Repertoire,identity Construction And Emotional Bonding

Within the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics,the present study explores how the psychiatrist utilizes the social semiotic resources of her repertoire in the practice of psychiatrist-psychopath conversational field to realize topologically dynamic identity construction and emotional bonding with her psychopaths,mainly applying the Theory of Individualization,Legitimation Code Theory(LC T)and Appraisal Theory.An interdisciplinary research is conducted on a self-built colloquial corpus in the theoretical context of pedagogical sociology,discourse analysis and psychiatry.In the 21 st century,one of the major challenges which the practitioners of Systemic Functional Linguistics are striving to address is to develop fresh perspectives on how semiotic resources are used in social interaction,focusing particularly on variation between discourses(i.e.what semiotic resources are used to do)and variation among speakers(i.e.how semiotic resources are exploited to negotiate identity).Scholars at home and abroad have explored the issues of identity in various fields of linguistics,such as anthropological linguistics,social linguistics,socio-psycholinguistics,pragmatics and discourse analysis;but so far,little research has ever been done on identity construction in the theoretical frameworks of Individuation and Topology,especially in terms of resource representation,institutional discourse,knowledge construction,emotional bonding,empowerment and so on,thus leaving a gap for the present project,in which a stratificational-functional model is constructed by combining microcosmic and macroscopic approaches,pursuing analysis and interpretation.Apart from such theoretical consideration,the ever-increasing occurrences of mental health problems and increasingly acute conflicts between psychiatrists and psychopaths in the era of globalization and social transformation is the realistic motivation for the current research.As a special genre of institutional discourse,psychiatrist-psychopath discourse differs from daily-life discourse in repertoire resources,discursive identities,verbal strategies,power relations,register and genre structures and so on.Psychiatrists are expected to provide the patients with reliable diagnosis and effective treatment.To ensure the diagnostic and therapeutic efficiency and effect,psychiatrists should try to build a harmonious psychiatrist-psychopath relationship and construct appropriate discursive identities.In view of these,this dissertation aims to discuss the following three questions:(1)What is the general characteristic of the repertoire of the psychiatrist asrepresented in her utterances?(2)What identities are constructed by the psychiatrist and how does she realizethe emotional bonding with the psychopaths with emotional resources in herrepertoire?(3)What is the relationship among the social semiotic resources with which thepsychiatrist constructs her identities?This dissertation focuses on describing,explaining,and interpreting the psychiatrist‘s authentic discourse from the four strata of language(i.e.lexicogrammar,discourse semantics,register and genre),attempting to integrate syste m,discourse,language users with realization,instantiation and individuation so as to analyze both discourses and their social functions.In this project,80 psychiatrist-psychopath conversations were collected through field investigation and then a corp us of 215,372 Chinese characters was built by transcribing the conversations.The data were coded,tagged and retrieved according to the research parameters,and then they were analyzed quantitatively and interpreted qualitatively.The major findings are as follows:1.Lexicogrammar resources,identity construction and emotional bondingThe typical lexicogrammar resources in psychiatrists‘ discourse are power words,involved in schizophrenic symptoms and antipsychotic medications.The data show that the highest frequency of two positive symptoms is hallucinations and delusions,of which 56.1% are hallucinations.Negative symptoms accounts for a lower proportion.It shows that hallucinations,delusions and other positive symptoms are still typical symptoms of psychopaths with schizophrenia.The second generation of drugs such as risperidone,clozapine,magnesium valproate etc.dominate drug names with the first two taking a ratio of 49.3%.These power words are used to convey and/or imply specialized knowledge.This indicates the psychiatrist‘s ?control identity? of professional,expert and authority,thus reflecting strong knowledge code potential in the psychiatrists‘ repertoire.The four most frequently used addressing terms(i.e.vocatives)are zero address,family address,professional title and institution identity address,among which institutional address constitute 97.7%;name address,general address,and fictive use of relative address constitute 2.3%.The variant uses account for 3.7% of the total personal pronoun resources.The disposition of reference resources in the psychiatrists‘ utterances shows an equal,relaxing and cordial conversational atmosphere,contributing to an equal,close relationship with the psychopaths.Relying on these reference emotional resources,the psychiatrist constructs the ?relation identity? as acquaintance,companion,caregiver,helper and evaluator,thus realizing emotional bonding with her psychopaths.Data analysis of transitivity resources shows that the three major processes are material process,relational process and mental process,accounting for 73.6% of the transitivity resources.They reflect the objective,authoritative and convincing features of the psychiatrist discourse,constructing her identity as examiner,organizer and evaluator.2.Discourse semantic resources,identity construction and e motional bondingThe evaluation system focuses on the ?personal? part while the negotiation system emphasizes on the ?interpersonal? one.The negotiation system is mainly realized by mood,and four kinds of mood resources(i.e.interrogative,declarative,imperative,and exclamative)in the psychiatrists‘ discourses are investigated,and it is found that the proportion is 73.5%,25.3%,1.0% and 0.2% respectively.The uses of question resources reflect the individualized features of power grammar.There are also obvious differences in the use of interrogative sentences: 60.2% yes-no interrogatives,38.1% WH-interrogatives and 1.7% alterative-interrogatives.One distinctive features of the situational context the psychiatrist has to