2.2.4　Identification of Identities

Speaking of the identification of the categories of identity, both individual identity and group identity can start from proper nouns such as ‘Lucy’ and　‘Chinese’, which sublimate their meanings to designate a particular individual or a nation, a university, a class or a social class.However, except for the notion of ‘an identity is an identity’ (Joseph, 2004, p.4), individuals construct different identities for themselves and others, varying from group to group, from culture to culture.In spite of the fact that a deep part of individual identity contributes to the constitution of various group identities, ‘Lucy’, for example, can be one’s name that others chose; whereas ‘Chinese’ can be differentiated from ‘British’ and has much more explicit and abstract meaning not only to indicate a particular person but also to manifest much more macro culture-related representation.Conversely, group identities can impose positive and negative functions upon an individual’s sense of belonging to a community and be fulfilled by an individual’s alliance with or distance from others in groups.

Individual identity can be linguistically constructed in society because all speech acts are individual and social, ‘even if the addressee exists only in the speaker’s imagination’ (Joseph, 2004, p.8).This viewpoint overlaps with Halliday’s (1978) and most sociocultural researchers’ interpretations of language as social constructed semiotics.With regard to its function in use, language is a tool of communication and a form of symbolic capital that is transformed into economic and social capital (Edwards, 2009; Joseph, 2004, 2010; Pavlenko, 2000; Swain & Lapkin, 1998).When language users encode and decode different messages in different regional or social languages, they are supposed to modify and restructure their interaction with others in order to achieve the conveyance of messages.The sense of who one is or what one is speaking about or writing for will then organise and construct the speaker or writer’s identities in interaction.