2.1Previous research on identity deconstruction

Most previous studies involving the use of “identity deconstruction” as a key word are based on Derrida’s philosophy of Deconstructionism/ Post-structuralism/ Post-modernism as opposed to the essentialist view of identity, including gender identity (Poovey 1988Poovey, Mary 1988 “Feminism and Deconstruction.” Feminist Studies 14 (1): 51–65. ; Gamson 1995Gamson, Joshua 1995 “Must Identity Movements Self-Destruct? A Queer Dilemma.” Social Problems 42 (3): 390–407. ), regional identity (Klooster 2002Klooster, Susan A. van ’T., Marjolein B. A. van Asselt, and Sjaak P. Koenis 2002 “Beyond the Essential Contestation: Construction and Deconstruction of Regional Identity.” Ethics, Place & Environment 5 (2): 109–121. ), political identity (D’Cruz 2008D’Cruz, Carolyn 2008 Identity Politics in Deconstruction: Calculating with the Incalculable. England, Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing Limited.), racial identity (Wagner et al. 2009Wagner, Wolfgang, Peter Holtz, and Yoshihisa Kashima 2009 “Construction and Deconstruction of Essence in Representating Social Groups: Identity Projects, Stereotyping, and Racism.” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 39 (3): 363–383. ), etc. They focus on how social changes give rise to the need to replace the static essentialist concept of identity with a dynamic constructionist one. Although none of them has explored identity deconstruction from a pragmatic point of view, they do feature some aspects relevant to identity deconstruction in our sense: identity negotiation, denial and contestation.

Identity negotiation is an “agentic identity work carried out in response to contextual demands” (Deaux and Ethier 1998Deaux, Kay, and Kathleen A. Ethier 1998 “Negotiating Social Identity.” In Prejudice: The Target’s Perspective, ed. by Janet K. Swim, and Charles Stangor, 301–323. San Diego: Academic Press. , 301). Related strategies include identity negation and identity enhancement (ibid.). Claimed identities can be either verified or challenged and contested (Donaghue 2015Donaghue, Helen 2015 The Construction and Negotiation of Identity and Face in Post Observation Feedback. PhD dissertation, Aston University, UK., 39).

To date, there have been scattered discussions on identity deconstruction. For example, Li and Ran (2016Li, Cheng-Tuan, and Yong-Ping Ran 2016 “Self-professional Identity Construction Through Other-identity Deconstruction in Chinese Televised Debating Discourse.” Journal of Pragmatics 94: 47–63. ) and Li, et al. (2018)Li, Cheng-Tuan, Yong-Ping Ran, and Daniel Kádár 2018 “Constructing Self-expert Identity via Other-identity Negation in Chinese Televised Debating Discourse.” Text & Talk 38 (4): 435–455. studied how one constructs one’s professional identity by means of deconstructing other’ s identity in Chinese televised debating discourses by challenging or negating other’ s attributes such as professional role, competence and ethics. Schnurr and Zayt (2011)Schnurr, Stephanie, and Olga Zayts 2011 “Be(com)ing a Leader: A Case Study of Co-constructing Professional Identities at Work.” In Constructing Identities at Work, ed. by Jo Angouri, and Meredith Marra, 40–60. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. explored how the new role of a team leader is often resisted and challenged by other team members by questioning her authority and decisions or undermining her display of power and authority (Donaghue 2015Donaghue, Helen 2015 The Construction and Negotiation of Identity and Face in Post Observation Feedback. PhD dissertation, Aston University, UK., 39). Mullany (2008)Mullany, Louise 2008 “Impoliteness, Power and Gender Identity in the Professional Workplace.” In Impoliteness in Language, ed. by Derek Bousfield, and Miriam A. Locher, 231–251. The Hague: Mouton de Gruyter. investigated the impoliteness strategies used in meetings in a UK manufacturing company to challenge a manager’s power and claimed identity. Donaghue (2018)Donaghue, Helen 2018 “Relational Work and Identity Negotiation in Critical Post Observation Teacher Feedback.” Journal of Pragmatics 135: 101–116. analyzed different (polite or impolite) relational work two advisers did in negating the same professional identity a teacher claims for himself in the post teaching review. Dobs (2014)Dobs, Abby Mueller 2014 “Identities in Conflict: Examining the Co-construction of Impoliteness and Identity in Classroom Interaction.” Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 2 (1): 36–73. investigated how students used impoliteness strategies like scorn to reject an unwanted discourse identity ascribed to them by their interlocutors. Locher (2011)Locher, Miriam A. 2011 “Situated Impoliteness: The Interface Between Relational Work and Identity Construction.” In Situated Politeness, ed. by Bethan L. Davies, Michael Haugh, and Andrew John Merrison, 187–208. London: Bloomsbury. examined how interactants in an online forum used face aggravating behaviour like sarcasm to reject unwanted ascribed identities. While these studies are enlightening to our discussion here, many ways in which identities are challenged, negated or deconstructed remain unexplored. In addition, various factors in both the immediate and the wider social contexts of interaction/ communication that may also exert great effects on the process of identity deconstruction have not been adequately explored.

