| Although there have been many researches on the identity of different groups of people in different contexts and on Wechat salesmen from different perspectives such as economics,communication,sociology,etc.,there are few researches exploring the identity construction of Wechat salesmen.Therefore,the present study mainly focuses on how the Wechat salesmen construct their identities through discursive practices in the Moments of Wechat,with the purpose of providing a better understanding of the ways and underlying causes of Wechat salesmen's identity construction,which,hopefully,can offer some beneficial enlightments for future researches.The data in the present study derives from twenty Wechat salesmen,which contains 827 screenshots about the discursive practices these Wechat salesmen post in the Moments of Wechat.Based on the data,the present study mainly explores three research questions:(1)what are the characteristics of the discursive practices WeChat salesmen post in the Moments of WeChat?(2)What identities do WeChat salesmen construct through these discursive practices and how?(3)Why do Wechat salesmen mainly construct these identities in the Moments of Wechat? In order to answer these questions,the present study applies Karen Tracy's theory about identity construction which mainly probes into the relationship between identity and everyday talk from the rhetorical perspective and cultural perspective in terms of personal reference,speech acts,sound of talk,interaction structures,style,stance,etc.Under the guidance of Karen Tracy's identity theory,the present study draws the following conclusions:(1)there are three main characteristics of the discursive practices Wechat salesmen post in the Moments of Wechat,namely variety,virtuality,and purposiveness;(2)Wechat salesmen mainly construct nine identities in the Moments of Wechat,including salesmen,product users,team members,competitors,pioneers,evaluators,friends,organizers and image builders.Most of the time,they construct themselves as the one who knows their products well and support the team they work in and shape themselves as ambitious and energetic without negative moods;(3)there are three underlying causes of Wechat salesmen's identity construction in the Moments of Wechat,that is,their explicit communicative purposes,the virtual context of computer-mediated communication,and their adaption to Wechat friends' mental world.Theoretically and practically,the present study applies Tracy's identity theory to analyze Wechat salesmen's identity construction,providing a pragmatic perspective for people to understand how Wechat salesmen build their images and win trust from others,and enriching the identity research to some extent.However,because of the virtuality of Wechat context,sometimes the Wechat salesmen also post inveracious expressions and construct inauthentic images in order to achieve their sales goals.Such cases are not discussed in the present study.It is hoped that further exploration can be done with the support of more data in the future. |
PDF Full Text Request