Analysis Of Pragmatic Identity Construction In Skin Care Product Advertisements In Xiaohongshu

The pragmatic identity has gradually become a hot topic in identity research since the notion of it was put forward.Scholars have conducted extensive research on pragmatic identity,involving many fields such as daily discourse,classroom discourse,medical discourse,and commercial discourse.However,most of the research focuses more on the pragmatic identity of communicators at the social macro level,and there are relatively few studies on commercial advertisement in new media.Xiaohongshu is a popular new media social e-commerce platform with a large amount of skin care product advertisement posts.Pragmatic identity construction is a crucial means for sellers to promote consumers’ consumption behavior in skin care product advertisements in Xiaohongshu.Therefore,it is of theoretical and practical value to conduct research on the construction of pragmatic identity in skin care product advertisements in Xiaohongshu.Taking the skin care product advertisements in Xiaohongshu as the data,with the assistance of quantitative and qualitative analysis,the present study explores the pragmatic identity construction of sellers from the micro level under the guidance of Pragmatic Identity Theory and Linguistic Adaptation Theory.The present study mainly addresses the following three questions:(1)What types of pragmatic identities of sellers are constructed in skin care product advertisements in Xiaohongshu?(2)How do these pragmatic identities of sellers are constructed in skin care product advertisements in Xiaohongshu under the perspective of discursive choice?(3)What contextual correlates cause the construction of these pragmatic identities of sellers in skin care product advertisements in Xiaohongshu? The major research findings are as follows:First of all,the pragmatic identity of sellers constructed in skin care product advertisements in Xiaohongshu can be mainly divided into two categories: rational identity and perceptual identity,and the latter one is constructed with a relatively high frequency.The rational identity of sellers includes objective,professional,and confident self-aspect,while the perceptual identity of sellers includes respectful,consumer-intimate,and empathetic selfaspect.Secondly,the pragmatic identities of sellers are constructed by discursive choices at multiple levels,and the discursive choices for the construction of rational identity and emotional identity have different manifestations.Finally,the adaptation to a variety of contextual correlates causes the construction of these pragmatic identities of sellers in skin care product advertisements in Xiaohongshu.These contextual correlates mainly include the temporal and spatial indications in the physical world,the communicative distance and social values in the social world,and consumers’ emotions and face in the mental world.The present study explores the pragmatic identity construction of sellers in skin care product advertisements in Xiaohongshu,which is helpful to enrich the study of identity in the field of pragmatics and further verify the applicability of Linguistic Adaptation Theory to the study of pragmatic identity construction.At the same time,it can provide some enlightenment for sellers in the skin care industry in their pragmatic identity choice and discursive choice in advertising creation.