On mediators’ management of disagreement with disputants in Chinese televised dispute mediation

Abstract

This study examines acts of disagreement presented in televised dispute mediation in China, to identify and account for characteristic features of the ways in which Chinese mediators convey disagreement. The research reveals that mediators’ disagreements lack many of the common features of everyday conversation, and use both non-straightforward and straightforward ways of expression. The preferred methods of expressing disagreement are salient features of Chinese discourse, and differ from those used in western mediation.