Rationalizing impoliteness: Taking offence and providing vicarious accounts in mother-in-law/daughter-in-law conflict mediation

Abstract

Research on impoliteness is witnessing an increasing interest in recipients’ understanding of impoliteness, shifting from the speaker ‘causing offence’ to the listener ‘taking offence’. Although taking offence can be productively theorised as a pragmatic act which is invariably situated with respect to particular activity types, relatively few studies have explored the role of third parties in framing the taking of offence in conflict mediation contexts. Based on data from Chinese mediation between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law, this study addresses this gap by exploring how offence can be taken and rationalized on behalf of others through third-party mediation in the Chinese family context. Examination of mediation discourse indicates that mediators often deploy ‘vicarious accounts’ in their remedial work through which they exercise agency in holding the mothers-in-law less accountable for their offensive acts. Mediators’ rationalisation of mother-in-law's offensive behavior is shown to be motivated by two Chinese culture-specific moral codes—filial piety (xiao 孝) and ‘harmony is paramount’ (he wei gui 和为贵). These findings have important implications for understanding the interrelationship between impoliteness and taking offence, mediation and morality.