The discursive construction of identity in chinese english bilingual advertising a critical inquiry 1

In late modern societies where “[s]ocial and cultural change has engendered identity crisis” Dunn 1998: 3 and “struggles over the construction of identities are a salient feature of late

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Introduction

English is now widely exploited in the communication of advertising, whether in print, television or website that is produced, circulated and consumed in non-Anglophone countries (see Bhatia 1992 for a cross-linguistic study, and Piller 2003 for a review) In the past over ten years, this bilingual (and in some cases multilingual)1 phenomenon has become one of research topics, attracting increasing attention of scholars from a wide range of disciplines, and continues to be a popular field of inquiry In spite of the enormous richness of analytical dimensions, much of discussion in the proliferation of literature situated broadly in the domain of linguistics centers round structural patterns of English mixing, symbolic values of English, socio-pragmatic functions of this bilingual practice, and the use of English in the context of globalization (e.g., Bhatia 1987, 1992,

2000, 2001, 2002; Bhatia & Ritchie 2004; Cheshire & Moser 1994; Haarmann 1984, 1989; Martin 2002, 2006, 2007; Morrow 1987; Myers 1994; Ustinova & Bhatia 2005) What has been less widely and deeply examined is identity, even though language choice in advertising is claimed as a “powerful tool[s] in the construction of social identity, be it national, racial, or class identity” (Piller 2003: 173) Available in the literature there are only four studies -namely, Piller (2001), Lee (2006), Gao (2005), and Martin (2006) -that concentrate exclusively on this research topic, a sharp contrast to the pervasiveness of identity study related to code-switching practice in various contexts of interaction such as workplace, home, and classroom (e.g., Fuller 2007; Gumperz 1982; Pakir 1989;

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In this study, unless other mentioned, the term “bilingual” refers to the use of English as

Scotton 1993; Zentella 1997; contributions in Pavlenko et al 2001) In late modern

societies where “[s]ocial and cultural change has engendered identity crisis” (Dunn 1998: 3) and “struggles over the construction of identities are a salient feature of late modern social life” (Chouliaraki & Fairclough 1999: 83), identity might become one of the most lively and popular topics of inquiry among bilingualism research in advertising

In examining the construction of modern identity for potential consumers, the available studies mentioned above customarily assume English as a sign of modernity upon which advertisers (i.e., agents, writers, designers, and editors) rely for socially

indexing a pre-discursively defined modern, sophisticated, and cosmopolitan image of

products2 and implicitly, “a transnational consumer” who is usually young, cosmopolitan, bilingual (Piller 2001: 180; Lee 2006; cf Gao 2005) Yet, if viewed as rooted and jointly constructed in particular “communities of practice” (Eckert & McConnell-Ginet 1992), the spread of English as a global language does by no means suggest that social meanings of the English language and the ways in which it is exploited are universally the same without individual variations and differences across the globe Given the locally-situated distinctive varieties of English usage, bilingual advertising of different places probably offers alternative forms and meanings of modern identity Clearly what is absent in the available studies is due attention given to the pluricentric nature of English, language ideologies, and the universal perception of identity now being the product of social, cultural and political conditions at a particular point in time and place Following this, an abstract “English” is insufficient when exploring modern identities constructed and

(re)presented in the textual form of bilingual advertising; our attention must be paid to “the actual and densely contextualized forms in which language occurs in society” (Blommaert

2005: 15, italics original)

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Unless other mentioned, the term “product” in this study includes a product, a service and an idea that are advertised or presented by an advertisement, while “commodity” refers to a concrete product

The static social-indexical perspective of identity is incorrect for another reason, due to its simple assumption that the English language is primarily exploited to index modern identities for young bilinguals The most relevant reason is that advertisers as meaning producers nowadays commonly rely on semiotic and not just linguistic means for identity construction and validation (Kress & van Leeuwen 1996, 2001) Given the multimodal feature of advertising texts and the possible ways in which the insertion of an English word or expression into different structural domains of an advertisement, it is premature to assume from the very beginning that the use of English always necessarily plays an essential or decisive role in the construction of modern identity Rather, the extent

