人與人交際言談之間，想法的分歧所引發的言語衝突會因為對談者在社會上的條件而有不同的話語模式。本研究探討之目標為談話者在與家人和同事的交流中，面對威脅的情境下所使用的語用策略。從五十六位臺灣人在中文衝突語境的問卷研究結果中發現，社會距離和社會權力確實對語用策略選擇上有所影響。當對談者的關係較為親近，且受威脅者的權力較高時，威脅策略的使用佔相對高的比例。然而，在工作場合上，威脅策略並不常見，取而代之的是請求和妥協的策略，以顧及雙方的面子。此外，當被威脅者的權力較低時，無論是與家人或是同事交流，有採取相同策略的傾向，亦即受試者傾向使用妥協、懇求或道歉等策略。最後，男性和女性在處理言語衝突的情況亦有所不同。男生易使用威脅策略，在與家人交流時特別明顯，女性則是偏好溫和的語用策略，社會關係和權力的影響並不明顯。

Verbal conflicts could emerge as diurnal discourse between strangers, classmates, coworkers and even family members around us in life. The strategies in their interactions involving issues of social distance and social power serve the motive of the present study, especially in discourse between intimates and acquaintances. The study investigated fifty-six Taiwanese aged 25 or over with working experiences, including 28 males and 28 females. They participated in the Discourse Completion Tests and answered open-end questions in ten threatening scenarios.
The analysis of the participants’ responses indicate that the strategy of threat is relatively frequent for Taiwanese respondents in interaction with intimates, implying that the intention of threatening is related to affection and parenting. Besides, the interaction effect of social distance and social power greatly determines the choice of strategy. Accordingly, there is a distinct tendency for opposition between intimates and acquaintances. As the threatenee is with high social power, the results of intimates present high frequency of threatening, while the results of acquaintances are inclined to make request and indirect request in conflicts. By contrast, as the threatenee is with low social power, there is little likelihood for the respondent to use threats; instead, milder strategies such as compliance, request, indirect request, plea and apology are favored by intimates and acquaintances. Last, the gender-specific strategies are context-dependent. Males tend to adopt aggressive strategies, whereas females prefer milder strategies in interaction with intimates, which is specifically conspicuous as they possess high social power. However, the preferred strategy in the workplace setting is consistent for both groups. In general, the study suggests that there is an intricate relation among power, distance and gender in the speech act of threatening in conflict discourse.

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