Dissension and Face-work Strategies in German Dialogues

Dissension, defined as a propositional attitude of the speaker's disagreement is classified into four categories according to its scope. Its occurrences in German discussions were analyzed according to their linguistic expressions and 'Face-work'. No specific linguistic means for expressing Dissension was found, although most cases display semantically negative lexical components. 38 Face-work strategies were defined based on Brown/Levinson (1978, 1987). Linguistic elements from many word classes as well as devices such as Deixis manipulation were used for Face-work purposes.