Constructing self-expert identity via other-identity negation in Chinese televised debating discourse
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Cheng-Tuan Li is Professor in the School of English and Education at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, P. R. China, where he also obtained his PhD in linguistics and applied linguistics. His research interests include pragmatics, discourse analysis, identity construction and im/politeness. His recent publications are in the
Journal of Pragmatics andIntercultural Pragmatics and some top journals of linguistics in China.Yong-Ping Ran is Professor in the National Key Research Centre for Linguistics and Applied Linguistics at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, P. R. China. His research interests include pragmatics and discourse analysis. His work has appeared in the
Journal of Pragmatics andIntercultural Pragmatics and some top journals of linguistics in China.
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Dániel Z. Kádár is Research Professor and Director of the Centre for Pragmatics Research at the Research Institute for Linguistics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. His research interests include pragmatics, discourse analysis, rituals and politeness. His work has appeared in the
Journal of Pragmatics, Journal of Politeness Research Language Behavior Culture, Pragmatics and Society andJournal of Historical Pragmatics .
Abstract
This article investigates the conflictive construction of identities in Chinese interactions. We examine the way in which people build up their own identities as “experts” and negate others’ similar identities in Chinese televised debates with complex participation structure. Our datasets are collected from 120 Chinese televised debates. Using indexicality (Bucholtz, Mary & Kira Hall. 2005. Identity and interaction: a socio-cultural linguistic approach. Discourse Studies 7[4/5]. 585–614) and Membership Categorization (Sacks, Harvey. 1992. Lectures on conversation, vols I and II, edited by G. Jefferson. Oxford: Blackwell) as analytic notions to capture the interactional co-construction of identities, we examine the ways in which identity co-construction in such conflict scenarios takes place, as interactants attempt to construct their own identities as experts, and negate the expert identities of others. This exploration fills an important knowledge gap: little research has been done on Chinese conflict talk, in particular from the perspective of the co-construction of identities. Our research models identity construction in conflict by identifying various routes or “strategies” through which identities can be worked out in conflict scenarios. Our focus is on revealing how interlocutors construct or promote their identity by making their membership category conform to their category-bound activity/attribute, and negate others’ identity by revealing others’ violation of category-bound activity/attribute.
About the authors
Cheng-Tuan Li is Professor in the School of English and Education at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, P. R. China, where he also obtained his PhD in linguistics and applied linguistics. His research interests include pragmatics, discourse analysis, identity construction and im/politeness. His recent publications are in the Journal of Pragmatics and Intercultural Pragmatics and some top journals of linguistics in China.
Yong-Ping Ran is Professor in the National Key Research Centre for Linguistics and Applied Linguistics at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, P. R. China. His research interests include pragmatics and discourse analysis. His work has appeared in the Journal of Pragmatics and Intercultural Pragmatics and some top journals of linguistics in China.
Dániel Z. Kádár is Research Professor and Director of the Centre for Pragmatics Research at the Research Institute for Linguistics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. His research interests include pragmatics, discourse analysis, rituals and politeness. His work has appeared in the Journal of Pragmatics, Journal of Politeness Research Language Behavior Culture, Pragmatics and Society and Journal of Historical Pragmatics.
Acknowledgements
This study has been supported by the research project (18BYY223) about the interpersonal pragmatics of identity construction in Chinese and American institutional discourse funded by the National Planning Office of Philosophy and Social Sciences in P. R. China, and by the MOE project (16JJD740007) on interpersonal pragmatic competence funded by the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, the National Key Research Center for Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, and the Center for Institutional Discourse Studies at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, P. R. China.
Appendix: transcription conventions
- Transitional continuity
- word.
final
- word,
continuing
- word?
appeal (seeking a validating response from the listener)
- Speakers
- [words]
speech overlap
- Accents and lengthening
- word^
primary accent (prominent pitch movement carrying intonation meaning)
- word=
lengthening
- Pause
- …
long pause
- Vocal noises
- @
laughter
- Transcriber’s perspective
- ((words))
researcher’s comment
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© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Announcement
- Evaluation in English earnings conference calls: a corpus-assisted contrastive study
- Constructing self-expert identity via other-identity negation in Chinese televised debating discourse
- Storying experience: Young children’s early use of story genres
- Abriendo closings in bilingual radio speech: Discourse strategies, code-switching, and the interactive construction of broadcast structures and institutional identity
- Direct quotations in Nigerian investigative public hearings
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Announcement
- Evaluation in English earnings conference calls: a corpus-assisted contrastive study
- Constructing self-expert identity via other-identity negation in Chinese televised debating discourse
- Storying experience: Young children’s early use of story genres
- Abriendo closings in bilingual radio speech: Discourse strategies, code-switching, and the interactive construction of broadcast structures and institutional identity
- Direct quotations in Nigerian investigative public hearings
