Broad and Pervasive Effects of Language
Language is more than just a method of communication and it reflects and impacts both ethnic and cultural identity. Language can be used to express, “embody, and symbolize cultural reality” (Kramsch, 1998, p.3). Decisions about learning languages are influenced by wider concerns of self and other identification rather than simply being issues of instrumental need. In a study, Polish research participants viewed speaking Polish as an important part of being Polish, that is, of their identity. All participants talked about how important the Polish language was for them. Marek Zych, a recent migrant, spoke of language as a ‘foundation’; Pawel Kochanowski, who had been born in England to Polish parents, stated that the “Polish language was a part of who he is because he was brought up learning Polish” (Temple, 2010, p.6). Using the Polish language, being born in Poland, having Polish values, practicing Polish culture, religion and the emotional aspect of being Polish were all mentioned as important to Polish identity. Although speaking Polish was mentioned as one important part of being Polish, it also ran through the other aspects mentioned, for example, Polish values, Polish culture, religion and emotional attachment to Poland (Temple, 2010, p.5).The respondents recognized that changing the language they spoke involved questioning the way they presented themselves and how they related to others. They answered questions from a questionnaire revealing that “language is used to differentiate between ‘us’ and ‘others’, including in terms of values and the ways in which these perceptions of difference influence social interactions” (Temple, 2010, p.1). Learning a new language involves more than changing the words we use to communicate with others and many researchers have shown how the language we use is a part of who we are (Bourdieu, 1992; Pavlenko, 2005, 2006). The findings reported by the study indicate that Polish speakers recognized that learning English meant asking questions about the kinds of lives they wanted to live and the people they wanted to become (Temple, 2010, p.4). Learning a new language meant accepting change in themselves.
The language and dialect speakers use also provides cues that allow others to determine if speakers are members of an in-group or an out-group. Group identity is not a natural fact, but a cultural perception and our perception of someone’s ethnic identity is very much culturally and linguistically determined. What we perceive “about a person’s culture and language is what we have been conditioned by our own culture to see, and the stereotypical models already built around our own” (Kramsch, 1998, p.67). There is a natural connection between the language spoken by members of an ethnic group and that group’s identity. By their “accent, their vocabulary, their discourse patterns, speakers identify themselves and are identified as members of this or that speech and discourse community” (Kramsch, 1998, p.67).
Often it is assumed that one’s ethnicity is inherited; a person is Black or White, Anglophone or Francophone, Welsh or Irish by birth. However one’s ethnicity is a creative process such as in the Canadian context where an individual may describe him or herself as Canadian, Italian-Canadian, Italian, or Anglophone. All are “legitimate ethnicities and language clearly plays an active role in the creation of the particular identity desired” (Giles & Saint-Jacques 1979, p.232). Ethnicity does not occur in isolation from other elements of identity such as class and gender. Language must provide ways of reflecting and constructing the many facets of our identities and language itself has often served as the chief indicator of ethnicity. Language and ethnic identity are “related reciprocally, i.e. language usage influences the formation of ethnic identity, but ethnic identity also influences language attitudes and language usage” (Gudykunst, 1988, p.1). As stated by Gloria Anzaldua, “you are what you speak” and “ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity- I am my language.” Learning language and communication and the impact of socialization and culture “provide a linguistic background with the power to form and shape personal identities and to provide evidence for others of the ethnic and cultural identities of the communicators” (Johnson, 2000, p.17). Research indicates that ethnic group members “identify more closely with those who share their language than with those who share their cultural background” (Gudykunst, 1988, p.1).
Influences Embedded in Language
There are specific ways in which language is used, either with the attitudes towards the language or vocabulary of the language, in order to greatly influence ethno-cultural identity. Similar to racial discrimination, certain attitudes towards languages make assumptions about the speakers’ identity and stereotype speakers based on their language. When a particular way of speaking triggers a stereotype that is then applied to the speaker, linguistic stereotyping results through a process whereby particular language characteristics evoke the stereotype, which is then applied full force to the speaker. When the linguistic attitude is negative, especially when it is acted on in some way, the situation is one of linguistic prejudice. There is probably no country or culture where some degree of linguistic prejudice does not exist and linguistic prejudice can intensify into linguistic intolerance. Such intolerance is one important factor underlying proposals to allow ‘English only’ in the workplace or to try to eradicate special teaching methods for non-English speakers. At its extreme, linguistic intolerance in some parts of the world has led to the banning of certain languages; for example, “when the Kurdish language was banned in 1990 from use in Iraq, Kurds who dared to speak Kurdish in public risked death” (Johnson 2000, p.16). Even the history of the United States shows government intolerance of Native American languages mirroring the kind of intolerance U.S. citizens usually assign only to others in the world.