2.2Previous research on Chinese mediation

Mediation in China has a long history and differs significantly from that in the western contexts (Wall and Blum 1991Wall, James, and Michael Blum 1991 “Community Mediation in the People’s Republic of China.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 35 (1): 3–20. ). To date, studies on Chinese mediation are mainly about mediation practice in courtrooms (Li and Song 2014Li, Xiangyun, and Chengfang Song 2014 “离婚调解话语中男女权力失衡问题研究 [An Analysis of the Power Imbalance Between Men and Women in Divorce Mediation Discourse].” Journal of Ocean University of China 4:123–128.; Jiang 2016Jiang, Ting 2016 “态度系统视阈下仲裁员调解话语的人际意义分析 [On Interpersonal Meanings in Arbitrators’ Mediation Discourse: A Perspective from Attitude System].” Modern Foreign Languages 39 (2): 188–197.; Ke 2017Ke, Xianbing 2017 “ ‘我(不)想X／Y’ 法庭调解话语策略表达机制研究 [An Empirical Study of Court-related Strategical Mediated Discourse Mechanism: A Case Study of ‘I Don’t Want X/Y’].” Journal of Zhejiang International Studies University 2: 3–11.), communities (Wall and Blum 1991Wall, James, and Michael Blum 1991 “Community Mediation in the People’s Republic of China.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 35 (1): 3–20. ; Tong 2013Tong, Shan 2013 A Conversation-analytic Study of People’ s Mediating Utterances. PhD dissertation, East China Normal University, China.) or TV programs (Ran and Zhao 2018Ran, Yongping, and Linsen Zhao 2018 “Building Mutual Affection-based Face in Conflict Mediation: A Chinese Relationship Management Model.” Journal of Pragmatics 129: 185–198. ; Xu 2019Xu, Youping 2019 “Scolding ‘Brothers’ and Caring ‘Friends’: Discursive Construction of the Identity of China Media Research.” International Journal for the Semiotics of Law 32 (1): 135–153. ). In these contexts, while neutrality is not a concern for mediators in most of the cases, major goals are to eliminate the dispute and keep the anger down, and both mediators and citizens feel the mediator’s decision as to who is correct is even more important than the resolution of the dispute (Wall and Blum 1991Wall, James, and Michael Blum 1991 “Community Mediation in the People’s Republic of China.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 35 (1): 3–20. , 10; Deng, et al. 2013Deng, Yiheng, Kaibin Xu, Xiaoqiu Fu, and Sang Ma 2013 “Mediating Conflict on TV: A Discourse Analysis of the Gold Medal Mediation Episodes.” China Media Research 9 (4): 5–14., 9).

