Abstract:
As a large number of companies adopt anthropomorphic marketing approaches to share information
and promote products on social media, this paper examines the role of identities constructed by these
companies on such platforms in enhancing their marketing endeavors. Utilizing three e-commerce
official accounts on Weibo, a prominent Chinese social media platform, this research delves into the
linguistic perspective to uncover how diverse pragmatic identities constructed by these accounts can
impact their promotional efforts. A tailored analytical framework, integrating pragmatic identity theory
with rapport management theory, is developed to reflect their projected identities and elucidate the
strategies employed in their construction across discourse, stylistic, and illocutionary dimensions.
Under the content analysis of a self-built mini-corpus, this study shows that their identities, which
belong to pragmatic identities, are defined in three dynamic and interactive aspects: good bargain
promoter, beautiful life sharer, and e-commercial media introducer. Each identified identity is
subsequently exemplified with authentic posts, providing an understanding of their promotional
facilitation functions. Finally, the feasibility of constructing various pragmatic identities within social
media contexts is discussed. |
Keywords:
identity construction, pragmatic identity, promotion, anthropomorphic social media marketing, rapport management
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