An Interpersonal Pragmatic Account of Professional Identity Construction in Debating Discourse

This study explores self-professional identity construction via other-identity deconstruction in Chinese televised debating discourse from the perspective of interpersonal pragmatics.Based on the analysis of competitive context of the data collected from Tiger Talk, this study applies Indexicality Principle, Positionality Principle, and Relationality Principle to probe into professional identity construction.With the aim to construct the mechanism for self-professional identity construction via other-identity deconstruction, it finds that interpersonal relations, attitudes/emotions and evaluations are the constitutive element, motivating factor and effect of professional identity construction respectively.This study offers implications and directions for investigating identity construction from the perspective of interpersonal pragmatics.