Police mediation is one special branch of mediation, for “it represents a broader range of activities, including brokering and petitioning as well as arbitration, a condition in which the third party does have power” (Buerger et al. 1999Buerger, Michael E., Anthony J. Petrosino, and Carolyn Petrosino 1999 “Extending the Police Role: Implications of Police Mediation as a Problem- Solving Tool.” Police Quarterly 2 (2): 125–149. , 129). Studies on police mediation have a long history in Western countries (see Bercal 1970Bercal, Thomas E. 1970 “Calls for Police Assistance: Consumer Demands for Governmental Service.” American Behavioral Sciences 13 (5): 681–690. ; Black 1980Black, Donald 1980 The Manners and Customs of the Police. New York: Academic Press.; Cooper 2001Cooper, Christopher 2001 “Mediation in Black and White: Mediation Center-Police Partnerships – A Dignified Police Response.” Mediation Quarterly 18 (3): 281–295. ; Volpe 2014Volpe, Maria R. 2014 “Police and Mediation: Natural, Unimaginable or Both.” In Moving Toward a Just Peace: The Mediation Continuum, ed. by Jan Marie Fritz, 91–105. New York, London: Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg. ). Since a new law in 2006 in China established mediation as police officers’ legal obligation, police mediation has become one of major ways to solve civil conflicts. However, related research is limited. While previous research mainly takes legal or administrative perspectives (Gao 2008Gao, Wenying 2008 “警察调解制度研究 [Study on the Mechanism of Police Mediation].” Journal of Chinese People’s Public Security University 134 (4): 127–134.; Wang 2014Wang, Ting 2014 “完善我国警察调解制度的几点建议 [On Police Mediation in China].” Journal of China Maritime Police Academy 12 (3): 69–75.; Shen 2015Shen, Zhengwei 2015 “民警在治安调解中的效力分析 [Analysis on the Effectiveness of Police in Public Security Mediation].” Journal of Anhui Vocational College of Police Officers 81 (6): 51–54.), discussion on Chinese police mediation discourse from pragmatic perspective is scarce.

To sum up, while there have been rich studies on the construction of institutional identities as well as limited research on the deconstruction of professional identity, little attention has been paid to the deconstruction of various identities especially the non-institutional identities in discourses in institutional settings, particularly the Chinese police mediation contexts. This study focuses on the identity deconstruction phenomenon occurring in the process of the strategic use of non-existing identities such as family members, acquaintances, friends, etc. by Chinese police officers in civil conflict mediation interactions.

3.1Research questions

This study addresses the following research questions:

1. What chosen identities of Chinese police officers are then deconstructed in the course of mediation?

2. How are the chosen identities of Chinese police officers deconstructed?

3. Why does the deconstruction occur?

3.2Data collection

The present study collected naturally occurring mediation discourse involving an interpersonal dispute in which Chinese police officers served as mediators, where the dispute did not provide the officers with adequate grounds to arrest or accuse any disputing party for law violation. The successful resolution of conflicts in mediation was marked by an agreement of reconciliation in the form of a paper contract signed between the two parties of disputes.

The data used in this study come from the ethnographic study conducted by a co-author from June 14th to July 20th in 2018 by participating in and observing of the police officers’ mediation work in a police station in Anhui Province, China. The data are the transcripts of 13-hour-long audio recordings of 19 Chinese police officer-mediated interactions involving 14 Chinese police officers, 38 citizens of one city in the province, all of whom consented to have their mediation process recorded for research purposes. According to the same co-author’s survey by questionnaires, most of the police officers had never received any special training on mediation. The only guide they had obtained was one handbook with previous successful mediation cases.

The data were selected primarily because they were representative of the Chinese civil conflict mediation discourse with police officers as mediators. In terms of interactional dynamics, this mediation type included one or two police officers, two parties within an offender-offendee relationship, each with one or more people from different social classes, such as farmers, company manager, city citizens, and homeless people. These disputants were in multiple relationships from closed family members to total strangers to each other. The issues concerned were closely related to everyday life, covering trifles, land problem, debt problem, etc., providing a vivid snapshot for the general picture of Chinese people’s civil conflicts.

3.3Data analysis

The mediation conversations (to protect the anonymity of the participants, the names of the participants were replaced with English letters and all other information that could identify them was removed) were closely examined for instances of deconstruction of the police officers’ identities.

