A Discoursal Study On The Identity Of Female English Major Graduates

Identity remains the core issue in the academic fields as sociology andpsychology in its infancy in that it involves the research on human beings. Beingfurther developed by linguistics, studies on identity turn out to be more and moreinterdisciplinary. As for female English major graduates nowadays, they are highlyeducated but are inferior to those majoring in science and engineering or the maleones in social competition in terms of the major, gender, age and so on. Therefore, itseems necessary to conduct researches on the identity issue of this specific group incertain social context. This thesis is an identity study of female postgraduates ofEnglish major by analyzing the three-layer relations between identity and society,identity and psyche, identity and language.In light of the affiliation between identity and society, the present study intendsto illuminate the variability and diversity of identity at different stages via probinginto the influence of society and social relations on identity as well as personalpositioning respectively. Since that identity and personal psyche are correlated, thisstudy also makes an attempt to explore how the psychological mechanism, anxiety,exerts an effect on the way the subjects identify themselves. In addition, it endeavorsto figure out the primary factors that impact the anxious feeling of the subjects. Fromthe perspective of linguistics, the subjects’ identity of themselves is interpretedthrough discoursal analysis of the collected linguistic data. Meanwhile, applied as theanalytic tool, appraisal systems proposed by Martin facilitate the further explanationupon the self-identity of the participants.Sixty female English major postgraduates from the Ocean University of Chinaare chosen as the subjects of the present research. Among the60students,30of themare the first-year graduates, another30are the third-year graduates. The qualitative method centers on the discoursal analysis of the linguistic data arranged form theinterview among the participants. In view of the quantitative method, the scores fromthe questionnaires handed out will be analyzed by SPSS16.0to display the anxiety ofthe subjects. The questionnaire consists of two parts. The first part is the State-TraitAnxiety Inventory put forward and tested by Spielberg. The second part includes tenfactors affecting the anxious emotion which are presented on the basis of otherscholars’ study on elements causing anxiety among undergraduates as well as thecollected linguistic data in the interview.This paper puts forward the following three questions regarding the relationsamong identity, anxiety and language.1) Whether there exists anxiety for theparticipants in this study?2) Which are the factors that dramatically affect the anxietyand how they impact the way the subjects identify themselves.3) How the subjectsface identity problem and will they realize self-identity? Through the descriptiveanalysis, comparative analysis and independent-sample T-test by SPSS16.0and thediscourse analysis aided by appraisal systems, the linguistic data are analyzed fromthe five aspects that significantly influence the anxiety of the subjects.According to the results of data analysis, this study gains the following findings:1) the two groups both are anxious to a certain degree;2) There are five decisivefactors resulting in the anxiety of the subjects. The discoursal analysis from these fivefacets further elucidates the subjects’ self-identity.3) Based on the discoursal analysiswith appraisal systems, a conclusion is made that the participants will finally solve theproblem in self-identity in various ways. Theoretically, the present study aims toprovide identity study with relatively novel interdisciplinary perspectives.Furthermore, this thesis expands the application of appraisal systems by deploying itas the analytic tool. Practically, this research attempts to draw more social attention toidentity issue of female English major graduates and offer possible solutions.