Not only do external views play a role, but people’s perceptions of the values within their own language affect their cultural identification. In United States mainstream culture, the integrity of the individual and the right to privacy are highly valued and English has a variety of words for such beliefs like individualism, freedom, liberty, etc. This is not the case in every language and culture such as in Chinese culture, where “the language does not even contain words to name and describe the concepts of individuality and privacy” (Johnson 2000, p.55). The use of written language is also shaped and socialized through culture; not only what it is proper to write to whom in what circumstances, but also which text genres are appropriate (the application form, the business letter, the political pamphlet), because they are sanctioned by cultural conventions (Kramsch, 1998, p.6).The Chinese identify themselves ethnically as Chinese even though they speak languages or dialects which are mutually unintelligible. Despite the fact that a large number of Chinese don’t know how to read and write, it is the “Chinese character-writing system and the art of calligraphy that are key factors of an overall Chinese group identity” (Kramsch, 1998, p.69).
Differences in the Spanish and English languages construct different cultural worldviews for their speakers. The fact is that for Spanish, the past tense can be “constructed in many ways, contrasted to the future tense, which is seldom used; English syntax is the converse” (Johnson 2000, p.168). Hispanics arguably place a greater emphasis on history and memory because it is engrained in the language. Another example of the lexicon influence is in Welsh; some contend that the word for language in Welsh, Iaith, originally meant both language and nation (community) and that the word for ‘foreigner’ was Anghyfiath, literally ‘not of the same language (Giles & Saint-Jacques 1979, p.160).
Culture is embedded into languages in a way that affects people more than simply being born into the racial group. The discourse of African Americans maps the social circumstances of a people. A person that is African-American is very likely to index his or her ethnicity through language in some way, whether by using a particular dialect (or range of dialects), following certain norms for discourse (Fought, 2006, p. 20). From the slave trade through legal segregation in the South and de facto segregation in the North, through housing and employment discrimination that continues today, African Americans have lived separated, both literally and symbolically, from the majority white population of the United States. The circumstances of separation account for the prototypical barrier conditions that encourage distinctive language varieties and discourse patterns. The language and discourse patterns heard today carry with them many historical influences: “West and Central African languages and cultures native to slaves; the functional necessity for slaves to communicate in code so their masters would not understand what they meant; segregation in all its forms- education, housing, employment, entertainment, and recreation; and the legacy of racial prejudice” (Johnson 2000, p.144).
Another large group with which language plays an integral part is the Spanish language community. For the majority of Hispanics, the Spanish language runs deeply into cultural and personal identities. To relinquish Spanish “either literally or symbolically is to relinquish a significant and powerful dimension of personal and ethnic [identity]” (Johnson 2000, p.177). As John Attinasi (1979) discovered in his interview study with New York Puerto Ricans, proficiency in English does not replace the importance of Spanish because ‘Spanish [even limited usage] is the assumed basis of community interaction’ and serves to bind Puerto Rican culture” (Johnson 2000, p.177). Language has a significant role in this cultural self-orientation. For the respondents in a study of Indians in Britain, the two languages, English and Gujarati, would seem to symbolize membership of the Indian ethnic community and of the wider British society respectively. The likelihood of encountering a student who proudly considers him or herself Indian (rather than British) but who has no special interest in the perpetuation of the Gujarati language is low. The development of a British identity, on the other hand, seems to be associated with a relative disinterest in Gujarati (Giles & Saint-Jacques 1979, p.24). The individual’s perception of the importance of their native language is correlated with how strongly they culturally identify.
Certain linguistic resources often emerge as important in the construction and perception of cultural identity. There is a multitude of studies focusing on the role that a heritage language, a separate language tied to cultural identity, can play in defining a cultural group and in a sense of cultural pride. Speakers in Bailey’s study of Dominican-Americans, for example, articulate this concept explicitly, saying that ‘they SPEAK Spanish, so they ARE Spanish.’ In Hewitt’s (1986) study, use of Creole phonology by white speakers in South London was more likely to trigger a negative reaction from Afro-Caribbean peers than use of Creole grammar and lexicon, suggesting that specific linguistic features such as phonology can be seen in more proprietary terms as an index of cultural identity. Some features are so closely tied to cultural identity that a single use of that feature can serve to identify a speaker as belonging to a particular group; for example, “a listener in Urciuoli’s study identifies a speaker on a tape as black because he used habitual be” (Fought, 2006, p. 21). Speakers often also index multiple identities through their use of language, so that utterances reflect the nuances of identity in multilayered ways that cannot be broken down into smaller components. Hewitt (1986) found that young white speakers in South London would often use Creole grammatical forms, but with a standard phonology, deliberately indexing both their affiliation with their black friends and their own ethnic identity as members of an outside group. These illustrate the framework labeled ‘double-voiced discourse’ where a speaker’s utterances contain within themselves a ‘dialogue’ about identity” (Fought, 2006, p. 25). Thus language allows people listening to the speaker to differentiate certain cultural and ethnic identities from their use of the language whether it is their accent, grammar, vocabulary, or phonology.