As the first step, we looked for those parts of the mediation discourses which involved overtly or implicitly negating an identity that had been chosen by the police officer(s) or the disputant(s). On the basis of the indexicality principle (Bucholtz and Hall 2005Bucholtz, Mary, and Kira Hall 2005 “Identity and Interaction: A Socio-cultural Linguistic Approach.” Discourse Studies 7 (4–5): 585–614. ), we depended on the following discursive strategies (Chen 2013Chen, Xinren 2013 “语用身份：动态选择与话语建构 [Pragmatic Identity: Dynamic Choice and Discursive Construction].” Foreign Languages Research 4: 27–112., 2018Chen, Xinren 2018 Pragmatic Identity: How to Do Things with Words of Identity. Beijing: Beijing Normal University Press.; Tracy 2002Tracy, Karen 2002 Everyday Talk: Building and Reflecting Identities. New York: Guilford Press.) to locate the instances of identity deconstruction in our data (1) the overt mention of a different identity category or label; (2) emphasizing a different kind of category-bound activity or obligation (Sacks 1972Sacks, Harvey 1972 “On the Analyzability of Stories by Children.” In Directions in Sociolinguistics: The Ethnography of Communication, ed. by. John J. Gumperz, and Dell Hymes, 325–345. New York: Blackwell.); (3) negating the validity of the speech act used to construct the identity; (4) claiming a different kind of identity relationship. While these discursive means helped us identify the instances of identity deconstruction, our analysis focuses on the immediate contextual and social rationales, based on which the various identities of Chinese police officers were deconstructed.

Take the following extract from Chinese civil conflict mediation at one police station for example:

In this extract, in face of the A’s rude manners, P constructed the identity of an ordinary individual who deserved equal polite treatment from A by addressing him with his family name Chen 陈 followed by the address term Shifu 师傅, which means ‘master’ or an elderly person who imparts skills (Wen 2018Wen, Xu 2018 “言语交际中称谓的认知语用问题 [Cognitive-Pragmatic Aspects of Vocatives in Verbal Communication].” Journal of Zhejiang International Studies University 2: 35–40.) and nowadays is used commonly in everyday life talk to show respect in Chinese (01). He also used two rhetorical questions (Ni ke zunzhong wo? Wo ke zunzhong ni? 你可尊重我？我可尊重你？) (01), serving as an indirect criticism of A’s rudeness and a request of mutual respect from A. But A deconstructed this equal identity by overtly mentioning the identity categories labels (Bucholtz and Hall 2005Bucholtz, Mary, and Kira Hall 2005 “Identity and Interaction: A Socio-cultural Linguistic Approach.” Discourse Studies 7 (4–5): 585–614. ) ‘the people’s security guard’ (renmin de baoan 人民的保安)and ‘the innocent and ignorant people’ (wuzhi de qunzhong 无知的群众) and the category-bound activity or obligation (Sacks 1972Sacks, Harvey 1972 “On the Analyzability of Stories by Children.” In Directions in Sociolinguistics: The Ethnography of Communication, ed. by. John J. Gumperz, and Dell Hymes, 325–345. New York: Blackwell.) of police officers ‘to serve us’ (wei women fuwu 为我们服务) (02), thus positioning P in his institutional identity which A assumed as unequal and can serve as a rationale for his impoliteness to be considered as “reasonable hostility”, that is, “emotionally marked criticism of the past and future actions of public persons” (Tracy 2008Tracy, Karen 2008 “ ‘Reasonable Hostility’: Situation-appropriate Face-attack.” Journal of Politeness Research 4: 169–191. , 169). From a target’s perspective, reasonable hostility will almost always be seen as rude and unfairly attacking, but for others, criticisms are regarded as morally warranted (ibid.), and in police mediation A’s rude manner seemed to be warranted by the institutional setting, namely, the prescribed institutional identity and interpersonal relationship provide a rationale for A to negate the validity of the police officer’s self-constructed identity of an ordinary individual who deserves equal politeness from A.

Two other researchers helped the authors categorize and identify the identity deconstruction cases in the data and the cases that could not be decided consistently by all the four of us were excluded.

As the next step, the isolated cases and relevant parts of the debating conversation in which these instances occurred were then transcribed according to Du Bois et al.’s (1993)Du Bois, John W., Stephan Schuetze-Coburn, Susanna Cumming, and Danae Paolino 1993 “Outline of Discourse Transcription.” In Talking Data: Transcription and Coding in Discourse Research, ed. by Jane A. Edwards, and Martin D. Lampert. 45–89. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. transcription conventions (see Table A1 in Appendix 1) due to its convenience to represent discourse features such as interactants’ pitch and laughter, which are important signals or markers of implicit deconstruction of identity and its effects on interpersonal relationship.

