Introduction

“Identity” is crucial to the inquiry into workplace/professional communication. People usually relate identity to a collection of broad (and probably simplistic) social categories such as sex, age, or occupation, and in the workplace, institutional categories such as supervisor and subordinate. These spectrum of categories are perceived as given and fixed, but in real life communications that is often not the case. Identity of a person may change according to the interaction that he is in. The layman conception of identity lacks the flexibility to illustrate this fluidity of identity, as a product emerging from various communicative activities. In light of this observation, sociolinguistics has developed a range of frameworks to describe and explain the construction of identity in local contexts (see Labov, 1972; Gumperz & Cook-Gumperz, 1982; Joseph, 2004; Bucholtz & Hall, 2005). 

 

The identity of participants determines speech strategies available to each participant, and hence has significant influence on how interlocutors achieve their common goals at the workplace or other professional contexts. These influences include turn-taking practices, as well as the topic and direction of a conversation. They can also be reflected in the politeness strategies adopted by participants in the conversation. This section draws upon Bucholtz and Hall's (2005) influential study on the social construction of identity - how can be applied in discourse analysis - and bring upon the reflection that identity is constantly negotiated and constructed by interlocutors in an on-going talk.

 

Theoretical Basis

Bucholtz and Hall (2005) suggested five principles to analyse the jointly negotiated identity of participants involved in an interaction, namely:

 

1.      The emergence principle

2.      The positionality principle

3.      The indexicality principle

4.      The relationality principle

5.      The partiality principle

 

The emergence principle highlights that the identities of participants in an interaction does not pre-exist the interaction itself. One’s identity is negotiated with other participants as they begin to engage in the same interaction. It explains the fluidity of identity, as its construction is context-dependent. The number of possible identities for a person is infinite as no two contexts can be exactly the same.

 

The positionality principle puts one’s identity into specific positions on different levels ranging from large demographic categories to small temporary participant roles. In the workplace this may refer to the participants’ own institutional position. It is rather similar to the layman conception of identity, and it goes to show how that conception is limited to its own rights. It does, however, still form one of the many facets of identity.

 

The indexicality principle describes how the participants’ references for each other can be part of identity construction. To refer to someone is an attempt to identity that someone. It can be related to the positionality principle in the way that the reference term positions the referent in various categories.

 

The relationality principle states how one’s identity is always relative to other people’s identity. Every participant in an interaction is, of course, different in some way, and these relative differences on different aspects form part of our identity. For example, the “adequation/distinction” relation allows interlocutors to identity who in the interaction is “the same” or “different” from them. This dimension of identity can help a participant find “friends”, and draw on them for support in an interaction.

 

The partiality principle explains that identity is made up by parts. Various aspects contribute parts of identity and it is, therefore, very dynamic, context-bound, and constantly shifting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 1. Intersubjectivity between 5 principles

 

The above diagram attempts to show how the five principles relate to one another as they co-construct identity. Interlocutors' evaluation of one principle may affect the evaluation of another, hence affecting the overall analysis of one's identity. The lines connecting each bubble represent these relations, and the influences go both ways. The principles do not work alone on their own, contributing to identity separately.

 

For example, in an interaction, when one interlocutor calls out to another, the indexicality principle allows us to analyse how the speaker evaluates the referent. A facet of identity emerged in that act of referencing for both the speaker and referent. By choosing the term to refer to another, the speaker is also putting himself in a position relative to the referent. The partiality principle allows these dots to be connected to form a whole identity for the speaker, and all these happen in just one turn. When other participants take their turn and react to this reference, interlocutors have to adjust their previous evaluations. Something else has emerged from a turn of another interlocutor. It provides new input for every participant to reassess each of their positions, and their relations to others in the interaction. This is an on-going process, an almost completely subtextual negotiation of identity in every interaction.

 

These multiple simultaneous inputs affect the evaluation of each principle back, i.e. they are intersubjective. The principles form a highly interconnected web, and it sketches the outline of the identity of an interlocutor for sociolinguists. This construction process is different for every interaction, which also explains the multiplex identity of the same person in different contexts.

 

Case Study

To further study how one identifies him/herself in a workplace, we visited a financial company to observe identity construction first-hand.

 

An insurance broker has at least two identities at the workplace: one constructed for extra-institutional relationships, such as between the broker and his or her clients, another for intra-institutional relationships, such as that between the colleagues. As identity is not a fixed entity, it is crucial to observe the changes in roles of participants in the interactions, and see how one relates him/herself with others in the situation to establish their identity. We conducted an ethnographical observation and several interviews at the company, focusing mainly on one of the insurance brokers, Jenny. The company has around 20 employees in total, most of which are foreigners. Only four of them have Chinese ethnicity, including two interns. Jenny used to work in a big advertising company. She started to work at the company three months ago, and this is the first time she has worked in a financial company.

 

One’s identity is constructed by what one says and how one acts instead of a psychological mechanism of self-classification (Bucholtz & Hall, 2005). By layman definitions, Jenny's identity would be an insurance broker to both her clients and colleagues, yet, by analysing her performance and utterance, in the ways that Jenny dealt with her clients and colleagues, we could see that she was establishing her professional identity with a systematic, strategic and responsible character.

