Multimodal Conflict Management in English Fictional Discourse

Modern linguistic studies encompass a wide range of approaches for explaining language in use through the set of different semiotic resources. This paper discusses the use and informative significance of such funds in the framework of conflict studies in English fictional discourse. The phenomenon of conflict discourse multimodality, which combines several semiotic systems as particular modes of communication, helps to reveal the communicative and pragmatic value of verbal and nonverbal means of conflict settlement and resolution. The paper aims to determine how the nonverbal means of communication in conflict discourse influence the process of conflict interaction and what implications its interpretation has on conflict development and resolution. To achieve this, the study relies upon the analysis of semantic, formal, and functional peculiarities of nonverbal conflict-management mode in the structural organization of conflict fictional discourse. The analysis of nonverbal mode as a combination of different semiotic resources reveals that nonverbal conflict-management mode is represented by a specific set of patterns in English fictional discourse. Moreover, the process of conflict communication may be regulated nonverbally, governing, completing, strengthening, or resolving the conflict. The obtained results indicate that analysis of the nonverbal means in conflict fiction discourse with a focus on multimodal studies enables to get a true picture of the role of nonverbal conflict-management mode in the actual and potential realization of communicative strategies which in correlation with its pragmatic impact and some sociolinguistic features contribute to the influence on the process of conflict resolution and management.