Identity Construction In English News Commentary

Identity can be defined through where we are located and who we are with in society.The issue of identity has become a hot topic in the field of linguistics,especially in L2 writing research.It is generally acknowledged that there is a strong connection between writing and writer identity.In this regard,Ivani?'s view on identity holds that the writer can project and construct himself appropriately in discourse to communicate with the reader.And the construction of writer identity can be realized through various language resources.Great achievements have been made in researches on writer identity,however,there are still needs to be done for supplement.First,the overwhelming researches mainly focus on academic articles.English news commentary(ENC),as an indispensable part in writing,has been ignored on this subject.Second,up to now researches on news commentary,especially domestic researches,are still constrained to the lexical and syntactical level.It seems unlikely to find adequate studies in this regard from macro generic structure and interpersonal functions of discourses.Thus,the paper focuses on the construction of writer identity in ENC.As an important news media,English news commentary serves to reflect and guide public opinions.As a result,it is of great practical values to explore the issue of writer identity in ENC.For one thing,it is significant for commentators to make choices on rhetorical strategies so as to project their standpoints and identities appropriately.The current research will conduct a socio-cultural analysis from the perspective of intercultural rhetoric(IR)and systemic-functional grammar(SFG),concentrating on national culture,genre culture and interpersonal purpose.The proposed analytical framework aims to demonstrate how commentators with different cultural backgrounds construct multiple writer identities with various linguistic realizations of modality in the generic structure of ENC,and reveal the possible influencing factors in this process.Methodologically,the study is a genre-based comparative analysis,with both qualitative and quantitative methods to be adopted.There are two corpora in this paper: Corpus C representing Chinese writers and corpus A representing Chinese writers,with each containing 30 English news commentaries.The study attempts to settle the following three questions:(1)What are the distributional features of modality in different moves of English news commentary?(2)How does modality in different moves relate to the construction of writer identities?(3)In what aspects do Chinese and American ENC writers differ from each other in constructing writer identities? And what are the influencing factors of the differences?The findings of the research include the following aspects:Firstly,the distributional patterns of modality types are closely related to generic structures,and great similarities can be observable between American and Chinese commentators.To be specific,in Headline,commentators tend to employ the type of probability and construct the identity of topic-raiser;in Introduction,commentators tend to employ the dimension of modalization and construct the identity of narrator;in Argument,commentators tend to employ the type of probability as well as obligation,and construct the identity of arguer;in Conclusion,commentators tend to employ the dimension of modulation,and construct the identity of adviser.Secondly,the distributional patterns of modality orientations and values are also correlate to generic structures.However,great discrepancies are obvious between the two groups of writers,especially in Argument and Conclusion section.To be specific,American commentators most frequently exploit subjective expressions and median or high value of modality to construct the identity of pioneer and master;while Chinese commentators tend to construct the identity of successor and servant with objective expressions and median or low value of modality.Thirdly,according to the comparative analyses,the possible influencing factors identified in the paper are relevant to the socio-cultural contexts,involving national culture,genre culture and interpersonal purposes.That is to say,these factors are believed to work interactively to bring about the similarities and differences in constructing writer identities.The paper is of theoretical and practical significance.Theoretically,the study provides a panoramic picture of the construction of writer identity in ENC,and widens the researches on writer identity beyond academic discourses.And the paper adopts a new perspective,that is,combining the macro level of generic structure and the micro level of modality system,which can shed light on how the construction of writer identity correlates to the socio-cultural contexts.Practically,the analytical framework proposed in the paper serves a feasible model to the researches of ENC as well as identity construction.Moreover,the comparative study conducted in the present study is instructive for writers to realize the communicative significance of writer identity,and can arise the awareness of critical reading of English news commentary for readers.