3.2.1 Identity construction as a means of satisfyi...
Identity can, like other types of pragmatic resources, be used to satisfy various communicative needs (i.e., current or remote communicative needs).This is the primary motivation for the dynamic construction of identity in verbal communication. In other words, identities constructed in a dynamic interaction often aim at satisfying certain communicative needs and identity modification or identity shift also aim at certain communicative needs.
In Ex.(2-1), the uncle constructs an identity of being the uncle of the hearer by deliberately using “你三叔” (‘your uncle’) to request the hearer to get some water for him. The identity of being the uncle of the hearer is used as a pragmatic source and is constructed to satisfy the speaker’s communicative need in the current context of interaction. Identity construction is therefore a pragmatic strategy, which can be a means of satisfying communicative needs. (3-1) is another example of this kind.
(3-1)
(Context: Teacher A goes to the office building in his university to visit the Party Secretary on business, but he does not know the specific location of the Party Secretary’s office, so he asks for some information from B, who is on duty at the porter’s lodge.)
1 A：你好！我想问一下林书记办公室在哪？
‘Hello! Could you tell me how I can find Party Secretary Lin’s office?’
2 B：那你要登记一下。
‘You need to register here.’
→ 3 A：我是咱们学校老师。
‘I’m a teacher here.’
4 B：哦，那你到三楼301问一下。
‘Oh, you can go to the office No. 301 on the second floor. They
will give you the information.’
5 A：好的。谢谢啊。
‘Okay. Thanks.’
In this example, A asks for some information in line 1 and B asks A to register for entering the building in line 2. However, A strategically refuses to register at the porter’s lodge by constructing an identity of being a member of the university. Here, the membership of the university constructed by A is used as a pragmatic resource to realize his current communicative need, i.e.to refuse to register at the porter’s lodge. From the response made by B, it can be seen that B accepts the identity constructed by A and provides some information without asking A to register. As a result, A’s current communicative need is satisfied (i.e. not to be obliged to register at the porter’s lodge) and his general communicative needs are partially fulfilled(i.e., A can obtain the information he needs at the office No. 301.).
Yuan (2011a) also finds in his study that the consultants in the phone-in programme of doctor-patient interactions construct different identities to achieve different communicative goals. The expert identity is constructed by the consultants to establish their authority to gain the trust of the patients (or clients), the peer identity is constructed to establish the solidarity with the patients (or clients) and the sales representative identity is constructed to establish the buying-selling relation of two parties in the interaction and to promote the medicine.
It is clear that identities constructed in Ex.(2-1) and Ex.(3-1) are used as pragmatic sources to satisfy the current or remote communicative needs. To satisfy certain communicative needs is the starting point of identity construction. In order to satisfy certain communicative needs, the speaker needs to choose certain identities to construct and at the same time must decide what linguistic choices are made to construct these identities after evaluating various contextual correlates involved in a dynamic interaction.The following sections will present the other three dimensions of the analytical framework.