Gender/power relationships in fictional conflict talk at the workplace: Analyzing television dramatic dialogue in The Newsroom

Abstract

This study uses both conversation analysis (CA) and quantitative analysis to investigate a hitherto unexplored aspect of television dramatic dialogue: conflict talk at the workplace. Specifically, this study scrutinized 63 conflict-talk excerpts from the American TV series, The Newsroom, to explore how, in screenwriter-scripted dialogue, characters of both genders with different institutional positions (i.e., different levels of positional power) use linguistic devices to negotiate, contest, and/or assert power during conflict talk. The results of the study indicate that (1) both female and male characters in the series made frequent use of conflict talk-associated linguistic devices for power contestation and negotiation, hence displaying noticeable deviations from stereotypical gender-specific linguistic styles (especially for the female characters) and challenging established gender stereotypes, (2) power relationship was shown to be dynamic rather than static during conflict talk, and (3) the screenwriter-scripted uses and deviated uses of the typical/stereotypical linguistic devices and styles helped with characterization in the show. Furthermore, the results regarding cross-gender power contestation/negotiation in workplace conflict talk presented in this TV series support some existing research findings regarding gender stereotypes and power negotiations in both real-life and TV dramatic dialogue in general.