Identity In Discourse

Gender identity is one of the most elementary identities of human beings, it is important in people's life, and it is an important basis of individuals to realize themselves and recognize others. Discourse, as an important instrument of people's social practice, is also the instrument of constructing the subjects' gender identities. The characteristics of the behaviours of discoursal gender construction vary between members of different social groups in different societies, and individuals apply different strategies, and they even cross the constraints of gender discourses of the gender ideology.With the analysis of the gendered discourse of a particular social group, this paper aims to discuss the features of the behaviours of the discoursal gender construction in Chinese society and the manifestation of the crossing in gendered discourse in the construction process, and it gives reasonable explanations to the phenomena of crossing with the Chinese gender ideology and the tendency of the social development. Because the study of the process of discoursal gender construction in China is still at its stage of theory introduction or the beginning stage, and the introduced theories have already been applied to study the gendered discourse of the middle class social groups in western countries, the author hopes that this paper, as a new viewpoint and experiment to the research of gender discourse, can play a positive role in the research of the theory and practice in this field. To some extent, this paper exhibits the problems and difficulties in the process of realization of the gender equality in Chinese society, and it discusses the causes and solutions of these problems.The study of the discoursal gender construction of this paper is mainly about the analysis of the discourse of the particular social group of the college students and teachers in Wuhan, and all the materials are the strict transcription of the collected records of the real daily talks of the group members. This paper applies the feminist linguistic constructive theory of the combination of the feminism and the postmodernism, and it includes an objective social survey of the gender discourse features of the gender ideology of the material resources to obtain the basis of the analysis of the materials.This paper mainly analyzes the phenomena of the crossing of gendered discourse with the data of the survey, and the author summarizes according to the result of the analyses that: 1 The crossing of gendered discourse occurs when the subjects of theconversations intentionally choose this special method to construct or emphasize their own gender identity, which is influenced by the constraints of the particular Chinese gender ideology. And this special method includes the using of special topic, vocabulary, form of address, and these are based on the special relationship of the speakers and they also construct the relationship between members in a group or beyond it at the same time;2 Because of the differences of two genders of the gender ideology, the inequality of the two genders in the gender order in China is an insurmountable social problem. This paper analyzed the crossing of gendered discourse, and found out that although the informants and material resources are college students and teachers who are in their twenties and well-educated and living on the college campus where thinking is advanced and open, and who are supposed to be leading the tidal current, they still hold un unequal gender ideology. And this phenomenon indicates that the gender ideology and the social development in China are not on the same level;3 According to the results of analyses, although some members of the gender groups have tried to cross the constraints of the two genders, their behaviours are still controlled by the gender ideology, and their thoughts are imprisoned, and they are actually constructing their own gender ideology subjectively and objectively.The paper draws the following conclusion: (1) there are also phenomena of inequality in Chinese society, and there are many differences between the features of the two genders' discourse which are the instruments of people of constructing their gender identities;(2) influenced by the efforts of the society and the advanced culture, the Chinese gender ideology has been relatively open which allows the appearance of crossing of the features of gendered discourse;(3) the phenomena of crossing are just behaviours of minority of people, and they are behaviours of constructing and emphasizing the gender identity under particular conditions which are not common, and most people are behaving with the constraints of traditional gender ideology;(4) it is still a hard and long-lasting process of which the result is even unknown to realize the equality of the two genders in China because it needs the fulfilling of too many conditions.