2.2.3 Language and Multiple Identities Constructio...
The discussion so far suggests that identity is not a single phenomenon, but a multiple construct in the linguistic, social, and psychological scopes.As such, it is necessary to seek an integrative perspective on identity construction.Individual, group and social identities have long been given privileged roles in social science identity research.They are not exceptions in linguistics.Individuals’ heterogeneous identity, as Cameron (2001) defines, ‘is not something fixed, stable, and unitary that they acquire early in life and possess forever afterwards.Rather identity is shifting and multiple, something people are continually constructing and reconstructing in their encounters with each other in the world’ (p.170).Rather than looking from a single dimension of identity construction, the linguistic identity research has shed more light on the interrelationship between the multifaceted categories of identity in relation to community:that is, individual, group, social, and imagined.
Joseph (2004) argues that individuals can recognise identity through both physical-visual and psychological dimensions.The former is directly observable while the latter can be described by individuals’ imaginations or perceptions of behaviour.Language is an observable representation of behaviour which human beings evolutionarily inherit.Linguistic-related identity therefore comes into being through this evolutionary account of language use and observable behaviour.In this perspective, an individual is able to enact multifarious linguistic identities by contacting others in the group and the social, as well as through imagining themselves as part of a group.Consequently, an individual constructs multiple identities in separate social action contexts and moments of identification because of their social origin of experience.
Joseph (2004) describes the very first sense of the multiple identities in terms of the multiple roles that an individual has, such as ‘daughter’, ‘parent’, ‘student’ and ‘teacher’.The individual may shift his or her identities in accordance with the context of others whom he or she is interacting with.His second sense of the multiplicity of identity credits Jan Christiann Smuts’s (1926/2013) notion of ‘consciousness of other selves’, by describing that different individuals who observe things at different moments will mentally inhabit a person, and thus generate different versions of identity to the person.However, Omoniyi (2006) argues that this second sense is not easily directed to ‘measurement and scrutiny’ (p.11) because the identification of identity is exclusive to some moments like reflective activity, in which an individual tries to make sense of a sign that is ‘down within recognizable frame built on established norms and conventions of a social system’ (ibid.).This process, as Omoniyi (2006) appropriately points out that, generates ‘a cluster of identity options that are then distributed on a hierarchy based on ratings from least salient to most salient’ (p.30).
But what should be pointed out is that Omoniyi’s link between identity and sign actually has a similar perspective on the above-mentioned constructivists, in seeing identity as stable as the consequence of social norms and conventions.His neglect of self in the process of identity construction, in fact, paradoxically goes against his own view of seeing identity as dynamic (cf.Omoniyi, 2006).Omoniyi (2006, p.12) explains that he makes moments of multiple identities construction as the focus of analysis of identity because ‘contexts and acts are constituted of different moments within a stretch of social action’.Yet he does not provide explicit explanation of the coherent connection between the moments and how they dynamically construct a context.This again paradoxically contrasts with his another viewpoint that identity is constantly constructed in communities of practice.
The current study takes Joseph’s consideration of the function of self as both prerequisite and enabling conditions for shaping multiple identities.Through the use of identical verbal and other modes of interpersonal interaction (Bloommaert, 2005; Gee, 2000), multiple identities are consciously and mutually recognised, performed and negotiated by group members who participate in communities of practice (cf.Wenger, 1998).It is specifically through the aggregation of material and semiotic resources and processes, particularly in the use of language, that individuals belong to different groups.If individuals need to or want to become members of communities, their desire for membership will influence the degrees of participation in activities, which have great influence on the conscious construction of imagined identities in the communities (cf.Anderson, 1991; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998).On the other hand, participation is embedded in the processes of observation and change, by which individuals constantly have identities in mind through the observed and enacted social practices.As a result, the partial elements of a self are imposed by the identities in their imagination, which are likely to be changed or developed across time and space.