of contribution English may have to different forms of modern identity is various, an important issue closely connected to social ideologies at work in the constructive process This study intends to develop and enhance the inquiry of identity in relation to bilingual practice in advertising Aside from treating identity as the result of overall arrangement of meaning-making elements in bilingual advertisements, it takes as point of departure two developments in the field of sociology and anthropology The first one is associated with the idea of identity as a social and cultural category As a social and cultural phenomenon, identity constructed and (re)presented in the textual form of bilingual advertising primarily through or at least related to the use of English is generally seen as a matter of the performative process through social and linguistic interactions (e.g., Butler 1990; Goffman 1981; Blommaert 2005) Attention of identity study in this way is oriented toward a complex set of processes and practices, rather than “common sense”, that draw on linguistic resources (plus other semiotic resources) belonging to two disparate linguistic systems “under social, cultural and historical conditions which both constrain and make possible the social reproduction of existing conventions and relations as well as the production of new ones” (Heller 2007: 15)

The second concern of this study is related to the increasing malaise among

anthropologists and sociologists with the tacit equation of modernity with homogeneity and uniform Modernity is the condition of experience coupled with capitalism, industrialism, consumption, and other characteristics of life in the West3 Modernity has now been developed into having multiple forms and meanings in anthropology and social sciences With demystification of universalism and celebration of difference and plurality, Giddens (1990), for instance, makes space for the assertion of cultural distinctiveness and the imagination of locally specific articulations of modernity It becomes reasonable to reject the simplistic binary opposition of the West and the non-West in accounting for emerging multiple forms of modernity Concerning the modernity of China in particular, similar arguments appear that modernity there may differ in certain striking respects from what many regard as the “standard model” (e.g., Dirlik & Zhang 2000; King 2002)4 The discourse of bilingual advertising logically marksa space of (re)construction and re-vision where local historical and cultural specificities can be mapped and interpreted to offer a different ground for imagining the meaning of modernity under global capitalism With this perspective, forms of modern identity constructed and (re)presented in bilingual

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The terms “western” or “the West” are often used interchangeably with “European” and include also, from the mid-19th century, America This somewhat crude simplification is intended not to cause confusion but to provide antithesis to the terms “the East”, “eastern”

or “China”

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To this study, it might be useful to point out that there are some heated debates about China’s qualifications to be a modern society Here I have no intention of undertaking another debate on this issue but just follow Dirlik and Zhang (2000) Quoting the work of Berman (1988), Dirlik and Zhang propose to inquire into Chinese (post)modernism from three conceptually distinct perspectives: socioeconomic transformation, historical experience, and “cultural vision” based on that historical experience They claim, “a more constructive response to the accusations brought against Chinese postmodernism” (Dirlik

& Zhang 2000: 9) is that “all three (conceptual) levels of the process of post-modernity could, and in fact did, function relatively autonomously and claim their own empirical,

ideological, and historical authenticities”(ibid.: 10) They go on to argue that China today

celebrates a mass-consumer culture, which is much as postmodernism in the United States From this point of view, China may well be qualified as a modern society at least in terms

of the cultural vision of postmodernism It is this realization that empowers me in the following to link consumption to the construction of modern identity in the Chinese context More supporting information can be found at the end of Chapter 2 discussing consumption practices in contemporary China.

advertisements cannot be understood as taken-for-granted as alluded to the inevitable diffusion of the western model of modernity across the world Specific historical and political resonances relating to a country’s modernity may, instead, manifest themselves in constructing different forms and meanings of modern identity through the locally characterized practice of English usage What is important for the present purpose is that

to reject modernity as an absolute universal is to acknowledge the fact of power relations and cultural hegemony underlying this appropriation on the part of the nation-state The immediate discussions at least suggest strongly the need to take the position

of this bilingual phenomenon as not random but rather social and cultural practices It generally gives rise to the need to develop an even more critical version of bilingualism and hence of identity in the domain of advertising And it becomes essential to provide a nuanced description paying close attention to the local complexities and probably contested ideologies of the English language The notion of ideology is central in much of the argument in this study A language ideology approach to identity construction associated with the transnational English usage is useful to allow insight into locally constructed categories which, that are often to be discovered, not assumed, may be differentiated from the globe-shared categories of, for example, gender, nation, and class The ideological dimension of identity, it must be noted, remains principally under-explored, regardless of the common knowledge about the ideological work of advertising

as well as language ideologies mediating the use of English Any study of identity in bilingual advertising will have limited value, if focusing merely on the different forms and meanings of social identity and without paying close attention to how they are constructed, legitimized, and transformed through the mediation of language ideologies involving (re)production, resistance, and counter-resistance throughout the language practice of English mixing

