Constructing Pragmatic Identities In Parent-child Conflict Talks

Scholars have attached great importance to the parent-child conflict talks over the past few years,whereas little scholarly attention has been paid to the construction of parents’ and children’s pragmatic identities in parent-child conflict talks.Pragmatic identity refers to the contextualized social identity chosen by interlocutors consciously or naturally in verbal communication.It is fragmented and fluid in the communicative process.Drawing on Simon’s(2004)self-aspect model,Chen’s(2018)pragmatic identity theory and Verschueren’s linguistic adaptation theory(1999),this study selects A Little Reunion,a TV play regarding parent-child conflicts,to examine parents’ and children’s pragmatic identities,the discursive strategies,and the related factors in parent-child conflict talks.The major conclusions can be drawn as follows:First,parents frequently construct authoritative identities and considerate identities in the process of parent-child conflict talks;and rebellious identities and understanding identities are constructed by children in the process of parent-child conflict talks.Second,both parents and children adopt macro-and micro-level of discursive practices to construct various self-aspects.On the macro-level,parents use colloquialism and interrogative sentences to construct authoritative identities and considerate identities respectively;while children employ declarative sentences and different discourse modes to construct rebellious and understanding identities respectively.On the micro-level,parents adopt different kinds of speech acts and special personal deixis to construct authoritative identities and considerate identities respectively;while children employ diverse paralinguistic features and different phonetic features to construct rebellious identities and understanding identities respectively.In addition,the construction of parents’ and children’s identities adapt to two main contextual correlates:the social world and the mental world.In terms of the social world,pragmatic identities constructed by parents and children adapt to the social reality and cultural norms.In terms of the mental world,pragmatic identities constructed by parents and children may mitigate parent-child conflicts.Theoretically,this study can be considered as a supplement and an extension of pragmatic identity theory,which reveals the pragmatic identities constructed by parents and children in parent-child conflict talks.Investigating pragmatic identities in parent-child conflict talks is helpful in interdisciplinary development of pragmatics and psychology.Practically,it provides valuable pragmatic evidence for the construction of harmonious family atmosphere.