Rachael-Anne Knight, 2003, University of Surrey – Roehampton
Language, Society and Power, Week 10
Language, Society and Power
Week 10 – Language and identity
Aims:
 To understand how we express our identity through language
 To understand how and why our linguistic identity changes
 To understand how our linguistic identity is due to a mix of personal, social
and political factors
1 What is linguistic identity?
Linguistic identity means the way that we signal our identity by our speech and
language. Such factors may include phonological factors (such as whether we use
glottal stops), grammatical features (such as the double negative) and lexical features
(such as whether we say toilet or lavatory).
1.1 Social construction of personal identities
Society plays a large role in establishing our identity by giving us our names,
establishing how we address each other.
1.1.1 Naming practices
Our culture and society will often determine our name.
In Britain our family name is usually our father’s family name and occurs after our
given name. In China the family name occurs before the give name. In Iceland the
family name is based on the father’s give name (Jonsson or Jonsdottir) and thus
changes from generation to generation.
Given names are also subject to cultural practices. In Britain it is common to give a
child several given names although the ‘middle’ names are often not used or reduced
to initials. We may be given names that relate to our family’s religion or important
ancestors. We may also be given a separate religious or spiritual name such as a
saint’s name in the Catholic faith or at a bar mitzvah.
Rachael-Anne Knight, 2003, University of Surrey – Roehampton
Language, Society and Power, Week 10
1.1.2 Use of names
The way in which people use our names also constructs an identity for us. For
example a single person may be called or may call themselves:
 A pet name
 Just their given name
 A shortened version of their given name
 Mrs/ Miss/ Ms/ Mr plus their family name
 An earned title such as Dr., Prof. or Judge with our without their family name
 A name expressing family relations (Mum, Nan, Son)
 A very formal title, such as Sir or Madam
 Recently we may also use some sort or pseudonym for the web know as a
screen name
 The internet may also allow us to find out our Hobbit, Lord of the Rings or
astrological name!
Often the name we chose to call ourselves and the name we use for other people at
any given time displays something about the power relations of the situation.
1.1.3 Pronouns
In Modern English we only have one form of second person pronoun ‘you’. In many
other languages, the form of second person pronoun encodes social relations. So for
example in French, German and Spanish two forms are used. There is a polite form
(vous, usted, sie) used in formal situations and the personal, intimate form (tu, du, tu)
used in more informal situations.
Interestingly in older versions of English social relations were encoded in the pronoun
system. In Early periods of English thou was used for singular and ye for the plural.
In the thirteenth century however, possibly influenced by the French used at court, the
singular forms became used among familiars, to children and those of inferior rank
and the plural forms began to be used with singular meaning to superiors. The
following extract from Hamlet (3.4.9-21) illustrates the use of the different forms:
Rachael-Anne Knight, 2003, University of Surrey – Roehampton
Language, Society and Power, Week 10
Q: Hamlet, thou hast thy Father much offended
H: Mother, you have my Father much offended
Q: Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue
…
Q: What wilt thou do? Though wilt not murther me?
Eventually the plural/formal form spread into almost all contexts and the
singular/intimate form was lost.
The distinction is still maintained in Quaker
populations today.
1.1.4 Honorific markers
In many languages there are also a number of markers used in speech that encode the
social and power relations of the exchange. Japanese employs a complex system of
politeness and honorific markers. Usually in order to say anything the Japanese
speaker must keep in mind their social standing in relation to the person addressed
and the person being talked about.
e.g. ‘to go’
To intimate friends ‘iku’
To a stranger or someone older ‘ikimasu’ (polite)
To a social superior ‘irassyaru’ (honorific)
Rachael-Anne Knight, 2003, University of Surrey – Roehampton
Language, Society and Power, Week 10
1.2 Group Identities
Our speech and language can also be a way of showing to which social group we
belong.
1.2.1 Shared linguistic norms
Set of people who identify themselves as a single social group will generally possess a
set of linguistic norms. These linguistic norms will be used most by the members at
the centre of the group (the ingroup) and less by the members on the periphery.
Members outside this group (the outgroup) may not use these norms at all.
1.2.2 Prestige and covert prestige
As well as using the norms of the group to which we do belong we may also use the
norms of another group to which we aspire to belong. If we wish to move closer to a
more standard prestige group (e.g. the upper classes, politicians) then we may
abandon some of our speech habits and adopt the habits of that group. We may also
wish to move closer to a non-standard group that has covert prestige and may
therefore adopt those speech norms instead.
1.2.3 Style shifting
Of course, we don’t speak in the same way in all situations. Our style will shift
depending on the situation and who we are talking to. The main reason for style
shifting seems to e that we take into account the speech style of the person we are
talking to a alter our speech to more closely match theirs. This is called convergence
and is said to happen because, in general, we wish to e approved of by the people we
are dealing with.
Sometimes convergence has the opposite effect though. Especially when a more
standard speaker converges towards the non-standard speech of another, this can be
seen as patronising or insulting.
It is also possible not to converge but to either maintain your own variety or to begin
to use a more extreme version of your normal variety. This is called linguistic
divergence.
It can be used in situations were people wish to show either their
solidarity with a different group or their lack of solidarity with the current group.