8.3 Limitations of the Study and Suggestions for t...
Although the present study has provided a detailed look at the advice-givers’ identity construction in academic advising interaction in a Chinese context, it still has some limitations:
Firstly, the data size is not large enough, which may limit the possibility of finding some other identities which may be constructed by advice-givers in their advising sequences. This relatively small amount of data may also limits the possibility of finding more linguistic choices made for identity construction in academic advising interaction.
Secondly, the dynamic process of identity construction has been mainly displayed by analyzing identity modification and identity shift, in which only the advice-givers’ discourse in their advice-giving activity was analyzed.Although this can meet the objectives of the present study, but if the analysis of how the advice-receivers’ response influences the advice-givers’ identity construction had been taken into consideration, the analysis of the dynamics of identity construction would undoubtedly have been enriched. Unfortunately,it has been found that advice-receivers (i.e., PhD students) usually use fillers(e.g., Mm, Yes, Ok, Oh, Um) to respond advice-givers, so it is difficult to find how advice-givers make identity modification or identity shift in terms of the advice-receivers’ response in advising sequences. This might be a result of the relatively small amount of data.
Thirdly, the analysis in the present study has been done mainly based on the data collected by audio recording, thus limiting the exploration of more contextual correlates in the physical world. Consequently, it may limit the understanding of identity construction. As Norris (2008, p. 133) points out, the prioritizing of language may “limit our understanding of personal identity construction,” and he then argues that “when we view language unquestioned as the primary mode of communication for identity construction, we may in fact assign too much value to what is being said or written and therefore analyze identity in quite obscured ways.”
Finally, although the present study puts forward some theoretical reference for the classification of identities and tries to provide more theoretical and practical support, it cannot avoid an element of subjectivity in identity classification and identification. This might have a negative influence on the results.
More studies are expected to be conducted to overcome the above limitations and to further probe into identity construction in academic interaction. Some suggestions for the further work are provided here.
Firstly, more data can be collected to see whether other identities are constructed and more linguistic choices are made for identity construction by advice-givers in their advising sequences. In addition, more data can be collected to see how advice-givers may adjust their identities in terms of the advice-receivers’ response in advising sequences.
Secondly, more research instruments and methods can be adopted in future studies. For instance, interviews can be considered in future studies. In addition, to fully depict identity construction, paralinguistic and non-verbal information can be better included. Norris (2008, p. 133) argues that a multimodal way is necessary to analyze personal identity construction. This is one of the main directions for the identity study in the future.
Last but not least, the advice-givers’ identity construction in their academic advising interaction may be different in Chinese and English contexts. Comparative studies are therefore needed to see the differences and similarities in identity construction in academic interactions, including types of identities, linguistic choices made for identity construction, basic features of the dynamic process of identity construction, contextual correlates constraining identity construction and communicative needs to be satisfied by identity construction.
【注释】
[1]The most significant development is the establishment of two corpora of spoken academic interaction, namely MICASE (The Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English) and BASE (The British Academic Spoken English). Many studies have been conducted on the basis of these two corpora.
[2]However, the professors (i.e., expert advice-givers) involved in my study have been kind enough to let me use their speeches in PhD dissertation proposal presentation meetings as my data source. I really appreciate their help.