Maintaining neutrality in dispute mediation: managing disagreement while managing not to disagree

Dispute mediators are active but neutral facilitators of discussion. Their job is inevitably marked by the need to manage multiple competing demands. These competing demands are a paradigm case of the kind of situation that the pragmatics literature has identified as giving rise to the production of various complex, nonstraightforward ways of talking. This paper shows three tactics mediators use to manage their multiple competing demands: indirect advocacy, framing of advocacy, and equivocal advocacy. These tactics serve as functional substitutes for more simple and straightforward moves of direction, correction. disagreement, argument, and the like. In this way, mediators manage disputes while maintaining an appearance of neutrality. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.