This study attempts to examine critically the discursive construction of identity

situated particularly in Chinese-English bilingual advertising Data for analysis were collected from local print commercial advertisements produced and circulated in mainland China over the year 2007 The occurrence of English in Chinese advertising is quite high; however, it remains largely ignored, not to mention the research topic of identity (with the exception of Gao 2005) Different from the previous studies of this topic, this is a study in discourse analysis, in the very broadest sense of these words One of its inquiries is about the possible way to bridge micro textual analysis and macro social theories

Considering the implied reflexivity of English usage and its embedment within social structures, this study, first and foremost, builds upon the fundamental principle of Critical Discourse Analysis (henceforth CDA) (e.g., Fairclough 1989, 1992, 2003; Chouliaraki & Fairclough 1999; van Dijk 1993, 1998, 2006a) that discourses constitutive

of various semiotic resources both reflect and construct macro societal and institutional ideologies With a central concern for metalinguistic and metapragmatic norms and competencies, CDA is able to provide a fine-grained analysis on the topic of identity and the social ideologies informing the practice of English mixing and its connection to social identity In this study, the notions of ideology and power conventionally crucial to CDA are deliberately defined in broader sense In simple terms, not only is ideology construed

as a manifestation of hegemonic practices, but also a representation of a set of sociocultural attitudes and beliefs about English In the same way as ideology defined broadly, the conception of power involves complex relations including dominance, collaboration, negotiation and resistance, simply because of the locally situated application

of English as a global language

In addition to taking a social-critical perspective of bilingualism and identity, the study commits itself to a focus on the nature of cognitive structures as regards a mental construct of identity The reasons are plenty and complex, but I can think of at least three

of them here The first one is concerned with processes of identity construction in the mass

communication of commercial advertising that are normally multifaceted, combining discursive, cognitive, and emotional dimensions Nevertheless, the dynamics of these dimensions and their interconnection, to my knowledge, have hardly been brought together for analysis in the literature Given the close relationship among them, the only way we analysts can deeply and fruitfully understand and interpret identity is to give equal weight to each dimension of them

Secondly, languages in the global marketplace are now increasingly acquiring their value as a function of economic significance and, therefore, a multiplicity of social identity constructed and (re)presented through them are being commercialized (Heller 2003) What entails is that identities (re)produced or shaped in advertising primarily through or at least related to the use of English are generally motivated by and grounded

on the principal concern to ensure commercial profits It is firmly believed the existence of the triangular interrelations between English, identity, and function (e.g., persuasion), other than multiple voices articulating social ideologies, in constructing social identities particularly within commercial advertisements But, surprisingly, no attempt has ever been carried out to examine mental processing of persuasion connected to the constructive process of identity, regardless of a body of literature about the socio-psychological motivation underpinning bilingual practices (e.g., Bell 1984; Bhatia 1992; Bhatia &

Ritchie 2004; Myers-Scotton 1988; van Meurs et al 2007)

The last but perhaps most significant reason is largely related to and motivated by the enduring endeavor of CDA to make visible and transparent the “hidden agenda” of discourse, its ideological dimension But analysis by CDA is usually criticized for its not being sufficiently in touch with the complexities inherent in linguistic-semiotic meaning (Blommaert 2005; Slembrouck 1995) and with the politics of CDA practitioners’ interpretation (Schegloff 1997; Slembrouck 2001; Widdowson 1995, 1998) Importance of CDA, as Iedema asserts, should be attached much more to “the hermeneutic dimensions of

analysis (Messer, Sass, & Woolfolk 1990) and the complex logics of practice (Schatzki 2002)” than to “technical precision, analytical certainty and political determination” (2004: 414) For providing a well-argued account of how and why the use of English probably has an important (or even central) role in constructing an identity, a deep investigation into mental processing of identity formation seems in order Interestingly, in the latest development of CDA is observed an increasing tendency for CDA practitioners (e.g., Chilton 2004, 2005a; O’Halloran 2003; contributions in van Dijk 2006a and in Hart & Lukes 2007) to advance critical analysis of language and social phenomena by bringing together contemporary linguistic and cognitive approaches With the purpose to grapple with the complexity of discourse practice involving two distinct languages and mental processing of identity formation, this study meanwhile proposes to internalize within the analytical framework of CDA some methodological tools originally developed in cognitive linguistics With the cognitive perspectives, CDA is able to shed new light on the constructive process and its ideological dimension by providing an explanatory, rather than simply descriptive, account of how changes, modifications, or transformations are likely to be shaped, reshaped, and even probably manipulated and controlled, through the strategic practices of English mixing

