Social Worker's Identity Construction In Guangzhou's Community Correction Discourse

Community correction,as apposed to imprisonment correction,is an alternative way of punishment on those criminals who meet some certain requirements of community correction.These criminals,in other words the correctees,are allowed to serve their terms and receive education under the supervision of related judicial authorities in their communities.In the practice of community correction,social workers play a highly significant role among all the participants involved,and they help the correctees reintegrate into society through discursive communication.Thanks to the platform of Community Correction Discourse Research and Language Service co-constructed by Guangdong University of Foreign Studies and the Judicial Bureau of Guangzhou,the researcher of the current research is provided with considerable convenience in terms of data collection.The researcher served as assistant of the social workers,participated in the community correction practice in Guangzhou,and recorded data for research upon consent of both the social workers and the correctees.The current research employs the attitude system of Martin's Appraisal Theory and Martin's Stratified Model of Language as the theoretical framework,based on which a unique analytical framework for community correction discourse analysis is created.At the level of discourse semantics,the current research describes the features of employment and distribution of attitudinal resources employed by social workers at the stage of Talk for Educational Purposes in Guangzhou's community correction.At the level of register,the current research analyzes how social workers construct three different identities using these attitudinal resources.Lastly,some experienced social workers are invited to evaluate the appropriateness of these constructed identities in the legal genre of community correction.The current research finds that the social workers play different roles and construct different identities including empathizer identity,educator identity andencourager identity.Construction of these three identities by social workers are all beneficial to the implementation of community correction,however,abuse of empathy undermines the realization of the terminal goal of community correction.The current research is meaningful,because theoretically it justifies the appliability of the Appraisal Theory in community correction discourse,and practically it provides social workers with appropriate discourse suggestions which contribute to the success of community correction.