The Relationship between Language and Identity

By Lourdes C. Raviro
Published on 31 August 2008
• What is Language?

• What is Identity? What do we mean by Linguistic Identity?

• How Language constitutes a person’s Identity?

• What are kinds of Identity?

• Are we correct, if we say so that two languages mean two Identity?

Language
and
Identity
Relationship of language with
Identity and Culture

Language

Identity Culture
 Language Identity and Culture

* What is Culture and How it is linked with identity?

* What is Cultural Identity?

* Language is formed by culture while culture is influenced and impacted by

language.

* Without culture Language cannot exist.

* How cultural shock affects a person’s identity?

 Power and Politics Contribution in developing of a
person Language Identity
• How together power and politics brings in a culture to constitute Language
Identity?

• Coming of British to subcontinent; cultural shocks for subcontinent people.

• Impact of military power in spreading language across countries.

• Identity crisis of immigrant while migration.

 How Sapir Whorf Hypothesis gives us insight of
identity in crisis through a cultural shock?
* Language exerts great influence on patterns of thinking and therefore on culture.

* Sapir Whorf hypothesis can take affect in the component of communications for a
person’s thought of one language to be understood by person living in other language.
Like there can be difference in semantics associations of concepts. Or proper decoding
of the message not possible so feedback can only be confusion.

* Language reflects cultural preoccupation, so in addition the view of an individual or

a group about world varies from to culture to culture, so this can bring a person
identity in crisis as the thought and perception changes.
 Conclusion
• Language is a tool to communicate.

• Identity is something we are consistently building and negotiating all our live
through interaction with each other.

• Language , identity and culture each depend on each other to exist.

• Influence of power and politics on Language Identity.

• Sapir Whorf hypothesis applying in components of communication proves

Linguistic Relativity.