face is to communicate with various psychopaths.With the flexible choice of these interrogative resources,the psychiatrist controls the topic and turn-taking in open and close mood system resources,showing her identities of questioner,inspector and organizer.In the corpus,50.1% unmarked declaratives and 49.9% marked declaratives are identified,with almost the same proportion.This reflects the psychiatrist‘s identity as knower and authority,implying that when the psychiatrist states facts objectively to enhance the reliability of the proposition,she also attempts to relieve the institutional tone and create a relaxed,cheerful atmosphere for the conversation.The sporadic use of imperatives entails the tenorial characteristic of the psychiatrist-psychopath relationship –an equal status of identity.The exclaimative resources in the psychiatrist‘utterances indicate the equal and friendly relationship between the psychiatrist and her psychopath.This may help to relieve the anxiety and nervousness of the psychopaths and constructing the psychiatrist as a positive appraiser.The extensive use of modal particles and emotional resources indicate that the psychiatrist is trying to weaken her institutional identity and power status,thus conveying an equal,polite and negotiable mood to her psychopaths.As for the attitude resources,70.3% are negative and 29.7% are positive.This suggests that negative affects and judgments take up the majority of he r attitude resources,indicating that the psychiatrist constructs her identity as inspector,diagnose and evaluator.The engagement resources include projection,modality,and concession.?The second voice? takes up the highest frequency of projection resources(536 occurrences,accounting for 66.3%).The modality resources give priority to epistemic modalities with median and low value,which accounts for 79.3%.There are 15 kinds of concession resources in the psychiatrist‘s discourses.By using these heterogloss engagement resources,the psychiatrist improves the dialogism and negotiability of her propositions and proposals,thus shortening her emotional distance with the psychopaths and constructing herself as guide,adviser and consoler.The graduation resources are dominated by force and focus,with a frequency much higher than other resources,amounting to 2455 occurrences and accounting for 53.4% and 46.6% respectively.Relying on the ?intensifying? and ?sharpening? function of graduation resources,the psychiatrist can implement value alliance and emotional bonding with her psychopaths to the maximum degree.3.Register resources,identity construction and emotional bondingRegister resources include three variants: field,tenor and mode.The field is mainly reflected through the changes in the density of epistemic lexis in different generic stages,such as the field features of the successive prominence of psychiatric symptomatology authority,psychiatric pathology authority,psychiatric pharmacology authority,which also reflects the construction of the psychiatrist‘s identity as a ?knowledge authority?.The discrepancies in turn length and discourse length demonstrate an equal identity and status relationship between the psychiatrist and her psychopa ths.The psychiatrist‘s disposition of repair,interruption and formulation strategies shows her identity of knowledge authority and then indicates the cooperation,affiliation and creation in the interaction between the psychiatrist and her psychopaths.?Emotion? outweighs ?power? for the creation of knowledge power and functions as a guarantee for the emotional bonding between the psychiatrist and her psychopaths.Solidarity in tenor implies the ?acquaintance? relationship between the psychiatrist and her psychopaths.As for mode,the psychiatrist‘s alternative use of situational and metaphorical code-switching is a vital resource to realize the emotional bonding between the psychiatrist and her psychopaths.This manifests the strong knower code potential in the psychiatrist‘s repertoire.It draws the psychiatrist and her psychopaths closer emotionally and constructs the psychiatrist‘s identities as townee,caregiver and director.4.Genre resources,identity construction and e motional bondingGenre is the typical classification of human social behaviors,and it is also an important social semiotic resource and discursive strategy.By employing the genre resources in her repertoire,such as generic stages,elementary genres and generic elements,the psychiatrist constructs her own ?macro-genre identity?.This identity is not a single and specific one,but rather a set of identities constructed for the macrogenre purpose.From the topological perspective,according to the two parameters of ?knowledge code? and ?knower code?,the psychiatrist‘s identity can be divided into 4 types: knowledge,control,interaction and relation.They are instantiated by a series of specific identities such as educator,expert,authority,listener,secret-keeper,townee,companion and consolers.The typological description cannot represent the agnation among identities,and in this respect,topology makes a complimentary orientation.Identity is defined as ?a cline formed by a series of typical and marginalized identities? in the topological perspective.It embodies the features of identity construction,such as agnatic similarities,logical connectivity,the oriention of generic purpose and so on.With these genre resources in her repertoire,the psychiatrist realizes value alliance with her psychopaths,and then strengthens her emotional bonding with them.By taking the topological and individual perspectives,the dissertation investigates how the psychiatrist utilizes social semiotic resources in her repertoire to realize dynamic identity construction and emotional bonding with the psychopaths,thus advancing the concept of ?macro-genre identity?,expanding the resource representation of identity construction under the theory of individuation,highlighting the positive role of knowledge and emotion in individual identity construction and emphasizing the productivity and creativity of ?power?.This can not only enrich and enhance the academic research on identity construction in the theoretical framework of systemic functional linguistics,but also help psychiatrists to effectively employ their repertoire to construct appropriate discursive identities and realize emotional bonding with psychopaths,thus improving the efficiency and effect of diagnosis and treatment and then reducing or eliminating conflicts between psychiatrists and psychopaths.