Constructing identities and subject positions As we read

Constructing identities and subject positions As we read and interpret a text, we do so from a position that is created for us by the text producer. This is referred to as the reader’s subject position. At the same time the text producer (whose precise identity it is often very difficult to establish) also constructs a subject position, which will be maintained in the relation that is established with the text interpreter.

Subject construction Subject positions determine the kind of relations that exist between text producer and text interpreter and account for whether these are symmetrical relations or asymmetrical ones. The linguistic processes by which this is achieved go under the name of subject construction (Fairclough, 1995)

Subject/participant • Fairclough prefers the term subject to participant because: • ‘the term ‘participant’ tends to imply an essential, integral ‘individual’ who ‘participates’ in various institutionally defined types of interaction without that individuality being in any way shaped or modified thereby. In preferring ‘subject’. I am emphasising that discourse makes people, as well as people make discourse. ’ (Fairclough, 1995)

Reason for subject construction These subject position needs to be created because the text producer does not know text interpreters personally, and vice versa. The effectiveness of the communication lies in presenting a text intended for mass consumption in a way that suggests it is also addressed to each individual reader.

Synthetic personalization Mc. Loughlin refers to Fairclough’s term synthetic personalization to describe this process. By this Fairclough means techniques that are used ‘to give the impression of treating each of the people handled en masse as an individual’.

Synthetic personalization and manipulation Fairclough further defines synthetic personalisation as: ‘ all phenomena in strategic discourse … where relational and subjective values are manipulated for instrumental reasons. This may be a matter of constructing fictitious individual persons, for instance the addressee and addresser in an advertisement or of manipulating the subject positions of, or the relationships between actual individual persons (in the direction of equality, solidarity, intimacy or whatever), as in interviews. ’

Simulation By and large synthetic personalisation is interpreted by Critical Language Analyists as ‘ the simulation of private face-to-face, personto-person discourse in public masse-audience discourse –print, radio, television. Fairclough also says that it is natural to see this pessimistically, ‘as illusions of democracy, of informality and so on being projected for ulterior motives…’

speech interaction synthetic personalization is often achieved through the use of linguistic devices that are typical of. This allows the text producer to simulate a level of intimacy that the medium does not in actual fact allow. These linguistic devices play an important role in establishing the respective subject positions of text producers and text interpreters.

Linguistic devices in synthetic personalisation • • • Linguistic devices used for this are those common in spoken interaction: Mc. Loughlin refers to the way in which adjacency pairs are used to create synthetic personalization (p. 68) Adjacency pairs are utterances that normally go together. E. g. A question will usually be followed by an answer, a request by an offer of service or compliance… Although the text interpreter cannot answer the question in an interactive manner, the text producer assumes that is what happens, and that reader says ‘Yes, you’re right’. This is the essence of synthetic personalization in action.

conversationalisation • Mc. Glouglin(68) also point out how other aspects of conversationalization are present in this short text, for example three dots which create a suspense-producing pause, very like an effect that many speakers commonly strive to achieve in conversation.

Pro-forms are also very important in the creation of synthetic personalization(68 -69). ‘You’ can refer both to readers en masse and to the individual reader. Through this pronoun the text producer can appear to address the reader directly.

subject position by presupposition Presupposition is an assumption that is made about the reader: (69) Frequently magazine text producer is presented as a source of advice and solutions to a problem that the reader subject is assumed to have and which is attributed both en masse and individually. This places the reader in a community (a social group with a unifying identity). If this advice includes recommendations for problem-solving products, the reader will also be placed within a product community, i. e. , a community who are unified by their need or use of a given product.

Text producer identity construction is also something that concerns the text producer. One identity is the advisor (sometimes the advice is given in a particularly commanding way); someone who is so close to the reader that they know what the text interpreter is thinking/feeling. The text producer identity is often fluid and changing. Sometimes the text producer seems to be an individual, at others it appears to be part of a team or group, speaking with all the authority and conviction of a team.

Text producer-commonalty • Sometimes the text producer is assuming commonalty with the reader, i. e. , assuming an identical identity to the readers, or with another group, for example with the rest of the magazines staff. (70) • In the former, it is the use of the inclusive ‘we’ that is used to create the identity of the text producer as part of the same community as the text interpreter, i. e. as the same type of suffering woman. • In the latter the ‘we’ is probably being used exclusively. (68)

Exclusive ‘we’ One of the common effects of the exclusive ‘we’ is to create the impression of authority by association with a team or a power group. In the case of magazines, we indicates that the text producer is part of the editorial staff and speaks with the authority of their combined expertise.

Text producer identity and modals • Another aspect of text producer identity can be understood through the role played by modality in the construction of that subject. • Modals at the certainty end of the epistemic range indicate conviction, certainty, and hence are associated with reliability and with authority.

Indirect discourse and identity • Indirect discourse, i. e. , when the words used are not attributed to a source or it is not clear whom they are said by or whether it would be typical for the text producer to say them. • We often find exclamations or expressions being used in which the voice is ambivalent and the text producer is actually mimicking the kinds of expressions and exclamations that might be used by a number of the regular text interpreters. This can be used to suggest the editor’s closeness to a particular community of women readers.

Imitating speech patterns • Mc. Gloughlin points out that text producers often mimic the speech patterns of the implied reader and that establishes common ground between them. Here again Mc. Gloughlin refers to Fairclough and points he makes about the way ‘discourses of the lifeworld’ –which are largely informal can be mixed with ‘official discourse’, which is more formal.

• In the same text there can be a mixture of both discourses. • The text producer can be authoritarian (provide advice and issue commands) but alsoclaim identity with the reader and seem to be less authoritarian in tone. • The range of linguistic techniques described here allows the text producer create an identity for the text producer and to shape and influence the reader’s responses.