referential value or adding a negative comment through
intonational coloring. Most instances of reported
speech in argumentative situations conform to this
tactic: the embedded segment, which usually takes
the form of a short quotation from the opponents
previous talk, serves the speaker in the unflattering
representation of the opponent, in its representation
of the relationship between the two sparring partners,
and through the cues it presents to the audience about
how to read the conflict.
Secondly, the recourse to metapragmatic statements (i.e., statements about the implicit social meaning conveyed by speech) is triggered by speakers
awareness of how speech forms are used to establish
the indexical relationship between interactants: the
speakers stance or attitudes vis-a`-vis the opponent
(one-up/one-down); the social relations or relative
status of the participants; and special attributes of particular individuals (see Silverstein, 1976). In verbal
conflict, participants usually are keenly aware of the
specific use of signs that refer to the conflict at hand,
whether this use involves reference to specific words
used by the opponent, or to particular instances of
speech (the opponents style of delivery, intonation,
or underlying logic). In these cases, metapragmatic
awareness turns vicious and manifests itself in a
meta-pragmatic attack (Jacquemet, 1994): a strategy of consciously and overtly calling attention to
and/or mocking the opponents performance for the
purpose of interactional control. A metapragmatic
attack can be used to comment on nonverbal behavior (dont use that tone with me), to draw attention

Verbal Conflict 403

to a particular word or style (dont call me stupid,

you sound like a broken record), or to address the
indexical relationship between speaker and hearer
(you dont know who[m] youre talking to
or you must call me sir). An explicit accusation
at the metapragmatic level produces a communicative
break that escalates the stakes of the conflict. A metapragmatic attack puts an opponent on the defensive,
without the speaker having to level any specific accusations, and challenges the opponent to address the
attack at the metapragmatic level. This interactional
escalation can produce verbal sequences called format tying, a subtle but significant transformation
of an utterance in which the speaker repeats what
the opponent has just said, but changes it minimally
to highlight opposition (A: I dont know what
you laughin at; B: I know what Im laughin at.
Your head see Goodwin, 1990: 177). Metapragmatic attacks unravel the raw fabric of communicative interactions, exposing the disputants maneuvers
as they struggle for control, respect, and interactional
dominance.
Finally, most verbal conflicts rely on insults to
achieve their communicative effect. Leach (1964: 28)
suggested that the language of abuse falls roughly into
three categories: (1) dirty words, usually referring
to sex and excretion; (2) blasphemy and profanity;
and (3) animal abuse in which a human being is
equated with an animal of another species. These
types, according to Leach, are found in most
cultures around the world. They are indeed well
represented in verbal conflicts, where they may play
a crucial role in escalating the intensity of the exchange. Kulick (1993) highlighted three functions of
insults: they draw the opponent into open warfare;
they create an awkward and embarrassing situation
for all present, thus implicating the opponent in this
social gaffe; and they are tactically deployed at points
in the conflict where closure or negotiations seem
possible, allowing the insult-giver to maintain control
over the sequential organization of the conflict, and
in particular over its resolution. However, as Irvine
(1992) pointed out, how a particular expression
counts as an insult or as verbal abuse is quite problematic, requiring a great deal of contextual, cultural,
and situational knowledge. Many innocuous statements can be turned into abusive ones, depending
on the context to which they refer and on their position within the stream of talk. As Irvine (1992: 110)
stated:
Insults are not simply a set of statements, or a type
of content inherent in statements. Instead, insult is a
communicative effect constructed in interaction constructed out of the interplay of linguistic and social

features, where the propositional content of an utterance

is only one such feature [. . .] . Conceivably anyutterance, or even silence, could have the perlocutionary effect
of insult if enough interactional features suggesting it are
brought into play.

Verbal abuse is grounded in specific cultural systems of moral judgment, and as such, it must be
investigated by exploring how the dominant norms
and values of a given society are invoked in specific
interactional events.

