A Study On The Pragmatic Identity Construction Of American Presidents’ Inaugural Addresses

Pragmatic identity is the identity constructed by communicators in a certain context in order to meet the needs of communication to achieve certain communicative effect.The inaugural address is the president’s public address to the public and an extremely important part of the president’s political life.The inaugural language is not only a tool for the president of the United States to realize his ambition and show his leadership,but also a carrier for constructing pragmatic identity.Thus,the inaugural address can be a typical material for analyzing the president’s identity.From the perspective of interpersonal pragmatics,the identity of the speaker can affect the communication relationship.The president’s inaugural address is arguably his first public appearance.In order to make a good impression on the public,build and maintain a harmonious relationship,the role he plays in the address and the identity he constructs are very important.This thesis selects the inaugural address of the six presidents of the United States from 1989 to 2021 as the research object.From the perspective of interpersonal pragmatics and guided by the pragmatic identity theory and rapport management theory,this thesis analyzes the identity constructed by the presidents of the United States in their addresses.It is found that the pragmatic identity constructed by the presidents can be divided into three types: professional identity,personal identity and relational identity.Among them,professional identity includes “the leader of America”.Personal identity includes “a friendly president”,“a confident president” and “a devout Christian”.Relational identity includes “friend of people” and “cooperative partner of people”.From the word and sentence level,this thesis analyzes and finds out that how the pragmatic identity of the presidents is constructed.This thesis finds that the construction of pragmatic has the function of maintaining interpersonal relationships,mainly reflected in the management of face and sociality rights.