translate the following paragraphs into Chinese. The types of codes used are also important means for the con artists to construct fabricated identities. A majority of con artists in the fraud cases choose 
to use Mandarin, as it presents the image of a well-educated person, who is supposed to have high credibility. Almost one third of them employ jargon to seem 
more professional. In a few cases, dialect is used to bridge the psychological distance with the strangers. To a lesser extent, sounds of speech, especially mysterious tones, help in the construction of false identities. As is stated in Eggington’s 
(2008) research, the target sometimes would be urged to be confidential, “adding 
a secretive and conspirational facet to the relationship”.
Table 2 has given a general picture of the discursive practices used in fraud 
cases. In order to display the complexity in identity fabrication, five stories as 
typical cases for the above five identities and their corresponding discursive practices are discussed in detail below.  Table 2: Discursive practices of 72 fraud cases 5.2 Case studies
5.2.1 The identity ‘polite female victim’
The identity of victim is constructed by the con artist’s pretending to be someone 
who has been harmed by a crime and then takes advantage of the target’s sympa￾Table 2: Discursive practices of 72 fraud cases
Discursive practices Percentage Manifestations Percentage 

*Other practices like grammar and paralanguage occupy 5.56% among the cases. Since the number is too limited, we will not 
discuss them in the research.
108 east asian pragmatics
thy to swindle money from them. This personal identity is usually fabricated by 
women, children, the old, or the handicapped, because they are supposed to be 
easy prey for criminals. A representative example of this type of identity fabrication is Case (1) below.
Case (1) Context: Near Yulin Bus Station, a fashionable woman A approaches Mr B . In Case (1), the con artist A pretends to be a polite female victim of a pickpocket 
in order to gain B’s sympathy. As is mentioned above, her pre-existing personal 
identity as a woman serves as the basis for her fabrication. Still, various kinds of 
linguistic devices are employed to enhance the construction of the identity as a 
female victim. Two such devices are the code and the sounds of speech: standard 
Mandarin with an anxious tone. Generally, standard Mandarin speakers are seen 
as being educated and cultivated. Accordingly, when a woman speaks standard 
Mandarin, she leaves at least an inoffensive impression. An anxious tone, in addi￾tion, projects a woman in need. Furthermore, the con artist starts the conver￾sation by making an apology ‘Excuse me … sorry to bother you’ before asking 
constructing false identities for fraudulent purposes 109
for help so as to mitigate the face-threatening force inherent in the speech act 
of requests (Brown & Levinson, 1987). Getting a ‘go ahead’ (indicated by the 
utterance ‘Yes?’) from B, she modifies her request act with polite address forms
xiansheng 先生 ‘sir’ and nin1 您 ‘you’ (honorific) and politeness markers mafan nin
麻烦您 ‘Would you (honorific) mind’ and qing 请 ‘please’, perfecting the refined 
and educated personal identity. Meanwhile, the information she provides is consistent, as what she needs is a ‘return ticket’ rather than a ‘departure ticket’, leaving 
her no choice but to seek help. Finally, her promise of paying back the money is 
meant to reinforce her sincerity. All these discursive practices are woven together 
to fabricate the identity of a polite female victim.