 

The first example is a business meeting with a client. The main purpose of the meeting was to sign a document prepared by Jenny in relation to an existing insurance deal. The meeting lasted for about ten minutes, yet their conversation was hardly related to the deal at hand. In their conversation, Jenny asked whether the client had bought safety insurance for his office. After he gave an affirmative answer, the client continued to complain about the irresponsibility of his current agent.

 

“每次打電話俾個經紀都搵佢唔倒”

Translation:

I couldn’t contact the agent every time when I call him.

 

Jenny then provided some advice to him and asked about the duration of the contract.

 

Afterwards, Jenny explained that the main purpose of the meeting was not only to get the document signed, but also to let the client know that he could enjoy better services than what he was experiencing.

 

“去之前我已經諗好要講d咩，仲要排先後次序，揀一d如果時間唔多時都一定要講嘅野，所以頭先上到去，即使無咩時間，但我都完成左我嘅目的，都令佢知道我地可以提供倒更好嘅service.”

Translation:

I always go through what I need to say and prioritize them before I meet my clients, which was why just now, even though we did not have much time, I still finished what I had to say and let him know that we can provide better services.

 

The positionality principle suggests that one’s identity is not confined to macro-level demographic categories, but extends to temporary conversational roles as it emerges and forms in the interaction negotiated by the interlocutors. In the interaction, Jenny’s role was supposed to be a service and information provider in delivering and explaining the document to her client. However, this was not how she identified herself. Her role as advice giver emerged when she led the conversation into another direction about a new business deal. Her client co-constructed the latter role when he followed Jenny’s lead and complained about his current agent. Thus, it is clear that negotiations of identity construction were clearly in place. Through the action of establishing and adopting a strategic plan for the client meeting, she positioned herself as a well-planned and systematic professional.

 

The next example demonstrates how Jenny constructed her own identity among colleagues. Her colleague, Keith, once introduced his own client to Jenny and let her close the deal. After he passed the client to Jenny he never asked for updates on the case, but Grace still kept him updated regularly.

 

“咁單生意係佢pass俾我嘅，我都有需要俾佢知道無交錯俾人，咁我就定時同佢講下我地傾到邊，等佢知道無咩事發生。”

Translation:

Since I got the deal from him, it is my responsibility to let him know that he did not put it in the wrong hands, so I report our progress and let him know everything is going well.

 

Jenny imposed a responsibility on herself to report to Keith even without his request for her to do so. The illocutionary force here is that she constructed herself as a subordinate to Keith, even though in the institution’s organizational structure, Jenny and Keith are on the same level. Her act is sufficiently similar to a subordinate to Keith. Keith, as a participant in this interaction, co-constructed this identity when he accepted Jenny’s report. Through this act, Jenny established a responsible character among her colleagues.

 

The relationality principle can be applied to further dissect Jenny’s identity construction. Regarding her identity in the company, in her interaction with others, she demonstrated a more systematic style in preparation for meetings with her clients and also in handling work from her colleagues compared to her colleagues who are mostly foreigners. Her identity is constructed through the contrast with others. These characteristics stand out in the working environment because the company has a relatively relaxing culture. For example, the supervisor-subordinate relationships are very close. The subordinates can enter freely into supervisors’ office and the supervisors seldom close their doors because they want to listen to the subordinates’ chitchat. Therefore, Jenny’s supervisor commented, “Jenny is a serious person. She was from a big company,” after I told him about how she kept Keith updated. Jenny’s style of working positioned her as a responsible and serious employee recognized by her supervisor. Her professional identity also emerged when she demonstrated her skills in negotiating business deal with her client, and her sense of responsibility towards the job passed on by her colleague.

 

On top of these characteristics, her working style also revealed her past identity in another company as an advertising manager, which affected how she builds her identity in the current company. Due to the difference in workplace culture, her character becomes more vivid, which helps construct her professional identity. As the partiality principle proposed, one’s identity is not defined by one single parameter, it can be habitual and unconscious as Jenny did in her current company.

Jenny’s identity can be as simple as a Chinese female insurance broker, and people could attribute her linguistic choice to her profession in the workplace only. However, the two examples above support Bucholtz and Hall’s identity theory, that identity is indeed shaped by linguistics choices and interactions during the communication between interlocutors. Particular participant roles in contexts contribute to the construction of identity as much as macro-level social categories.

 

Reflection

When engaging in any interaction, being aware of the interlocutors’ identities may very well help facilitate achieving communication goals. In the workplace, this is especially important as workplace interactions serves to achieve common goals of the participants in interaction. Identity is not a static entity, but constantly shifting. The five principles suggested by Bucholtz and Hall allows us to analyse identity systematically and gave us a better understanding of the construction of identity. The techniques used to analyse the construction of one’s identity can be flipped and used to construct a desirable identity instead. Jenny had used the resources available to her to construct a professional identity for herself. Familiarizing oneself with the notion of identity can very well aid one in his or her career in the long run.

 

References

Bucholtz, M., and Hall, K. (2005) Identity and Interaction: a sociocultural linguistic approach, Discourse

Studies, 7 (4-5), pp. 585-614.

Gumperz, J., and Cook-Gumperz, J. (1982) Language and Social Identity. New York: Cambridge

University Press.

Joseph, J.E., (2004) Language and Identity. New York: Palgrave.

Labov, W. (1972) On the mechanism of language change. In J.J. Gumperz and D. Hymes (eds) 

Directions in Sociolinguistics (pp.312-338). New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.