In sum, five episodes were chosen for close analysis. Their detailed information is listed in Table 1. In the data analysis, we will present each excerpt in the following format: First, the situational context is provided, including the participants’ social background and the conflict details; second, the excerpt is provided both in Chinese and in an English translation, with the parts of overt and implicit negation or deconstruction of police officers’ identities being underlined. In each case, one or two police officers served as the mediator(s). They were all male, 25–45 years old, with 5–12 years of mediation experience.

In the next section, we will illustrate what, how and why (non-)institutional identities of police officers either constructed by themselves or assigned by the disputants were deconstructed.

4.1Disputants’ deconstruction of police officers’ self-constructed non-institutional identities

Besides institutional identities, the police officers often constructed many non-institutional identities; however, these contextually “deviant” identities were often overtly or implicitly deconstructed by the disputants in the following ways: (1) negating their appropriateness for the institutional setting, and (2) negating their social or institutional rightness.

4.1.1By negating the appropriateness of the identities for the institutional setting

No behavior is appropriate or inappropriate without taking into account the social context where it occurs, as put by van Dijk (2009van Dijk, Teun A. 2009 Society and Discourse: How Social Contexts Influence Text and Talk. New York: Cambridge University Press. , 50, 60):

Settings of social institutions are also associated with specific, socially conditioned, norms of language and discourse…The social definition of spaces and places has an influence on the properties of discourse that define their appropriateness with respect to the context.

In police mediation talk, the disputants sometimes simply deconstruct police officer’s temporarily constructed identity by emphasizing the “institutionality” (Benwell and Stokoe 2006Benwell, Bethan, and Elizabeth Stokoe 2006 Discourse and Identity. Edinburgh UK: Edinburgh University Press.) of the communicative space or place. Consider Extract (2):

Extract 2.

(Context: A conflict between two neighbors living in one village: A’s husband owes some money to B. B’s son was very angry and smashed the front door of A one night. P refers to the police officer who conducts the mediation.)

01 P：

你家小孩多大了？

02 A：

29。

03 P：

在哪打工呢？

04 A：

在哪打工还要问么？

05 P：

拉拉呱不行么？

06 A：

拉什么？拉什么家常呱啊?拉家常呱也不来^这里呀！ …((省略))

01 P:

How old is your child?

02 A:

29.

03 P:

Where is he working?

04 A:

Is it necessary to ask about where he is working?

05 P:

Can’t we do a little casual chatting?

06 A:

What to chat about? What kind of casual chatting? People don’t come ^here for chatting! …((Omitted))

In this extract, at the moment of mediation, the two disputing parties were very angry with each other due to the debt problem and the subsequently smashed door issue. P as the mediator tried to appease the tension by constructing an acquaintance identity with A (the one who called the police and wanted some remedy for her smashed door) by means of casually chatting about her family (01, 03). Apparently, the chat was irrelevant to the dispute but only a kind of small talk. Such small talk, according to Malinowski (1923)Malinowski, Bronislaw 1923 “The Problem of Meaning in Primitive Languages.” In The Meaning of Meaning, ed. by Charles Kay Ogden, and Ivor Armstrong Richards, 296–336. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul., may function “to achieve companionship” (Jin 2018Jin, Ying 2018 “Small Talk in Medical Conversations: Data from China.” Journal of Pragmatics, 134: 31–44. , 32). But with extreme anger, A talked rudely to P to challenge the latter’s temporarily constructed identity (Chen 2013Chen, Xinren 2013 “语用身份：动态选择与话语建构 [Pragmatic Identity: Dynamic Choice and Discursive Construction].” Foreign Languages Research 4: 27–112., 2014Chen, Xinren 2014 “语用学视角下的身份研究—关键问题与主要路径 [Current Research on Identity from the Pragmatic Perspective: Key Issues and Main Approaches].” Modern Foreign Languages 37 (5): 702–710., 2018) by asking a rhetorical question to negate the institutional rightness of the small talk: ‘Is it necessary to ask about where he is working?’ (Zai na dagong hai yao wen me? 在哪打工还要问么？) (04). P responded with a rhetorical question ‘Can’t we do a little casual chatting?’ (Lala gua bu xing me? 拉拉呱不行么？) (05), defending his adoption of a non-institutional identity based on the general Chinese social norm that strangers often do small talk to build an acquaintance-like relationship (Yuan 2011Yuan, Zhoumin 2011 An Empirical Study of Medical Consultants’ Pragmatic Identity Construction from the Adaptationist Perspective. PhD dissertation, Nanjing University, China.). But A’s use of “hyperquestioning” (i.e. “repeated questioning within a turn leaving no opportunity for response”) (Donaghue 2018Donaghue, Helen 2018 “Relational Work and Identity Negotiation in Critical Post Observation Teacher Feedback.” Journal of Pragmatics 135: 101–116. , 111) (La shenme? La shenme jiachang gua a? 拉什么？拉什么家常呱啊?) signaled her critical stance (06). This confrontational question deconstructed P’ s attempted acquaintance identity by negating its appropriateness in institutional setting, that is, the police station indicated by the adverbial ‘ ^here’ (zheli 这里), based on the rationale that people do not chat or do small talk at the police station, a place where people are supposed to resolve disputes. The deconstruction of P’s temporarily self-constructed acquaintance identity might reveal A’s eagerness to solve the conflict at hand.

