A Pragmatic Analysis Of The Butler's Identity Construction In The Remains Of The Day

Identity and identity construction has always been hot topics for scholars' research,and they have been widely concerned in the fields of sociology,communication,social psychology,and anthropology.With the vigorous development of pragmatics,pragmatic research on identity and its construction has been one of the emerging topics in Chinese pragmatics research.Literature analysis shows that the study of pragmatic identity at home and abroad mostly focuses on non-literary discourses,such as institutional discourse,teacher discourse,and network discourse.Both literary and non-literary discourse pragmatic identity research emphasizes dynamics,while the social and historical background involved in the construction of character identity in literary discourse is more prominent in shaping characters.Studies have shown that pragmatic identity research is universal and this research is showing an upward trend in literary discourse.This study takes Chen Xinren?s(2018)Pragmatic Identity Theory as the theoretical framework,and selects the butler?s discourse as the corpus in The Remains of the Day,from the type of butler's pragmatic identity construction,the strategy of pragmatic identity construction,and the language performed by identity construction The analysis is carried out with three levels of function,in order to reveal how the main character of the novel,Stevens,alienated himself through language under the hierarchy and how he struggled to pursue flawless professional values in a different cultural background.Through research,it is found that: First,under the strict hierarchy,Stevens constructs a variety of pragmatic identities in the communication process,including default waiter identity,relationship identity,and situational identity.At the same time,the perfect professional value also makes him lose himself,and constructs incomplete personal identity and peer identity.Second,Stevens highlights the "Britishness" of British butlers by highlighting strategies,but in a different cultural context,he highlights his struggles between two different cultures through deviation strategies and identification strategies.Third,Stevens uses multiple pragmatic strategies to construct multiple identities in the process of insisting on the pursuit of perfect professional values in a diverse cultural background.However,he also alienates himself from himself.In summary,on the one hand,this paper confirms the applicability of pragmatic identity theory in literary discourse and broadens the scope of application of pragmatic identity theory;on the other hand,it provides a new research path for literary discourse research.The study of character identity in the perspective of the study not only inspires the novel creator's role shaping,but also provides a new theoretical perspective for readers' appreciation.