4.2.2 Analyzing identity construction
This section will describe the method used for analyzing identity construction and the linguistic variables used for constructing identities in verbal communication.
Method for analyzing identity construction
The present study mainly adopts a discourse-analytic method in data analysis because “discourse analysis is the close study of talk (or text) in context” (Tracy, 2001, p. 734). This method has been widely used to examine identity construction (Auer, 2007; De Fina et al., 2006; Tracy, 2009; Tracy &Carjuzáa, 1993; Tracy & Naughton, 1994). Tracy and Carjuzáa (1993, p. 175)hold that “an adequate description of communicative strategies can only be arrived at by close examination of situated talk.” A similar assumption can be made here that an adequate description of identity construction in academic advising can only be arrived at by close examination of this type of specific interaction.
A discourse-analytic method is used in this study, to carry out a close examination of how advice-givers in their advising sequences in Chinese PhD dissertation presentation proposal meetings employ different types of discourse parameters to construct a variety of identities. Only by carefully analyzing discourse produced by advice-givers and the ways of producing them,can a clear picture be drawn to show how people do their identity-work through discourse in this specific academic context, because ‘‘analysis of discourse becomes, then, analysis of what people do’’ (Potter, 1997, p. 146).
Another reason for the present study to use a discourse-analytic method is that this method “generally avoids trading on analysts’ prior assumptions about what might be called ethnographic particulars” and it is “more inductive than hypothetico-deductive” (Potter, 1997, p. 158). This is in line with the basic assumption of this study that participants’ identities are dynamically constructed through their discourse produced in interaction whether they are pre-existing or newly emerged.
Tracy (2001, p. 734) also points out that discourse analysis can provide researchers with “a compelling way to study how people present themselves,manage their relationships, assign responsibility and blame, create organizations, enact culture, persuade others, make sense of social members’ongoing interactional practices, and so on.” It is clear that the discourse-analytic method can be “a compelling way” to examine how people do their identity-work.
Although adopting a discourse-analytic method makes the present study mainly qualitative, it can “provide a deeper understanding of the social phenomena involved in interaction” (Limberg, 2010, p. 60). The discourse-analytic method can be realized by three linguistic variables, which will be discussed in the next section.
Linguistic variables for constructing identities
The present study attempts to investigate the linguistic construction of identities in academic advising interaction in a Chinese context, thus how language plays a role in identity construction becomes one of the salient aspects. This section will work out the various linguistic variables for constructing identities in verbal communication.
“Since language and identity are indexically linked, authority status is not only displayed through (or reflected in) language, it is also achieved through the use of language” (Oliveira et al., 2007, p. 122). Certain linguistic devices are frequently employed to construct identities, as many studies have shown (e.g., Achugar, 2009; Bucholtz, 1999; Csomay, 2007; Harwood, 2005; Ho,2010a, 2010b; Holmes et al., 1999; Hyland, 2002a, 2002b; Kuo, 1999; Lakoff,1973; Oliveira et al., 2007; Recski, 2005; Sheldon, 2009; Tang & John, 1999;Thornborrow, 2004; Tracy, 2009; Ige, 2010; Van De Mieroop, 2007). In verbal communication, participants can position themselves interactionally by speaking in characteristic ways or use particular linguistic devices. Oliveira et al. (2007, p. 125) investigate expert identity construction by carefully examining authority-indexing varieties at linguistic levels, including lexicon(participant’s choice of words), syntax (preferred grammatical structures),discourse structure (sequence and distribution of moves such as asking questions, providing responses, evaluating, using uptake and recipient practices), prosody (intonation, volume and speech rate), and poetic discourse (parallelism and repetition). The present study will base its analysis on this framework.
However, this framework is not adequate to portray the variables for constructing identities in verbal communication, for it neglects the propositional contents of utterances and the context where discourse is produced. According to Recski (2005), the speakers’ commitment to propositions is closely related to their identity construction. Some previous studies have explored how propositional content is used in constructing identities (e.g., Holmes, 2005; Koller, 2011; Locher & Hoffmann, 2006).
Therefore, based on the framework proposed by Oliveira et al. (2007),this study puts forward a revised one for identity construction in verbal interaction. The revised framework consists of linguistic forms, discourse contents and discourse styles[3]. Linguistic forms mainly concern lexical and syntactic levels of linguistic resources, discourse contents mainly concerns semantic meanings conveyed by the speaker’s utterances and discourse styles mainly include “discourse structure,” “prosody,” and “poetic discourse” in the framework proposed by Oliveira et al. (2007) and tone of speech, for example,to be more assertive or tentative. They are different levels of discourse and interrelated with each other. These three levels can be used alone, or two or three together to do identity-work. Meanwhile, each of them must be dependent on context. That is, context is always involved in identity-work with different degrees of salience. Figure 4.2 demonstrates the relationship between the variables.
Figure 4.2 The linguistic variables for constructing identity
This framework mainly concerns what happens in the box of “making linguistic choices” in Figure 3.6. It also relates to what happens in the box indicated by “locus” in Figure 3.4.
This framework can also be used to identify identities constructed in verbal interaction in that the three variables (i.e., linguistic forms, discourse contents and discourse styles) involved in this framework are the major variables to construct identities. It will be mainly used to analyze how linguistic choices are made to construct various identities in academic advising interaction in Chinese PhD dissertation proposal presentation meetings.