4.1.2By negating the social rightness of the identities

The data also show that the disputants might deconstruct the police officers’ self-constructed identity via negating its social rightness on the basis of a rationale drawn from certain social norms, especially those prescribed by the institution. Consider Extract (3):

Extract 3.

(Context: A conflict between two brothers: the elder brother A quarrels with the younger brother B for some land problem, and B called the police for help.)

01 P：

别吵了，弟兄两个有什么不好讲的？

02 A：

弟兄俩、还弟兄俩&

03 P：

哎， 你少讲两句，你要这样讲，这个态度，我是他也不愿意给你!

04 B：

你看看他那样子，我跟你讲，绝对没人服他！

05 A：

没人服，管！照！ 你们领导都回去吧！

06 P：

哎呀， 你这态度不好 ！你&

07 B：

我们家庭的事情，你们处理不好，你们不要处理，等、等明天闹出人命了，搞出刑事案件了，你们再来搞！

08 P：

(@@)不要这样讲！((省略))

01 P:

Don’t quarrel any more! There is nothing that can’t be solved between brothers!

02 A:

Brothers? Is he my brother?

03 P:

Ai, you talk less! If you keep talking like this, with this kind of attitude, then if I were him, I wouldn’t agree to let you use the land either.

04 B:

Look at him and the way he behaves! Let me tell you, nobody will consider him as appropriate!

05 A:

Ok! Nobody will consider me as appropriate! Ok! Ok! You officers go back!

06 P:

Aiya! Your attitude is not good! You &

07 A:

This is our family issue, and you can’t handle well. You shouldn’t handle it now, wait, wait till somebody is dead one day, then it will become a criminal case, then you come back and handle it!

08 P:

(@@)Don’t say that! ((Omitted))

In this extract, in order to help the two brothers calm down and reconcile with each other, P tried to construct an identity of ‘scolding brother’ by means of a conditional clause with the subjunctive mood to criticize A’s bad attitude (03, 06). But A was very angry about the fact that many neighbors thought he had done something wrong. Here, A deconstructed P’ s self-constructed ‘scolding brother’ identity by overtly addressing him with an institutional identity label ‘You officers’ (nimen lingdao 你们领导) (05) and negating the social rightness of the scolding brother identity by emphasizing the fact that the quarrel between brothers was a ‘family issue’ (jiating de shiqing 家庭的事情) rather than a ‘criminal case’ (xingshi anjian 刑事案件) and thus was beyond police officer’s duty (07). In this way, A positioned P back to his institutional identity as a police officer, hence deconstructing the latter’s self-constructed identity as a scolding brother.

4.2Police officers’ deconstruction of identities assigned by the disputants

Talk in ostensibly institutional settings can sometimes be “noninstitutional”, and speakers may move in and out of institutional talk and ordinary talk (Benwell and Stokoe 2006Benwell, Bethan, and Elizabeth Stokoe 2006 Discourse and Identity. Edinburgh UK: Edinburgh University Press., 96–97). Data of this study show that while the disputants tended to assign institutional identities to police officers, the latter might deconstruct such institutional identities assigned to them by deliberately adopting non-institutional identities. Specifically, the police officers might deconstruct their other-assigned institutional identities by negating the institutional goal, relationship or identity and claiming a non-institutional identity.

