A Discourse-Historical Analysis Of Entrepreneurial Identity Construction

The festering trade conflicts in recent years have confronted Chinese enterprises with more challenges in internationalization and global expansion.The external environment and internal growth both require entrepreneurs to be not only managerially competent but also eloquent and charismatic in oversea speeches,which are conducive to the construction of both entrepreneurial and corporate identity in the international arena.In fact,as entrepreneurs are first and foremost their own representatives,the entrepreneurial identity construction is often of great significance in speeches,yet it has received less attention in academia.Hence,the present study is motivated to investigate how entrepreneurial identity is constructed in speeches via the examination of discursive strategies and linguistic devices.To meet the purpose of the thesis,the discourse-historical approach(DHA)as well as six dimensions of entrepreneurial identity are adopted as the theoretical framework.The overseas English speeches,delivered by Jack Ma,one of founders of Alibaba Group,are chosen as the observed data to examine diachronic discursive construction of entrepreneurial identity.The present thesis aims to answer the following questions: 1)What are the main topics in Jack Ma’s English speeches in different periods? 2)How are the discursive strategies realized by linguistic devices in Jack Ma’s English speeches in different periods? 3)What are the entrepreneurial identities discursively constructed in Jack Ma’s English speeches in different periods?To address the research questions,29 pieces of Jack Ma’s English speeches are collected and built as the observed corpus(CJMES),which is further divided into three sub-corpora(CJMES1,CJMES2 and CJMES3).Wmatrix and Ant Conc are the main corpus tools used to assist in the study.The findings can be summarized as follows.First,the keyness analysis shows that busines-related,technology-related,human-related,growth-related and environmentrelated are the common topics in all the three sub-corpora.As for the distinctiveness of main topics,CJMES1 is more competition-related,while CJMES2 and CJMES3 are more universe-related,vision-related,change-related and global-trade-related.CJMES2 alone concerns more with specific markets and gender equality,whereas CJMES3 focuses more on education-related aspect.In self-presenting,various strategies are applied to directly construct Ma’s entrepreneurial identity.As for nomination strategy,the phrase ‘as an entrepreneur’ and Jack-for-Entrepreneurs metonym are used to construct a strong entrepreneur identity.The exclusive and inclusive use of ‘we’ as well as the self-referring ‘Jack’ helps him construct a reliable and approachable entrepreneurial identity.Regarding predication strategy,attributions of both positive and negative traits are adopted to present an authentic entrepreneurial identity who is a successful,socially responsible,ambitious,confident,provident,modest,human-oriented and future-oriented.Perspectivization and intensification strategy are often employed to evoke hearers’ involvement and strengthen the persuasive power.The others-presenting concerns his companies,stakeholders as well as phenomena or processes that are related to his business.It bears indirect relation with the entrepreneurial identity construction.Favorable attributes are ascribed to his customers,employees,competitors,globalization and e-commerce,so as to shape himself as customer-oriented,employee-concerned and competition-tolerant entrepreneur and globally minded proponent of trade and e-commerce.Yet,unfavorable evaluations are used to predicate big companies to foreground the difficulty of SMEs,thereby casting himself as a SMEs-attentive guardian.The presentation of education in CJMES3 also proves his shift into a fledging entrepreneur in education,thereby displaying an abiding entrepreneurial mindset.While his entrepreneurial ambition shifts over time,the core remains the same,which is ‘solving problems for the society’,deftly surfacing an altruistic entrepreneurial intent.In the light of argumentation strategy,topoi of various kinds,like the topos of advantage or usefulness,the topos of uselessness or disadvantage,the topos of justice and so forth,are adopted to legitimize the evaluations of others,which further strengthens the entrepreneurial identity construction.The contribution of the present research is twofold.It expands DHA studies to the construction of entrepreneurial identity and the findings may give clues to the construction of strong entrepreneurial identity for other entrepreneurs who seek global expansion.