Construction Of Interviewer’s Pragmatic Identity In TV Talk Show From The Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

The concept of identity is closely related to human’s language use.In the process of communication,people can use language resources to construct a specific identity to achieve a pragmatic balance or to meet their own communication needs.In turn,a specific identity can still be used as the pragmatic resources by the communicators and finally presented at the language level.Pragmatic identity is the pragmaticalization of the communicator’s social identity and it is a resource that communicators can use.Under the current international and domestic pragmatics academic background on identity construction,based on the Linguistic Adaptation Theory connecting with speech act theory and conversational analysis theory,this thesis takes the perspective of pragmatics,and uses the interview conversation in the TV talk show The Reciter as data,employs qualitative analysis to explore the different identity types,identity construction strategies and contextual correlates of the host’s pragmatic identity construction.This thesis yields the following major findings:(1)The host constructs different pragmatic identities at the different stages of the conversation.According to the conversational analysis theory,it is found that the host constructs her identity as an introducer at the opening part;the host constructs her identity as a guider at the body part;the host constructs her identity as a summarizer and evaluator at the closing part.(2)The host uses different pragmatic strategies to construct different pragmatic identities.For the identity as an introducer,in the opening part of the interview,Dong Qing usually uses a monologue,discourse contents to introduce the purpose,conditions and objects of the interview,the formal style,the“representatives + rhetorical + suggestive speech act” speech act series to construct her identity as an introducer;For the identity as a guider,in the body part of the interview,Dong Qing uses questioning speech act,informal style,discourse characteristics including turn,feedback,overlap,repetition,additional components,adjacent pairs,repair organization to construct her identity as a guider;For the identity as a summarizer and evaluator,at the closing part of the interview,Dong Qing will say a long monologue and philosophical discourses to summarize and evaluate the program,thus Dong Qing constructs her identity as a summarizer and evaluator.(3)The host constructs the pragmatic identity in order to adapt to the context,including physical context,social context and mental context.The adaptation to the physical context is mainly reflected in the adaptation of the institutional context.Adaptation to social contexts is manifested in the adaptation of rightsand the adaptation of cultural factors.The adaptation to the mental context is manifested in the adaptation of emotional factors,face factors and empathy.The host’s pragmatic identity shows dynamic adaptation in the interview conversation.Under the guidance of the meta-pragmatic consciousness,the host constructs different pragmatic identities with the proceeding of the interview conversation to seek the pragmatic balance in the communication by adapting to the relevant contextual factors.A dynamic discourse strategy to achieve communicative needs is presented.This thesis could enrich the identity and its construction research from the perspective of Linguistic Adaptation Theory to explain how identity is dynamically constructed in the communicative discourse in detail.This thesis would give practical suggestions for communicators how to construct proper identity in the communicative process to better satisfy their communicative purposes.