Language and Identity

Defining Identity

Traditionally an individual's identity was looked upon as singular and stable—perhaps permanent—and over which one had little control. If a person was a carpenter by occupation, that was how everyone viewed him, and how he viewed himself. However, over time, this view has progressively changed. Current literature on the topic holds that individuals have multiple identities, which are constantly changing and being negotiated depending on the time and context of the situation. That is to say, an individual has numerous facets of the self (e.g., man/woman, spouse, parent, boss), all of which together form the individual's multiple identities. These multiple facets or ways of looking at oneself in relation to the world are socially constructed. That is, identities are not biologically preprogrammed but are directly influenced by our social environment. For example, the term husband has different meanings depending on the society in which one lives. In some cultures, husbands are allowed numerous wives, whereas in Western society, the law permits only one wife. The concept of husband, therefore, is a socially constructed concept. It can be argued, therefore, that this facet of identity—being a husband—is only one of a person's multiple identities.

Michel Foucault postulates about the individual in a temporal sense: that an individual doesn't “become,” but instead continually “transforms.” “Becoming” implies that people reach an end in the construction of their identities; “transform” implies that their identities are never finished forming and that people are never finished constructing their identities. In other words, individuals are constantly changing, and thus, their identities change too. This is again a direct challenge to, or a contradiction of, how identities were thought of in the past. A person may have the job title of a carpenter, but depending on the context, he may look at his identity as a carpenter from different perspectives. If he just made an enormous error that will force the crew to restart a project in constructing something, he may have negative thoughts regarding his self-perception of being a carpenter. However, likewise, if he just completed a beautiful, intricately designed, built-in entertainment center in someone's family room, he will be proud to be a carpenter. Hence, his identity as a carpenter is never stagnant, but is always changing and dynamic.

According to Aneta Pavlenko and Adrian Blackledge, identity is placed in three different categories: imposed identities, assumed identities, and [Page 422]negotiable identities. Imposed identities can be described as those that cannot be negotiated in a particular time and place. For example, in Nazi Germany, numerous individuals were forced to accept a certain identity, that of being Jewish, which had numerous life-threatening implications. People may have disagreed with being identified as being Jewish, perhaps because they did not practice Judaism or identify themselves as Jews; however, that was irrelevant. Hiere was no negotiation of identity permitted within that specific context. For a less dire example, immigrant children have historically been misplaced in special education programs on the basis of their lack of English language proficiency. These students therefore were identified as “special education students” instead of being rightly diagnosed as second-language learners. These students' identities were thus imposed on them, without them having a say in the matter. Not knowing that the identity imposed on them was possibly harmful to their development, some students may have grown up believing that they belonged in that category.

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