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Intercultural and interpersonal communication failures: analyzing hostile interactions among British and Spanish university students on WhatsApp

Abstract Although the use of the mobile application communication technology for interpersonal communication seems to be less physically threatening, building successful relationships has become more complex. Using both quantitative and qualitative analyses of the way(s) British and Spanish university students manage a hostile situation when disputing among each other on WhatsApp, the present study aims to shed light on conflict management by investigating the differentiated topic management strategies the participants in the study deploy. This, in turn, will add new empirical evidence to the expanding field of intercultural pragmatics. Through a detailed analysis of the hostile interactions, the results show a differentiated linguistic process by means of which participants initiate, maintain and escalate conflict talk that also relates to the speaker’s failed attempts to understand and negotiate each other’s intended meaning in interaction.