Verbal Duels
A special case of verbal conflict concerns the widespread communicative practice of verbal dueling: the
competitive exchange of usually obscene insults and
invectives between at least two parties. This exchange
is performed in a highly ritualized and codified space,
in which participants can avoid the contests potential
to unleash social disruption. In this public space, two
or more duelists with narrowly circumscribed roles
and tasks are asked to match their linguistic skills
in front of an audience, which selects the winner
based on socially shared criteria of what constitutes
a winning performance.
In most cases, verbal duels are used as conflictresolution devices, resulting in the public rebalancing
of the wills and reputations of the duelists, thus ensuring their good relations in the future. For instance,
in the Inuit duels studied by Hoebel (1954), conflicts
in the community were reduced through two forms
of regulated combats: wrestling and song duels
(sometimes in association with head butting). The
duel must, however, maintain a symbolic distance
from the real conflict and should not provide a factual
representation of the conflict. Through the duel, the
conflict was moved to a symbolic space and separated
from everyday life. In this symbolic space, verbal
duels created an overriding sense of solidarity among
players. This led to a harmonious resolution of the
initial conflict, marked by a common meal.
It is the rule-governed nature of the exchange that
maintains the symbolic distance between the verbal
duel and serious conflict. All the major elements of
a duel (the time allotted to each duelist, the shape and
content of their lines, the conservation of form
and content across participants turns, the audience
response) are strictly regulated and enforced, marking
the controlled nature of the event. Adherence to strict
rules shields both performers and audience from the
dangers usually associated with verbal conflict. In
particular, participants need not worry about producing truthful statements, and in many settings,
content must be obviously fictional (for instance,

404 Verbal Conflict

during AfricanAmerican sounding games, any insult

too close to reality is negatively received by the audience and may trigger a serious confrontation; see
Labov, 1972). Likewise, performers are expected
not to take issue with the opponents remarks and
must not show the anger or embarrassment usually
caused by an opponents accusations.
Verbal duels are widely scattered around the world;
they have been reported from the Mediterranean area
(Malta, Turkey, Sardinia) to the Americas (Mexico,
the Caribbean, the United States), from Africa (Tiv,
Yoruba, Efik) to the South Pacific (Fiji). In most cases,
participation is reserved for male performers, while
women may be in the audience. To date the ethnographic evidence of women involved in ritual insults
centers on the life-transition occasion of the wedding.
The most thoroughly documented case of women
performers is Irvines study (1992, 1996) of xaxaar,
a Wolof insult poetry event in which a brides prospective cowives hire women of lower rank, usually
griot women, to recite poems vilifying the bride.
The basic distinction among (male) verbal duels is
between adolescent games and adult contests. Adolescent games adhere to specific stylistic shapes of
challenge and retort, in which individual performances depend on creativity and especially on the
mastery of a traditional repertoire of statements.
These duels are typically concerned with forcing
and/or depicting the opponent in a passive role, and
content is heavily composed of references to alleged
homosexual (bottom) behavior (see, among many,
Abrahams, 1962; Labov, 1972; Dundes et al., 1970;
Gossen, 1976). On the other hand, adult contests
are stylistically more demanding: participants turns
are longer and more complex, insults are often sung
rather than spoken, and sometimes a single topic is
set in advance either by the first performer or by the
organizers or audience of the duel.
Both kinds of verbal duels undergo a collective
process of evaluation by the audience, which in
most cases decides (either explicitly or through applause and comments) the winner. In cases in which
the verbal duel has been organized to settle a realworld dispute, the jury concerns itself more with reestablishing harmony in the community than with
determining guilt or innocence. In a number of cases
found in the literature, the audience/jury usually
declares one party the winner of the contest, but
adjudicates in favor of the other, thus reaching a
settlement where both parties win. In other cases,
especially with adolescent duels, losers are usually
those unable to come up with a witty counter:
There is always a winner, he who says the last
word, and a loser, he who cannot answer the challenge (Gossen, 1976: 126).

Ritual Wailing
While verbal duels are almost exclusively a male domain, ritual wailing the communicative practice
of publicly, collectively, and loudly expressing grief,
sorrow, or anger for the death of a dear one is a
female domain. Where a verbal duel may function as
an attempt at reconciliation between feuding parties,
ritual wailing can be functionally understood as the
attempt to atone for a different kind of communal
conflict: the breakdown and disruption caused by the
loss of a groups member. Many researchers have
characterized these performances as a form of resistance in which women can express open criticism of
their community and verbally abuse other members.
Ritual wailing operates with the basic mechanism of
verbal conflict: a wailing woman, using her sorrow as
a backdrop, can safely insult individuals or groups
she does not like or she reputes to be in violation of
social obligations (Knudsen, 1988; Seremetakis, 1991;
Briggs, 1992; Urban, 1988). As such, ritual wailing can
be seen as a powerful device for social defiance and,
at times, can have a powerful impact in determining
the policies and decisions of a community.
Ritual wailing shares with verbal duels many communicative features: the presence of a public audience
(at times quite large), the focus on the performative
moment, the use of formulaic speech, and the reliance
on metapragmatic devices (in particular, reported
speech; see Briggs, 1992). During ritual wailing, the
voices of many women not only express emotions but
also deliver strong public statements about the reasons behind the death, the ensuing imbalance caused
by it, and the steps needed to recover a communal
equilibrium. For instance, Knudsen (1988) reported
that ritual wailings played a central role in the
vendetta tradition in Corsica during the 18th and
19th centuries, where women called out the names
of male relatives charged with the task of avenging
the death, using derogatory language to prompt them
into action.
On the other hand, women may also elect to use
the wailing performance to present other women in
a particular unfavorable light or to insult them directly. The accused women will then be forced to respond
by entering this performative space. For instance,
Seremetakis (1992) documents the clash between a
grieving mother and a former friend of her dead son,
in which the latter strenuously fought in her lament to
represent her relationship with the deceased as casual,
thus shielding her from the strict code of mourning a
relative.
Through the high voicing of the laments, women
represent the violence of death through language and
sound the acoustic pain of day-long singing screams

