Multimodal Analysis of Low-Stakes Conflicts: A Proposal for a Dynamic Model - Conflict and Multimodal Communication: Social Research and Machine Intelligence - page 261

situational context

INTERACTANT 1
face needs
ritual expectations
communicative space
discoursive roles and positions

INTERACTANT 2
face needs
ritual expectations
communicative space
discoursive roles and positions

Power relations

Fig. 14.1 Interactional balance

in which interactants act antagonistically, because each of them attempts to achieve
communicative and interactional goals that compete with/are in opposition to the
goals of the other. 4 A goal can be here defined as “a state that regulates the actions of
a system” (Poggi 2007 : 13). The divergent goals of the interactants cause a change
in the state of the system (conflict process). Goals are pursued by making use of
external and internal resources and realizing a certain plan, which is a set of actions
respectively aimed at a set of hierarchically arranged goals. In a communicative
interaction, interactants have primary and secondary goals , and instrumental and
terminal goals (Poggi 2007 : 14). In a conflictive situation a speaker's instrumental
goal to make the other share his/her primary goals and to achieve a given state is
intertwined with the terminal goal of both interactants to affirm their faces and their
interactional power. 5
A very important aspect in understanding the dynamics of the balance in
an interaction is the notion of “interactional power.” According to Wartenberg's

other party in some way. In a conflictive situation, a party can achieve its goal only at somebody
else's expense. This is why conflicts constitute a temporal disjunction of interactional flow between
interactants. According to Fiehler ( 1986 ) a conflict is a serious and unacceptable disappointment
of expectations, a violation of interests or a threat to a person's identity. Shantz ( 1987 ) notices that
a state of conflict denotes incompatible behaviors or goals. In Galtung's ( 1972 ) opinion a conflict
exists in an operating system when within it two or more incompatible target states are sought.
4 See for example Bousfield ( 2008 ): 132, Locher and Bousfield ( 2008 ): 8f.
5 An example: in a conflict about how to educate children, the instrumental goal can be to make the
Other share a conduct of behavior (for example to execute punishment for committed violations of
rules), the terminal goal can be to affirm one's authority as a parent.