Language,

Culture
and Identity
JUDITH S. FETALVER
Master of Arts in English
 In the beginning was the Word.
And the Word was made flesh.
It was so in the beginning and it is so today.
The language, the Word, carries within it
the history, the
culture, the traditions, the very life of a
people, the flesh.
Language is the people.
We cannot even conceive of a people without
a language, or a language without a people.
The two are one and the same.
To know one is to know the other.

Sabine Ulibarrí (1972) 2

 Theorizing the
Relationship
between Language,
Culture, and
Identity
 Language

“
Identity Culture

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 Identity, simply stated, is who you
are; individuality; the condition of being a
certain person. In the social sciences,
identity is defined as the way that
individuals label themselves as members
of a particular group; in psychology, it
refers to an individuals’ self-esteem or
self-image. People can speak about social
identity, gender identity, cultural identity,
religious identity, national identity and
many other identities.
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 Culture is a defining feature of a
person’s identity. The shared values,
customs and histories characteristic of a
particular culture have a very strong
influence on how a person behaves, thinks,
and views the world. Cultural identity then
encompasses for me all that relates to self,
belonging, systems of beliefs and sentiments
of self-worth. It is the total sum of ways of
living built up by a group of human beings
transmitted from one generation to another.

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 Language is intrinsic to the expression of
culture. Language is a fundamental aspect of
cultural identity. It is the means by which we
convey our innermost self from generation to
generation. It is through language that we transmit
and express our culture and its values.
“Language – both code and content – is a
complicated dance between internal and external
interpretations of our identity”. Words or the
language, have the power to define and shape the
human experience. It is because of language that
people can name their experiences.

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 Note:

Language, culture and Identity are

dynamic , complex and ongoing
processes.

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 Language and culture are intricately
related and dependent on each
other.
 Language is formed by culture,
while culture is influenced and
impacted by language.
 Without language, culture cannot be
completely acquired nor can it be
effectively transmitted and
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 Culture influence language...
Lexicon, grammar rules, codes and rules of
linguistic communication are all entirely formed by
cultural elements like natural environment,
economic systems, types of social relationships etc.
etc.
Cultural premises and rules about speaking are
intricately tied up with cultural conceptions of
persons, agency, and social relations.
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 Language influence culture...

While on the one hand that culture

shapes languages, on the other hand
language is also formed by them.
Language is the medium of culture.

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 Language influence identity...

Thought processes and perceptions of

reality differ from one culture to another.
How people think and speak is ultimately
determined largely by their culture.

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 Social
anthropolog
y
Perspective
 From studies that examined the structuring of social interaction
among members of social groups emerged detailed accounts that
identified limitations in shared understandings and practices,
including criteria for judgement of social value and performance.
These limitations were found to correspond to differences in
individuals’ origins and backgrounds, key features of which were
‘native language’ and ethnic origin. In this framework, culture is seen
as rooted in ethnicity/ nationality and native speaker status as
determined through attachments established at birth.

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 For sociolinguists and anthropologists who take as their
primary mission to ensure the survival and well-being of
individuals and groups who constitute ethnic minorities within
national entities with hegemonic majorities, preservation of
linguistic varieties associated with the group’s ethno cultural
heritage has been a key concern; and others have argued, the
loss of a minority language ‘forms part of a wider process of
social, cultural, and political dislocation’.
Indeed, there exists within the sociology of language an
established corpus of literature that attests to the relationship
between minority language maintenance and cultural continuity
of endangered groups on the one hand and language loss/shift
and ethno cultural attrition on the other.

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 More recently, claims asserting direct associations
between linguistic variety and cultural affiliation have
come to be equated with essentialist notions of identity
(Norton 2010); and indeed, this critique is not without
some merit, as undergirding this ideology rests the
premise that one’s native language is the ‘essence’ of
one’s identity.
Other critiques of the social anthropology
perspective focus on the ideology’s explicit recognition
of the ‘native speaker’ as the normative and appropriate
user of a language.

