A Study Of Identity Construction In Institutional Interactions From The Perspective Of Rapport Management

The study of identity construction has experienced an unprecedented growth in the fields of social psychology,sociolinguistics and sociology etc and has become the focus of social science research and the forefront of pragmatics research.Most studies of identity construction in institutional discourse focus on political,academical,court and medical discourse from the perspective of linguistic adaptation theory and pay a little attention to the relation between identity construction and interpersonal relationship.Therefore,it is new trend to study identity construction from the perspective of rapport management.The present study probes into the identity construction from the perspective of rapport management proposed by Spencer-Oatey.Drawing on Professor Chen Xinren's pragmatic identity and Richard's default identity and deviational identity and combining with the discourse analysis approachto analyze the Data: an English Television Series Downton Abbey,this paper aims to answer three questions: 1.What kinds of identities are constructed in institutional interactions by Carson? 2.What rapport management strategies are used to construct these identities? 3.What are the interpersonal functions of identity construction from the perspective of management?The analysis leads to the following conclusions:Firstly,Carson mainly constructs six identities.Default identities include a responsible leader,a strict leader and a loyal subordinate.Deviational identities include a considerate relative,a chairman and a reliable friend.Secondly,different strategies are utilized to construct each identity.Respectively,three different strategies are used to construct a responsible leader,a loyal subordinate,a considerate relative and a chairman and four different strategies are utilized to construct a strictleader and a reliable friend.Finally,identity construction has three kinds of interpersonal functions,namely function of maintaining quality face,identity face and relational face of self and others,function of maintaining equity rights and association rights of self and others and function of balancing and achieving relational and transactional goals.