Effects of Language within Racial Groups
The nature of language has an integral role in ethno-cultural identity and this role is powerful enough to affect people that are born into the very same racial group. Knowing a language or the lack of knowledge of a certain language can allow either acceptance or exile from an ethnic or cultural group even within the same race. Language has been used not only to mark off external boundaries but also these internal lines; not only to praise the in-group and isolate the out-group but also to single out renegades – those of the in-group who break cultural ranks to identify with out-groups. The labels used for “out-groups and for renegades often express a fear of contamination, a disavowal of those who desert or betray the in-group” (Giles & Saint-Jacques 1979, p.161). Not only does the in-group punish the linguistic renegade through labeling him an outsider, but it perhaps reserves its wrath to the in-group member who betrays what the group considers its fundamental way of life. Some of the most pejorative labels are manufactured to heap contempt on the betrayer of the in-group’s integrity and self-respect. Examples of such labels that warn against these outsiders are:
“Meshummed’ which is a Jewish convert to Christianity (the religion of those who had historically persecuted one’s ancestors), Yiddishe Goyim which is a Hasidic label for those born Jewish but who are not religiously observant (literally ‘Jewish Gentiles’), Apple Indian which denotes an American Indian who identifies with Whites (Red on the outside and white on the inside), Oreo Black which denotes an American Black who identifies with white people (like Oreo cookies that have cream filling and are black on the outside and white on the inside), and Uncle Tom/Uncle Tomahawk/Uncle Tomas which denotes a subservient Black/American Indian/or Mexican-American” (Giles & Saint-Jacques 1979, p.162).
Such ethno-linguistic labels are essentially prescriptions for interaction and rules for avoidance that highlight linguistic divisions within a group. In Hewitt’s study, the failure to use Creole is seen as having the power to classify someone as ‘not black’ (1986). An even more striking case of this transformative power of language occurs in a study by Sweetland (2002) where he looked at the case of a young European-American woman, ‘Delilah’ who grew up in a predominantly African-American area of Cincinnati, Ohio and who speaks African American Vernacular English as her primary linguistic code. Sweetland spoke with one of the African-American men in this woman’s peer group, asking him if the way Delilah spoke bothered him at all. He responded that it did not, and added, ‘Well, she basically black’ (Fought, 2006, p. 33). The young man knew the woman’s biographical identity as a European-American, but he felt that her cultural and linguistic attributes disqualified her from being white. In this case, we see the power of language to contribute to an individual’s cultural identity and the malleability of cultural identity because of language.
Another notable intra-group linguistic division lies within in the Philippines. The country recently proclaimed the national language of the Philippines (called Filipino by the nation’s government). Government officials decided to base the national language on Tagalog which caused uproar amongst other Filipinos, especially those in the Cebu province. The reason behind the resistance to this nationalist policy is because Cebuano is another popular language spoken mostly by people in the Cebu province of the Philippines and the decision to essentially make Tagalog the official language could mean the slow decline in the Cebuano language. The unique feature of Cebuano’s resistance to Tagalog as the national language of the Philippines is that language has become the symbolic form of resistance to Tagalog domination and imperialism on the part of Cebuanos” (Dow & Fishman, 1991, p.125). Even though the people of the Philippines all claim Filipino culture and pride, linguistic differences amongst Filipinos such as the Cebuano and Tagalog languages have caused people to identify through their language instead of their race. In spite of the political, economic, and cultural domination of Manila and the Tagalog region, by and large there has been no separatist movement because of language anywhere, not even in Cebu. In other words, people of Cebu have tied their identity to their language, without threatening secession. The plea made has been for “ethnic and cultural autonomy symbolized by language, not political autonomy realized by secession” (Dow & Fishman, 1991, p.125). Each of the languages carries so much culture behind it that the people culturally and ethnically identify through their native language.
Language plays a major role in both cultural and ethnic identity. Racial constructs may have been the basis for groups at certain times, but language can even divide people of the same race and powerfully shapes an individual’s identification. Both attitudes towards language and the very words that languages have greatly shape how its users affiliate themselves; these influences are cross-cultural and cross-generational and their pervasive presence within languages will continue to affect how people identify more so than race.
References
Dow, J. R, & Fishman, J. A. (1991). Language and ethnicity. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins Pub. Co.
Fought, C. (2006). Language and ethnicity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Giles, H., & Saint-Jacques, B. (1979). Language and ethnic relations. Oxford: Pergamon Press.
Gudykunst, W. B. (1988). Language and ethnic identity. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Johnson, F. L. (2000). Speaking culturally : language diversity in the United States. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Kramsch, Claire. (1998). Language and culture. Oxford University Press, USA.
Temple, B. (2010). Feeling special: Language in the lives of Polish people. Sociological Review, 58(2), 286-304. doi:10.1111/j.1467-954X.2010.01904.x
