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A Cross-cultural Study of Pragmatic Identities Constructed in Chinese and American Marketing Discourse on Social Media

Received: 27 February 2020     Accepted: 10 March 2020     Published: 23 April 2020
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Abstract

Based on a mini-corpus of Chinese and American marketing discourse on social media (150 discourses each), this study conducts a cross-cultural investigation of pragmatic identity construction in marketing discourse on social media. The results show that in the context of social media, a larger variety of individual pragmatic identities rather than organizational pragmatic identities is employed in both American and Chinese marketing discourses. Chinese and American enterprises both construct six different types of individual pragmatic identities (Experiencer, Sales Representative, Friend, Adviser, Expert and Official Introducer) in marketing discourse. Both Chinese and American marketing discourses tend to build official introducer and sales representative identity more than other identities. Adviser identity is not regularly constructed in both Chinese and American discourses. American marketing discourse on social media adopts the identity of experiencer and adviser more whereas Chinese discourse adopts expert and official introducer identity more than its counterpart. American discourse adopts more subjective identities than objective identities whereas Chinese discourse evenly employs both subjective and objective identities. Three cultural value dimensions (collectivism vs. individualism, high power distance vs. low power distance, relation-driven vs. task-driven) attribute to the different use of the pragmatic identities.

Published in International Journal of Literature and Arts (Volume 8, Issue 3)
DOI 10.11648/j.ijla.20200803.18
Page(s) 153-161
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Pragmatic Identity, Marketing Discourse, Social Media, Cross-cultural Study, Cultural Value Dimensions

References
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  • APA Style

    Yue Siwei. (2020). A Cross-cultural Study of Pragmatic Identities Constructed in Chinese and American Marketing Discourse on Social Media. International Journal of Literature and Arts, 8(3), 153-161. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20200803.18

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    ACS Style

    Yue Siwei. A Cross-cultural Study of Pragmatic Identities Constructed in Chinese and American Marketing Discourse on Social Media. Int. J. Lit. Arts 2020, 8(3), 153-161. doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.20200803.18

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    AMA Style

    Yue Siwei. A Cross-cultural Study of Pragmatic Identities Constructed in Chinese and American Marketing Discourse on Social Media. Int J Lit Arts. 2020;8(3):153-161. doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.20200803.18

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  • @article{10.11648/j.ijla.20200803.18,
      author = {Yue Siwei},
      title = {A Cross-cultural Study of Pragmatic Identities Constructed in Chinese and American Marketing Discourse on Social Media},
      journal = {International Journal of Literature and Arts},
      volume = {8},
      number = {3},
      pages = {153-161},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ijla.20200803.18},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20200803.18},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijla.20200803.18},
      abstract = {Based on a mini-corpus of Chinese and American marketing discourse on social media (150 discourses each), this study conducts a cross-cultural investigation of pragmatic identity construction in marketing discourse on social media. The results show that in the context of social media, a larger variety of individual pragmatic identities rather than organizational pragmatic identities is employed in both American and Chinese marketing discourses. Chinese and American enterprises both construct six different types of individual pragmatic identities (Experiencer, Sales Representative, Friend, Adviser, Expert and Official Introducer) in marketing discourse. Both Chinese and American marketing discourses tend to build official introducer and sales representative identity more than other identities. Adviser identity is not regularly constructed in both Chinese and American discourses. American marketing discourse on social media adopts the identity of experiencer and adviser more whereas Chinese discourse adopts expert and official introducer identity more than its counterpart. American discourse adopts more subjective identities than objective identities whereas Chinese discourse evenly employs both subjective and objective identities. Three cultural value dimensions (collectivism vs. individualism, high power distance vs. low power distance, relation-driven vs. task-driven) attribute to the different use of the pragmatic identities.},
     year = {2020}
    }
    

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    JO  - International Journal of Literature and Arts
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    AB  - Based on a mini-corpus of Chinese and American marketing discourse on social media (150 discourses each), this study conducts a cross-cultural investigation of pragmatic identity construction in marketing discourse on social media. The results show that in the context of social media, a larger variety of individual pragmatic identities rather than organizational pragmatic identities is employed in both American and Chinese marketing discourses. Chinese and American enterprises both construct six different types of individual pragmatic identities (Experiencer, Sales Representative, Friend, Adviser, Expert and Official Introducer) in marketing discourse. Both Chinese and American marketing discourses tend to build official introducer and sales representative identity more than other identities. Adviser identity is not regularly constructed in both Chinese and American discourses. American marketing discourse on social media adopts the identity of experiencer and adviser more whereas Chinese discourse adopts expert and official introducer identity more than its counterpart. American discourse adopts more subjective identities than objective identities whereas Chinese discourse evenly employs both subjective and objective identities. Three cultural value dimensions (collectivism vs. individualism, high power distance vs. low power distance, relation-driven vs. task-driven) attribute to the different use of the pragmatic identities.
    VL  - 8
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Author Information
  • School of English for International Business, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou, China

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