Title: The Sociolinguistics of Identity – Edited by Tope Omoniyi and Goodith White
Abstract: The Sociolinguistics of Identity . Tope Omoniyi and Goodith White , eds. London and New York : Continuum , 2006 . x + 239 . The sociolinguistics of identity refers to the identification of individuals with social groups as well as with a diverse array of linguistic factors. Recently, new books like The Sociolinguistics of Identity reflect the degree to which social theory has improved the theoretical development of this approach. Indeed, the central theoretical engagement of The Sociolinguistics of Identity is with poststructural identity theory. Rather than other theoretical approaches which understand identity as a set of essentialized, pre-existing characteristics (like everyday understandings of race, class, and gender), this text critically engages with poststructural notions of identity as a dialogic, constructive process in which language plays a constitutive role. In the first part on theory and method, the linguist Tope Ominiyi explores the notion that individuals have a plurality of identities and thus argues that researchers need to look closely at the identification of individuals in specific contexts (what he calls “moments”). In each of Ominiyi's example, individuals self-identify, select and use salient identities through the interpretive norms of their language in these “moments.” David Block draws upon his applied work in second language learning to explore the potentiality for understanding the construction of identity in interpersonal interaction through a psychoanalytic narrative analysis of a second language student named Silvia. Through his analysis of the narratives of Silvia, he argues that Silvia's identity is constructed in a concrete situational context by a form of psychological desire, an underlying motivation of power and status, in which the conflicted self takes shape in positioning vis-á-vis the teacher/researcher/other. Unfortunately, Block does not engage the complex ethical and political implications of trying to interpret the inner, mental world of his “subject.” Finally, Yasir Suleiman's chapter ends this theoretical section. Like Ominiyi, Suleiman argues for the plurality of identities (around constructions of language) that are available to an agent or speaker. Drawing upon a review of well-documented cases of language and nationalism, Suleiman attempts to explain the engagement with one or another national identity and language with implicit reference to concrete interactions not between simply individuals, but the interaction between whole groups. Moreover, he hints at the notion of identification, often conscious as well as unconscious, in situations of social anxiety and in concrete sociopolitical contexts. In the second part of the book, each chapter is organized around a microscopic approach, a more grounded and detailed investigation of specific linguistic items in identity construction, in the local contexts of individual psychology, social relations, and/or nationalism. For example, Jennifer Jenkins, drawing on questionnaires and interviews with non-native speakers of English, describes the complexity of the relationship between language and identity among immigrants in England. Jenkins argues that her informants did not express desire for membership in an international cross-cultural and diverse second language community because they desire the status and benefits of Standard British English pronunciations and seek to avoid social discrimination towards nonstandard ones. At the same time, they contradictorily hope to maintain a local accent for their own sense of self-identity with distinctive cultural and ethnic groups. Carmen Llamas also follows Jenkins with the idea that group identification with a particular language variety is associated with the ability to define and delimit accent within a specific social context. Llamas argues that as the political, administrative boundaries of the northern English town of Middlesbrough were redrawn, both the use of phonetic features of accents and the identity of individuals shifted. This shift created generational differences in identity and language attitude. The identification with a “Geordie” accent associated with a rival area of Newcastle was one that was recently rejected, as was the use of “Geordie” phonetic features, in a context of recent political economic rivalry between the two regions. Indeed, in the final paper for this section, Lourdes Burbano-Elizonda working with material from Sunderland, an area near Middlesbrough, whose accent also sounds to outsiders very similar to the “Geordie” language variety, also describes a similar positioning via language variety and local political history. These linguistic identities clearly do not pre-exist the sociohistorical processes through which they come to appear concrete to the groups involved. The third and final section has as its focus the macroscopic context of language use as much as language ideology itself, particularly in contexts in which an individual must choose between more than one language and identity. To begin, Julia Sallabank examines the effect of identity notions on revitalization efforts in the context of a small and dwindling language community, engaging the notion that in specific contexts language is not always a part of identity construction and identification. Guernsey, as part of the Channel Islands, is geographically close to France, and although independent, it is aligned with the United Kingdom. Many local people are not attached to the Guernsey French language as part of their Guernsey identity and instead see the use of English as inseparable from their identity as Guernsey residents. The ways that language is manipulated in identity construction is explored further by Louise Mullany. Mullany looks at how social identities are constructed and enacted by male and female business managers within the context of narrative interviews in a workplace. She explores how these managers dialogically produce a discourse that constructs dominant discourses of ideal feminine images of women managers as sexually attractive and a masculine image of male managers as skillful. She also explores individual resistance to these discourses through a description of mocking voices and laughter. Siân Preece explores the identities created by British Asian male undergraduates from working class families in a language and gender research group in a higher education classroom setting. Some of these males identify with a “laddish” language “as a way of masking vulnerabilities and resisting institutional practices perceived as face-threatening and/or alienating” (124). This is in contrast to “talking posh,” which is associated with the formal English of academia. Massimiliano Spotti argues that immigrant minority group members' language identity is very complex, as youths in the Netherlands create Dutch-speaking identities vis-à-vis their parents, resisting parental authority, but are also aware of their difference in Dutch society and thus essentialize their own first-language identity. Robert J Vann et al. explores how secondary school students resist and construct their own linguistic identities in light of how their teacher projects them as future Iowa's meat packers. How one's linguistic identity is influenced by others and negotiated to meet social needs in situational contexts or moments of individual psychology, social relations, and political relations is a common, well-developed theme to these chapters. Finally, Goodith White's chapter is somewhat out of place, as it is not an analysis from empirical research methods, but a reflective argument for using Standard Irish English as a marker of Irish identity. This inconsistency aside, the collection provides a useful engagement with poststructural social theory about identity, and explores how it emerges through a dynamic, constructive process in which language plays a constitutive role, and where variables like ethnicity, gender, or nationhood are important. In this sense, this text is a nice contribution to the growing sociolinguistics of identity literature and would be a good addition to required or recommended reading in graduate sociolinguistics courses.
Publication Year: 2009
Publication Date: 2009-06-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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