A Study Of The Change Of Social Deixis And Identity Construction

Social deixis just likes a mirror of social activities, and it finds its way in a variety of speechdevices employed by the speakers. The appropriate use of social deixis is important for ourconversation and has a great significance for people’s interaction. Identity can be defined as therelations between self and others, it is the product of one’s interpretation and reconstruction ofone’s personal history and social location in different cultural contexts; social identity refers tothe membership state of one community, and has a great significance in members’ emotion andvalues. The process of identity construction is defined as the set of self-definitions and practicesthrough which people constantly modify this construction. The concept of identity constructionbridges language and social researches together, and the studies concerning language and identityinvolves in several fields.The present study defines social deixis and identity construction from pragmatic perspectivefirstly, and then makes a thorough analysis based on the collected materials—both TV talk showsand TV debates, which include rapport and conflict discourses. Specially, it attempts to dig outthe relationship between the change of social deixis and the construction of identity. Social deixisrefers to those words or expressions that concerned with interpersonal relations; and the mainpurpose of adopting social deixis is to indicate social status and change the relation of thecommunication participants. In order to identify the participants and indicate the interpersonalrelation, people tend to choose different social deixis according to the specific context andcommunication objects in the conversation. The studied social deixis in this paper includes thehonorifics, personal deixis, and appellation words. The process of language use is theconstruction of identity in a dynamic context to some extent essentially. Identity construction inthe present study is defined as repeatedly stance-taking movements to present one’s self-concept.We propose our analytical framework on the bases of the adaptation theory and positioningtheory, and the analysis of the relationship between the change of social deixis and identityconstruction is within this framework.It is found that in harmonious conversation, the speaker prefers to adapt to politenessprinciple to express their cooperative attitude, and then construct the self-identity expected in theprocess of communication. While in conflict conversations, as both the two parties need tomaintain their own vital interests, they often adopt to observe the principle of power and status.Sometimes, the speaker will follow the politeness principle, but as a matter of fact, it is usedironically.