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Sociocultura
l Perspective
 The 1980s through to the first decade of the twenty-
first century saw a proliferation of empirical studies that
sought to stimulate discussion about the interaction of
externally and internally constructed identities in social
acculturation processes through close observation of
interactional practices of (mostly socially vulnerable)
individuals and groups within their home, school, and peer
networks.
Much of this research – committed to augmenting the
respective sensitivities of researchers, professional
educators, and caregivers to the home, school, and
infrastructural conditions that foster the cognitive, social,
and emotional development of linguistic-minority
individuals – incorporated a language socialization
approach

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 Influenced by these more nuanced interpretations, an
increasing number of researchers underscored the limitations
of reductionist constructions of the relationship between
language, culture, and identity based on linear conceptions by
showing that individuals and groups who may be viewed as
authentic standard bearers of languages by virtue of
primordial attachments (e.g., birthplace, religion) may differ
in their views of the salience of specific varieties to their
cultural identities and in the extent to which they view
language itself as a significant core value linked to cultural
identity.
Indeed, the findings of extensive ethnographic studies
have revealed both the mutability of ethnic identity in light of
transnational migration and modernization processes and the
extent to which language, along with other cultural attributes,
vary in their salience to cultural identity (Eastman 1984).

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Participatory/
Relational
Perspective
 Working within environments characterized by linguistic
and ethnic diversity and fluid communicative contexts,

“
Canagarajah (2007) and colleagues observed the translingual
interactions involved in both speakers and listeners
negotiating multiple norms of interaction, in situations where
interpersonal relationships are reconfigured on an ongoing
basis, requiring actors to develop repertoires of mobile
semiotic resources that they can use to collaborate with others
in social situations.
 A simultaneous focus on intersubjectivity is interested in how
individual subjects strive to occupy an intercultural dimension, or ‘Third
Space’, as they navigate multiple worlds.
The notion of ‘Third Space’ was proposed by anticolonial theorist
Homi Bhabha (1994) to signal a discursive site or set of conditions where
transnational social actors can appropriate, translate, or renegotiate
different linguistic resources and social identity repertories, in so doing,
challenging dominant discourses of both their birth and host countries.
In this alternative dimension, cultural realities are deconstructed,
and reconstructed, through common experience, which privileges
representation over a priori defining features; and language plays an
important role in embodying the attitudes and beliefs entailed in these
cultural realities, conflictual as they may sometimes appear and, in fact,
be.
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 In this manner, researchers interested in characterizing
the relationship between language, culture, and identity from
an interactional/participatory perspective draw on usage-based
linguistics methodologies – documenting histories of
linguistic practices – where identity is emergent from
experience, and experience from participation and practice
(Canagarajah 2007; Norton 1997).

One notes how within this framework, as concerns the

relationship between language and identity, as well as
perceptions of proficiency in the dominant variety, experience
would appear to displace birthright.

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Pernicious
Derivation
s
 The preceding arguments against simplistic representations of
identity notwithstanding, the research literature abounds with
disturbing accounts of how linguistic, cultural, and discursive
processes are used and manipulated to fix, or essentialize,
marginalized individuals and groups in subject positions that are
reductive and often negative, while positive attributes and subject
positions are ascribed to society’s more privileged individuals.

Within educational settings, we see how linguistic- and

especially racial-minority students may be constructed as the other
by their mainstream teachers and peers, while insidious processes to
maintain the teaching profession as white persist and reinforce racial
categories
 These derivations illustrate a
dynamic where processes of othering in
which elite and minority groups get
involved result in spaces that seem to
offer potential for being intercultural
becoming progressively deserted, with
evidence of this dissimulation in the
resultant undermining of the role of
schooling as a vehicle for social
unification.

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 Future
Directions
 Clearly, the dispiriting results that issue from reductive
manipulations of the central concepts stand in stark contrast to
the ethos of collaboration revealed in cited recent studies
aligning to a relational/participatory perspective. Assuming, as
we do, all relevant research to have been carried out in good
faith, we are left to account for these radically different
interpretations.

Research has shown how such an investment can be

advantageous in modern society for negotiating across domains of
interest and power boundaries. It also has shown how such an
orientation contributes to a broadening in perceptions of competence,
involving a more efficient use of society’s human resources and
creating opportunities for those who heretofore have been considered
peripheral or illegitimate members to have a voice in the collective
agenda. 28
R
E E. Sapir, Culture, Language and Personality, (ed. D.G. Mandelbaum),

F Berkeley 1958.

E B.L. Whorf, Language, Thought and Reality, (ed. J.B. Carroll),

R Cambridge 1956.

E Norton, B. (1977). Language, identity and the ownership of English.

N TESOL Quarterley, 31(3), 409-429.

C “Language and Culture.” Think Quest. Think Quest. Web. 31 Jan.

E 2011. <http://library.thinkquest.org/C004367/la5.shtml>
S
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