Modern identity of Chinese people as target audiences5 of Chinese-English bilingual advertising is the first category of collective identity the present study intends to investigate Earlier we have come to share the point that western modernity is not an absolute truth applicable to all historical periods or all cultures; nor is it a pure utopia unmediated by social ideologies In addition to taking the position of multiple modernities, this study firmly follows reflective “self-identity” in late modernity extensively discussed

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The term “audience”, the consumers of symbolic forms, refers to any person at whom

bilingual advertisements target irrespective of their intention of buying and consuming the product being advertised It is sometimes exchangeable with “viewer” As the following discussion suggests clearly, by this an emphasis is implicitly put on the power and ideology of advertisers and the dominant social group to which they belong

also by Giddens (1991) The notion of reflective self-identity is concerned with how people understand and shape their identity in later modernity, and how media like advertising might feed into this Language always plays an important role in the formation

of a collective identity associated with an “imagined community” (Anderson 1983) It has been claimed that by using language to construct “imagined communities”, advertisements offer a sense of belonging to the audience By this interpretation, bilingual advertisements become vehicles for target audiences’ socio-cognitive (re)presentation This study takes a holistic approach defining consumption as an everyday material and social practice in which the acquisition of products fulfils a wide range of personal and social functions Just

as persons choose products so products also play a part in the construction of their social identity As persons become potential consumers, the meanings and messages attached to products play a large part in defining who they are or wish to be and signal affiliation to a single or range of social categories and cultural values It is through this lens that this study traces the relationship between English and the construction of modern identity in Chinese-English bilingual advertising This position, notably, is opposed to the claim by the previous studies (i.e., Piller 2001; Lee 2006) that different aspects of modern identity constructed in bilingual advertising are available only to bilinguals whose linguistic repertoire includes the English language

Categories of collective identity to be examined in the study are not confined to modern identity of target audiences, but include others that have almost entirely been untouched upon in the literature of bilingual advertising Whilst there is insufficient space

to explore every category here (and I in no sense intend to exhaust them), additional categories that are certainly meaningful to develop and enrich the study of identity in the domain of bilingual advertising are expected to include collective identities of gender and nation, although class, and albeit less visibly, race, are also important In the following, I briefly elaborate the underlying reasons why this study, too, concentrates on these two

categories of identity rather than others for an examination

The discourse of bilingual advertising lends itself exceptionally well to an examination of the socioculturally recognisable or desirable values and practices associated with gender There are a few reasons for this, and perhaps the most compelling one is that in a commodity-driven consumer culture, advertising as a cultural form is an omnipresent and rich source of gender relations (Goffman 1979) In addition to this, bilingualism is proved the realm in which gender has recently been becoming one of the most important fields to be explored (e.g., Gal 1978; Winter & Pauwels 2000; Valentin

2006; Pavlenko et al 2001) Widespread gender-blindness of bilingualism research in

advertising does not mean that we continue to under-explore the portrayal of gender and its relationship to English as a new linguistic and cultural resource Above we have realized that target audiences may identify themselves through consumption of commodities being advertised, so do men and women engage in gendering work in order

to pass as a “real” man or woman As such, it is not a car, a watch, a TV set, eye cream, or perfume that is offered, but masculinity and femininity via these commodities even though

a male or female model is not always employed In making appeals to men and women who align themselves with that depiction, the gender identification of a product is important and necessary In this study, gender is not interpreted as a set of traits, a variable

or a role but, rather, a socioculturally constructed concept articulated through our relationships with others and with our world in different social contexts and historical periods The basic premise that informs the analysis of gender is that a dynamics of gender and potential conflicts between competing gender identities might be better understood and interpreted as forms of identity that are embedded within other sets of gendered relations in a variety of ways and in a range of temporalities

National identity is the third category worth a careful examination, although some (e.g., Bauman 1992) remark that the nation-state in late modern societies as a source of