4.2.1By negating the validity of the other-assigned institutional identity and clarifying a non-institutional identity or communicative goal

What is found interesting in our data is that, in mediation discourse, which is institutional in nature, police officers often deconstructed their institutional identities assigned by the disputants via negating the validity of the institutional identity and claiming a non-institutional identity or clarifying a non-institutional communicative goal. Consider Extract (4) (Due to the word limit of the journal, some turns between turns 13 to 14 that do not affect the analysis of this article are omitted here.):

Extract 4.

(Context: A is a resident in one community, who falls into dispute with the property management company due to some housing renovation issues. B is the manager of the property management company. P is the police officer who conducts mediation for them.)

01 A：

我的天，你现在怎么给警察又喊来做什么？他们能给我解决？

02 B：

你问问我们这些师傅们，我们只是让他们来做个见证。

03 A：

那你要是给警察喊来，那你也把你们领导喊来！

04 P：

老顾， 你消消气，你消消气&

05 A：

我老婆那天摔了打电话给 你们派出所 ， 你们为什么不给我做见证？

06 P：

听我说&

07 A：

为什么官官相护给他们做见证？

08 P：

怎么、官官相护怎么讲？你这个官官相护从哪来的？我的嗨来((天啊))！ 我什么话都没讲呢就官官相护了吗 ？

09 A：

(@@)那你讲。

10 P：

你说你哪天报警他们没去，你可以打110，有督查，你可以投诉&

11 A：

我投诉有X用啊！我不需要投诉！我现在&

12 P：

讲话就好好说，听我跟你说，听我说，有话好好说，不要带口头((脏话))好吧？

13 A：

我就是这个X样！我就是这个X样！ 我们小老百姓！ … 4s

14 P：

我们可管讲话了？

15 A：

… 3s

16 P：

老顾 ， 你听我说，你听我给你讲， 我们现在来了，不是针对你也不是针对她，而是看看在中间怎么给你们协调协调，把这个事解决掉，你老是纠结之前的事有什么意义呢？

17 A：

… ((省略))

01 A:

My Goodness! Now what do you want to do by calling the police to come here? Can they solve my problem?

02 B:

You can ask these Shifu, we just want them to be witnesses here.

03 A:

Now that you call the police to come here, you should also call your boss to come here!

04 P:

Lao Gu, don’t get so angry, calm down&

05 A:

That day my wife fell and called you, the police station , and why didn’t you come to be a witness for me?

06 P:

listen to me&

07 A:

Why now you officials shield each other and come to be a witness for them?

08 P:

How come… where does the saying that “officials shield each other” come from? Aiya! My Goodness! I didn’t say a word! How come the “officials shield each other”?

09 A:

(@@) ok then, you speak now.

10 P:

You said that you called the police and they didn’t come then you can call 110 to make a complaint to the inspector&

11 A:

What’s the fucking point to make a complaint? I don’t need to complain! I now &

12 P:

When you talk with others, talk in a polite way! listen to me, listen to me! When you have something to say, say it in a polite way. Don’t use dirty words, ok?

13 A:

I just talk in this fucking way! I just talk in this fucking way! We little people! … 4s

14 P:

Can we speak now?

15 A:

… 3s

16 P:

Lao Gu, listen to me, listen to what I am going to tell you, that is, now we come here not to be against you or her, rather we are here to see if we can be in the middle of you two and help solve the problem for you . There is no point in feeling upset with the causes of the problem, right?

17 A:

…((omitted))