Verbal Conflict 405

metaphorically evoking this violence and its underlying conflict. Through their emotional, supposedly
out-of-control outburst, they impose decisions on
the entire community by producing statements that
appeal to collectively held moral obligations. For
instance, in their laments, the Warao women of
Venezuela appropriate and recontextualize words
initially used in settings where only men are accorded
a voice, and in so doing they act to restrain the
authority of male shamans and political leaders:
Women (and women alone) are accorded the right
to criticize whatever and whomever they please
through songs following a death (Briggs, 1992: 347).
The communicative force of the laments rests once
again on the fact that these words have been uttered
in a public space: wailers acquire the power to command an audience and put on record their assessment
of the community, thus forcing their discourse into
the public sphere in most cases without the possibility of a rebuttal. As death becomes the last chapter
in the life of an individual, death laments are the last
words (Seremetakis, 1992) through which women
can rewrite biographies, shuffle group histories, and
propose new sets of norms and values.

Conclusions
From the study of verbal conflict, we can draw some
broader conclusions about the relationship between
language and society.
First, we see that most linguistic techno-political
devices (such as reported speech or metapragmatic
attacks) are always (that is, not only in verbal conflict) intentionally staged, performative acts. All
speakers, including those in positions of dominance,
need to perform their power: they stage these acts to
express their will to power. Most dominant classes
can, however, count on some helpful aids, such as a
dilution of responsibility (such as the Wolof practice
of paying a griot to speak instead of a noble [Irvine,
1992]) or the plausible deniability sought by high
public officials. In the process of this performance,
the relative power of each interactant is put to the
test. Thus, the outcome of any attempt to gain control
over communicative resources is never predetermined;
power in interaction (especially during verbal conflict) must be claimed through the use of communicative resources asymmetrically distributed but always
negotiable in performances.
Second, verbal conflict teaches us to avoid a
simplistic correlation between speech forms and
power; its techno-political devices are deployed
from all positions, from the core as well as from
the periphery, from the superior as well as from the
inferior. Different forms of domination produce

different configurations of language use. Any particular linguistic form gains different meanings and has
different social and political effects as a function of
specific institutional and ideological contexts.
Third, verbal conflict, because it calls extraordinary attention to the spoken word, generates frequent
instances of communication as verbal hygiene. In
these instances, disputants produce correct, clean
forms of talk-linguistic techno-political devices that,
in order to be effective, invoke particular assumptions
about standard language, proper talk, and normative
behavior. Through verbal hygiene, disputants attempt
to demonstrate their solidarity with the norms and
forms of the community (actual or imagined) to
which they are appealing for support.
Finally, verbal conflict forces us to address the issue
of the relationship between language and social
change. Battles over language use (as they are evoked
and transformed during a conflict) change the repertoire of social meanings associated with power relations. Through verbal conflict, social indexicalities
are interactionally transformed, opening the way for
more profound social transformations. The struggle
over the sexist bias of the English language (evidenced, for instance, in the unmarked nature of the
generic masculine pronoun) provides an example of
this potential for change; linguistic awareness of gender bias has rendered problematic the generic use of
the masculine pronoun, and this newly produced sensitivity can be exploited during a verbal conflict, since
a speaker could metapragmatically point out the
politically incorrect use of a gendered form. It would
be naive to claim that awareness of sexist language
and its recourse during verbal conflicts change gender
relations. However, by focusing speakers attention
on the inner workings of language, conflict opens a
reflection on the social meanings of particular linguistic repertoires, and this in turn can lead to structural
change.
See also: Blaming and Denying: Pragmatics; Context,
Communicative; Discourse, Narrative and Pragmatic Development; Emotion: Stylistic Approaches; Expletives and
Dummies; Face; Identity in Sociocultural Anthropology
and Language; Indexicality: Philosophical Aspects;
Language Ideology; Metapragmatics; Metasemiosis
and Metapragmatics; Performance Factors in Spoken
Discourse; Power and Pragmatics; Reported Speech:
Pragmatic Aspects; Speech Genres in Cultural Practice; Taboo: Verbal Practices; Taboo Words.

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