2.1.3 Pragmatic approach to identity and identity ...
As shown in Sections 2.1.1 and 2.1.2, different approaches, from different perspectives and highlighting different properties of identity and its construction, have made a considerable contribution to the understanding of this rather complicated phenomenon. However, the present study mainly takes a pragmatic approach to identity and its construction, because this approach can provide a new perspective for the exploration of identity and its construction by probing into how identities are dynamically constructed in the process of performing speech acts and how identities are temporarily constructed to satisfy communicative needs in verbal interaction. However,taking a pragmatic approach does not mean that other perspectives will be excluded. Actually, this study is conducted based on the discussions of identity and its construction from several other perspectives as Sections 2.1.1 and 2.1.2 show. This section will look carefully at the previous studies of identity and its construction in the field of pragmatics.
Since pragmatics was developed into a discipline, the interlocutors’identities in verbal communication have caught the pragmatists’ attention(e.g., Austin, 1962; He, 1997; He, 2000; He & Chen, 2004; Levinson, 1983; Mey,2001; Searle, 1969, 1976; Verschueren, 1999)[1]. The interlocutors’ pre-existing identities can determine what speech acts are performed and whether they can be successfully performed (Austin, 1962; Searle, 1969, 1976). Chen (2009,p. 178) points out that the identity of both the speaker and the hearer often shows a lot of variations in actual communication and “affects the communication accordingly.” One of the typical examples is concerned with the speech act of naming, that is, “I name this ship the Queen Elizabeth.”Only the person who has the authority to name the ship can produce such an utterance. The same goes for examples such as “I now pronounce you man and wife,” “You’re fired,” and “Class begins.” The illocutionary force of these utterances is, therefore, closely related to the interlocutors’ identities.Furthermore, the same utterance produced by the people with different identities can convey different meanings and achieve different perlocutionary effects.
Although constructing social identities, marking and changing the interlocutors’ relative social statuses are considered as the communication of pragmatic meanings of speech (Oliveira et al., 2007), for a long time, the field of pragmatic studies has maintained a focus on using their pre-existing identities as a variable to interpret the meanings they aim to convey (e.g.,Bardovi-Harlig & Hartford, 1990, 1993, 1996; Deng, 2011; Mao, 2009;Matsumura, 2001). However, the fact that identities are dynamically and purposefully constructed has not been given enough attention in the field of pragmatic studies for a long period. As De Fina (2010, p. 220) points out: “in traditional pragmatic models…, very little attention is paid to the concrete social practices in which identities are made relevant and negotiated.”
Only in recent years has identity construction become one of the important issues in pragmatics (e.g., Georgakopoulou & Lytra, 2009; Jiang &Zhou, 2009; Jing & Chen, 2007; Ran, 2007a, 2011; Ren, 2008; Spencer-Oatey &Ruhi, 2007; Yuan, 2011a), yet studies applying pragmatic theory to discussion of identity construction are still scarce.
A pragmatic approach to identity and its construction means that the pragmatic nature of identity becomes one of the critical issues. Some studies argue that identity is a pragmatic resource (Chen, 2004a; Yuan, 2011c) and it can be made salient to achieve certain communicative needs. For example(Chen, 2004a, p. 44),
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→ 1 叔父：你 三 叔累了，去弄点水来。
‘Uncle: Your uncle’s tired. Fetch some water (for me).’
2 侄子：可是我还要做饭呢。
‘Nephew: But I need to cook now.’
In this example, the uncle uses “你三叔” (‘your uncle’) instead of “我”(‘I’) to construct his identity of being the uncle of the hearer, thus directly requesting the hearer to get some water for him. This is a typical example of using identity as a pragmatic resource.
Yuan (2011a) employs the Linguistic Adaptation Theory to probe into the identities constructed by the consultants in a phone-in programme of medical consultations. His findings show that three types of identities are constructed by the consultants: an expert identity, a peer identity and a sales representative identity. The three identities perform different functions in this specific institutional interaction. The expert identity performs the authority-establishing function; the peer identity fulfills the solidarity-establishing function; and the sales representative identity accomplishes medicine-promotion function. Yuan’s (2011a, p. viii) study also indicates that “identity construction is negotiable in terms of its adaptation to contextual correlates.” He further argues that in the interaction of medical consultations, the consultants, driven by balancing their communicative needs and the pragmatic force of their language use, exploited the contextual resources to construct these three pragmatic identities.
Yuan’s (2011a) study is a pioneering one that attempts to provide a systematic description and interpretation of identity construction within the theoretical framework of the Linguistic Adaptation Theory. However, Yuan’s discussion focuses on the pre-assumed identities of the consultants in phone-in programme interactions. The present study can, therefore, enrich the exploration of identity and identity construction within the Linguistic Adaptation Theory in the following aspects: firstly, instead of focusing on the pre-assumed identities, the present study will focus on those identities constructed by violating the norms of communities of practice and those constructed in line with the norms of communities of practice but dynamically modified by the participants. Secondly, the present study attempts to examine how identities are temporarily constructed to satisfy communicative needs in an activity type or discourse type (Culpeper et al., 2008; Levinson, 1992), in this case, the activity of advice-giving. Finally, the notion of communities of practice (Eckert, 1992; Graham, 2007; Wenger, 1998) is introduced here, to develop a general classification of identities in institutional interactions and the Politeness Principle (Leech, 1983) is also integrated into the framework of the Linguistic Adaptation Theory.