On Stages of Conflict Escalation - Conflict and Multimodal Communication: Social Research and Machine Intelligence - page 62

Lafontaine, irritated, raises his hand and counterattacks Kienzle's (this is not
electoral propaganda). Contributions are overlapping all the time. Lafontaine, then,
annoyed reminds his interlocutor of good manners: “Herr Kienzle, wenn Sie höflich
sind, lassen Sie mich den satz zu ende führen, dann kommen Sie eher dran (“ Mister
Kienzle, if you are polite and let me finish my sentence your turn will come
sooner ”).” Lafontaine continues, now more vehemently, showing both passionate
engagement and anger. After only a few seconds, Kienzle interrupts him again,
repeating his accusation (Fig. 3.7 ).

3.7.5 Stage 5: Climax

The climax in a conflict can contain both parties shouting, leaning forward, and
speaking at the same time, with one hand forward and almost standing up (from
a sitting position). Comparing with the five models of conflict stages, Glasl's
“debate,” Hocker and Wilmot's “confrontation,” and Brahm's “escalation” with the
possible addition of Cornelius et al. “crisis” stage are still the relevant which again
illustrate that these stages are less temporally fine grained than the stages we are
suggesting.

Fig. 3.8 Climax of the
conflict between Kienzle and
Lafontaine (Debate 1)

Kienzle interrupts Lafontaine again, now shouting and again pointing at
Lafontaine with his arm and hand. Both interlocutors are now shouting, sitting
with their upper torsos forward, using one arm/hand with the index finger stretched
pointing at the opponent, in a fight to gain the floor and the sympathy of the audience
(Fig. 3.8 ).