A Study Of Identity Construction Of American English

As one of the most important tools in human society,language not only reflects people’s thoughts and feelings,but also constructs social reality on its own initiative.Language Constructionism stresses that people use language to construct their social reality in line with their own social demands.However,during social communication,people usually neglect the fact that language has the ability to construct identities,therefore,fail to apply language to social communication better.This thesis,based on that social phenomenon,is aimed to affirm identity construction of language by analyzing real-life examples and furthermore provides practical guidance for people.Identity is an important part of social existence and self value in human society,which is significant to human society.Social identity represents both one’s membership in his group and his uniqueness different from others’,therefore,it plays a significant role in people’s affections and values.Based on Language Constructionism and Identity Construction Theory,identity,as one important part of social reality,can be constructed by language.So,based on Language Constructionism and Identity Construction Theory,this thesis,takes American English as the research object,therefore,tries to prove the fact that social identity can be constructed by language.On the one hand,this thesis can fulfill trans-disciplinary research between sociolinguistics and sociology of language;on the other hand,it can provide practical suggestions for people in terms of constructing social identities and accomplishing self value in social communication.In today’s world,the U.S.has been playing the leading role in economy,politics,culture and technology and has a huge influence in the international community.Accordingly,American English is becoming more and more popular in the globe.American English,as the carrier of American culture,has the unique charm of American culture.It stands for an open-minded,international,fashionable and friendly social identity of the U.S..Nowadays,more and more people choose to study or use American English to construct its representative social identities,so as toaccomplish their communicative demands and self value.Meanwhile,Using American English to construct expected social identities can better affirm that language does have the ability to construct social reality and social identity.As a result,with the aim to study the social identities of American English and the related process of identity construction of American English,this thesis,guided by Language Constructionism and Identity Construction Theory,takes American English as the research object.This thesis has collected and summarized the characteristics of American English from pronunciation,vocabulary,grammar,spelling and text;at the same time,it has collected a great quantity of real-life examples about social identities constructed by American English and among them,selected the representative and convincing corpora to analyze the social identities constructed by American English and the related process of construction according to American English characteristics.Through analysis,this thesis concludes that American English constructs the three social identities in general,which are international,fashionable and friendly identities.To conclude,this thesis can affirm that language can construct social identity.Meanwhile it has accomplished the trans-disciplinary study between sociolinguistics and sociology of language,making up for the blank of the related study.This thesis provides practical suggestions for people to use American English to construct social identities.Besides analyzing identity construction of American English,this thesis also analyzes factors that people need to pay attention to when constructing social identities in language communication.These factors are summarized in the last chapter —— Enlightenment.This thesis is aimed to provide possibility for people to achieve self value and harmony communication in the society.