In this extract, A was very angry because the manager B called the police, which seemed to imply that A had done something wrong. So with anger and rude manners, A questioned P’s neutrality and positioned him in an unjust officer identity by stating an incident in which police officers did not respond to his call (05, 07) and overtly addressing the police with the identity label “you officials”(nimen guan 你们官) (07) and himself “We little people” (Women xiao laobaixing 我们小老百姓) (13), thus positioning P in his institutional identity and their relationship in unequal power relationship. Then P deconstructed this imposed, unwanted institutional identity by negating the truth validity (Habermas 1976Habermas, Jürgen 1976 “What Is Universal Pragmatics?” In On the Pragmatics of Communication, ed. by Maeve Cooke, 21–103. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.) of the speech act A used to construct this identity, that is, P ‘didn’t say a word’ (shenme hua dou mei jiang 什么话都没讲) (08), so he did nothing, let alone anything wrong that could make him an unjust officer who took the property management company’s side and shielded the manager. In other words, the accusation of P as being an unjust officer was countered by means of negating its truth validity and further clarifying his communicative goal, which was not to be against anyone but to help A solve the problem (16). At the same time by addressing A, whom P met for the first time, with the adjective Lao 老 (meaning ‘old’ literally in Chinese, and when used in an address form ending with a family name, implying that the addresser and addressee know each other for a long time) plus A’ s family name Gu 顾 (04, 16), an address structure used commonly among old friends or acquaintances in Chinese to indicate equal power and solidarity (Ma 2011Ma, Peipei 2011 “汉语称呼语中“老”字的权势与等同关系探析 [The Power and Solidarity of the Word “Lao” in Chinese Address Terms].” Journal of Hebei North University 27 (2): 42–44., 43), P attempted to construct the identity of an acquaintance-like helper, which was verified by A’s final silence (17) after so many confrontational responses (05, 07, 11, 13) to the previous turns of P.

4.2.2By negating the institutional relationship and claiming a non-institutional relationship

We also found in the data that police officers in mediation interaction often deconstructed their other-assigned institutional identity via negating the institutional relationship implied by the identity and at the same time claiming a non-institutional relationship, because the latter could establish a much closer interpersonal relationship between the police and disputants. Consider Extract (5):

Extract 5.

(Context: there is typhoon alert, and A is a homeless old man who lives in the low-lying area under a bridge and refuses to leave. One passer-by reports it to the police for the safety of the old man.）

01 P：

大爷 ，有台风来了， 您 不能住在这里了，很危险的。跟我们走吧，先跟我们回派出所，我们把 您 送到安全地方。

02 A：

我不去， 我又^没犯^法！

03 P：

派出所不是只有坏人可以去， ^ 好人也可以去的。

04 A：

我不去，我想干什么就干什么！

05 P：

大爷，我们是来帮助你的 ， 你吃晚饭了吗？

06 A：

没有。

07 P：

那我们一会 请你吃饭哦。

08 A：

（@@）

01 P:

Uncle , a typhoon is coming, so you can’t stay here any more, because it’s too dangerous. Go with us to the police station first, and later we will send you to some place safe, ok?

02 A:

No, I won’t go! I ^haven’t committed any ^crime!

03 P:

Not only the bad guys go to police station, so do the ^ good ones!

04 A:

I won’t go! I can do whatever I want to do!

05 P:

Uncle, we come here to help you . And have you had your dinner?

06 A:

No.

07 P:

Ok, then, later we will buy you dinner , ok?

08 A:

(@@)

In this extract, P constructed the identity of a younger family member by addressing A Daye 大爷 (‘Uncle’) and nin 您 (‘you’) (01), a second-person honorific, but A implicitly negated this identity by stating the fact that “I ^haven’t committed any ^crime (Wo you mei fan fa 我又没犯法) (02), thus positioning them in an institutionally prescribed police-suspect relationship. P then deconstructed this imposed identity by stating the fact that ‘good ones’ can also go to the police station (03), thus proposing a new police-citizen/helping-helped relationship with the use of identity label haoren 好人 (‘good ones’) in a marked pitch. Being refused again, P further addressed A again with the kinship term Daye 大爷 (‘Uncle’), emphasizing overtly a non-institutional communicative goal, that is, “to help you” (lai bangzhu ni 来帮助你) (05), and offers A dinner (qing ni chi fan o 请你吃饭哦) (07) to show their care for him like real family members, with a view to having the family member relationship constructed. The police officer’s attempt was successful because the constructed identity was verified by A, as shown by the latter’s laughter (08).

While there were other situations of identity deconstruction, the illustration above suffices to demonstrate the complexity of the conversational practice in the police mediation setting. However, it is also worth mentioning that, according to our observation by one-month participation in the police mediation discourse, of the two types of identity deconstruction initiated by either disputants or police officers themselves, the former one invariably concerned the disputants’ deconstruction of the non-institutional identities constructed by the police officers, while the latter more often than not concerned the police officers’ deconstruction of the institutional identities assigned to them by the disputants. The next section will discuss in more detail about the various contextual factors that may have given rise to this phenomenon, including both the immediate context and the wider social context of interaction/ communication.