Language & Identity

Lecture 2:   Admin
(1) Lecture book (2)  Course outline, (3) Information sheet 

Central Theme: What is the relationship between language & identity in New Zealand?

Goals for Today

• understanding identity (in the broad sense)
• understanding the importance of language in identity
• understanding ethnic identity (a central concept for this paper)
• understanding the link between ethnic identity & language

Last class, I asked you to draw a picture of yourself and to describe yourself to the person next to you.  Your description of yourself, you  highlighted aspects of your identity that you considered to be an important reflection of 'who you are' in this particular context. Statements such as 'where you were from', and 'what you were studying' featured prominently in the discussion.  We noted also that these statements (or narratives) about yourself would be likely to change when the context changes because identity is a rather fuzzy concept that changes with each new context.  We present ourselves in one light in the classroom, and in another light to our parents, friends and colleagues. 

So what is identity anyway? 

The concept of identity has been around for a long time.  Erikson is accredited with the first use of the term in 1946 where identity is described as the answer to the question 'who am I'. 

Personal identity is one type of identity. 

Last class you drew a self portrait.  I would like to return to it for a moment because it reflects how you perceive yourself (the features in your self-portrait are a reflection of who you think you are (and how well you can draw).  For example, when I drew my picture of myself, I included information about my hairstyle (not that it is particularly important), but it is in a way a reflection of myself.  It is not a pertinent one (as I often change my hairstyle) but it still serves as a reflection of my identity at one particular moment (again, pointing to  the fuzziness of identity as a concept)  I also drew my glasses. I need these to survive. I would never draw myself without them, they are a core part of how I view myself.  In other words, identity looks at how we view ourselves. 

Our personal identity consists of our own individual characteristics.   

But these are often a reflection of our environment. Or surroundings.  Draw arrows out from your self-portrait.  What do you think has been crucial in the development of your personal identity.   

You might like to consider…family, friends, church, peers, neighbours, and your role with respect to these….perhaps you feel you are a at least a partial product of your social circumstances, your age, gender, ethnicity, social economic class.  Each person will be different…because we influenced in different ways. 

But what about language? 

Individuals are influenced by language…but in a more subtle way.   Just think about someone who you know that wants to be distinct, his or her own unique person. 

When you hink about how individuals reflect their identity in society you often think about  visual signs: clothes, hair style, movement, facial expression, but language is also very important 

Language is sometimes considered to be secondary to many of the other features ….but it is an important one consisting of aspects …It includes aspects of our lexicon, prosody, phonetics/phonology, morphology, discourse of all anguage/s that we may know. 

The issue of identity 

Identity is the answer to the question "who am I'…. 

When we look at the answer to this question. We generally find that individuals set up a distinction between 'us' and 'them' (Jenkins 1996).     We are   who we are because we are the same as x, but different from x.  Our group identity impacts on our personal identity ……( we will see in this course, our group language (school, church, family) is also reflected in our individual language.

Types of identity..

There are different types of identity (as you may have guessed by now).  These include (group identity labels such as social identity, ethnic identity) as well as individual (or personal) identity  

Social identity takes into account

• how we group ourselves…features we use in self-identification
•  how others categorise use …features other use to categorise us. 

These may not be identical.

Social identity includes all other types of group identity. 

National identity …being a New Zealander in a political sense

Cultural identity…..being New Zealander in a cultural or societal sense

Ethnic identity…..being a "x "New Zealander  

The focus of this course is on ethnic identity…so we will look at this in more detail. 

Ethnic identity: Ethnos..[Gk]'; nation; common descent group, historically associated with outsiders'

• Ethnic identity is a type of group identity
• Derived from real or perceived common bonds such as language, race or religion [Edwards 1994:125….Multilingualism]
• Members are able to recognize each other even if they do not personally know each other (Jenkins 1996:86), through the clothes they wear, the language they speak, the way they walk, their facial expressions, the food they eat, the music they play et. Etc.

The key point here is that ethnic identity (like all other types of identity) is based on subjective and objective 

Objective characteristics include: linguistic, racial, geographical, religious, ancestral (where the membership is given) 

Isajiw (1974) examined many cultures and ranked the features…

According top 5 features

1. common ancestors,
2. same culture/customs
3. religion
4. race as a physical features
5. language

The problem with this 'objective explanation' is that we need (in any explanation) to be able to account for change.  How do we account for the persistence of ethnicity across generations with rapidly changing contexts (Something that is very common in our global society) where the sense of groupness persists after visible or tangible links have disappeared…the language is loss, people no longer dress in traditional garb, they eat at McDonalds, and they don't go to church.

Recent work in the past decade has demonstrated the need for ethnic identity to encompass subjective criteria. 

Under a subjective analysis,

• an ethnic group is a group who conceive of themselves as being of common descent '  (despite 4-5 generations of intermarriage or perhaps due to association:
• 937 individuals in the census claimed Maori ethnicity, but no Maori ancestry)
•  It is a matter of belief (a sense of peoplehood, and shared values based on some real linkage, however abstract. 

Common definitions now include ones such as John Edwards (see OHT)

There  are three important issues for ethnic groups.

• They are often associated with minority groups (right back to the Greeks).  It is important to remember that dominant groups are also ethnic groups.
• All discussion of groups identity (including ethnic identity) focus on boundaries.
• Boundaries are the essential issue for defining a group (Barth). When boundaries are lost, the culture is lost.

• Cultures may change but the boundary consists to exists (1, 2, 3^rd generation
• Cultural features, while mutable remain important, …..and language is one of them/

 
Examples of change in content (Language)

• Three possible outcomes
• Language takes on symbolic status (key terms, songs etc)
• Maori monolinguals 6798 in the 2001 Census, of which only 519 were aged over 65 years) and 972 were aged under 5 yrs.
• 5307 (5-64) monolingual Maori speakers, 2907 of these were aged between 5-19.
• Language is replaced by another language which takes on the content of the traditional language (English with an ethnic accent)
• Maori English…..dogs? DEVOICING
• Language is lost
• Assimilation (Dutch)
• Replaced by other content (dress)
  

Process 

Identity….is not an already established fact (Hall 1990:222) but an ongoing process of production.  

Identity is fragmented or composed of several even contradictory identities (Hall 1992: 276-277)  and these are reflected outwardly at certain times and places

            Maori English…in some contexts

            Korean at home, English at work

            Mix languages…. 

Identity is being constantly creAted and recreated depending on the context (so is language)  The individual is not isolated, but is a produced of their surroundings (Hall 1992:277)….and so too is their language. 

This is exasperated  by globalisation. 

Globalisation is one of the major forces fragmenting identities leading to fuzziness of boundaries or shared identities (mixed identities) 

The fuzziness of ethnic group boundaries is particularly applicable to immigrants who have connections with both the present and the past… 

Immigrants inhabit at least two identities and may speak two cultural languages, and must negotiation between them (Johri 1998)….so they are particularly interesting and we will spend considerable time talking about them in this course 

Next class: ethnic groups in NZ.