Discursive Construction Of Telecom Fraudsters’ Pragmatic Identity:From The Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

With the acceleration of globalization and the widespread use of the Internet,the incidence of telecom fraud crimes remains high,causing serious economic loss.Telecom fraudsters commit fraud by constructing a false identity,so it is critical that victims identify the false identity successfully to avoid being deceived.Identity research has long been the research focus of humanities and social sciences,and has also been a key topic in pragmatic research recently.Under the guidance of social constructivism,identity research in the field of pragmatics emphasizes that identity is communication-oriented and is constructed dynamically through discourse in the process of communication.This study,based on the theoretical framework established by integrating Pragmatic Identity Theory and Linguistic Adaptation Theory,taking the recording of real telecom fraud cases as a source of corpus,explores the discursive construction of fraudsters’ pragmatic identity with the method of discourse analysis.It mainly focuses on the types of pragmatic identity constructed and the discursive strategies employed by fraudsters,and the contextual adaptability in the process of pragmatic identity construction.It was found that in order to convince the victim of their false identity,fraudsters construct various types of pragmatic identities in the interaction with the victim,including the identity of a problem solver,a topic controller,an instructor,a threatener,and an evaluator.These types of identities can be constructed through certain discursive practices,such as discourse features,discourse content,grammatical choices,lexical choices,speech act,salutation,etc.,which indicates that the process of constructing the pragmatic identity is accompanied by the use of language.The pragmatic identities constructed by fraudsters are the result of adapting to different communicative contexts,and serves the purpose of achieving their fraud.To explore the discursive construction process of fraudsters’ pragmatic identity enriches identity research and demonstrates the mutual construction of language and identity.In addition,this research is conducive to deepening people’s cognition and understanding of fraudsters’ habitually used verbal tricks,so as to enhance the public’s prevention awareness and identification capability of fraudulent phone calls,and thus better combat telecom fraud.