Identity Construction in Literary Discourse: A Critical Discourse Study of Female Characters in Adichie’s Dream Count

This study examines the discursive construction of female identity in Adichie’s Dream Count. Existing studies have examined identity construction in social media, naming practices, promotional discourse, and selected literary works, including Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun and Purple Hibiscus, but limited attention has been given to Dream Count. To address this gap, the study analyses purposively selected thirty-five excerpts from the novel using van Dijk’s socio-cognitive approach to Critical Discourse Studies. The findings show that identity is discursively constructed through self-representation/self-positioning, other-representation, comparison, polarisation, negotiation and resistance. These strategies construct and negotiate social, religious, gendered, and national identities. The study concludes that identity is not fixed, but emerges through discursive choices that activate particular mental models which are connected to socially shared knowledge.