Journal of Linguistics and Language Teaching
Volume 8 (2017) Issue 2 (PDF)
pp. 259-262
David Evans: Language and Identity. Discourse in the World. London, New Delhi, New York, Sydney: Bloomsbury 2015. ISBN 978-0-567-338116-7.
The present omnibus volume unites ten articles by researchers from Europe and Asia, who present their reflections and findings on the continuum between language, inclusive of non-verbal communication, on the one hand and identity on the other.
The Book consists of three parts. Part One (3-51) offers a “Theoretical Overview” in three articles. In the first article, the Introduction (3-14), the editor David Evans identifies the central areas of the book, language as political-cultural capital (4), discourse (5-6), and alterity, i.e. 'otherness' (6-7), and gives an overview of the subsequent articles (8-13). He sees the mission of the book as follows:
The underlying philosophy of the book addresses notions of sociocultural justice, delivered through the linguistic opportunity and also the educational opportunity to transform identity through language and discourse (14).
In the second article, David Evans writes about “The Identities of Language” (15-35). The focus is on language and its link to the world, with different linguistic models being analysed. The basis is Halliday's theory of systemic functional linguistics. Starting from universal grammar (17-18) and Chomsky's idea of language as a "mirror of the mind" (17) and going on via Descartes' theory of knowledge (18-19), he goes on via Saussure's structuralism and Derrida in his criticism of the former (19-22), Foucault and his understanding of discourse as social practice (22-24) as well as Bakhtin's concept of dialogism (24) and Halliday’s and Chouliaraki & Fairclough's notion of systemic functional linguistics (26-27), culminating in Halliday's functional linguistic model, in which he defines language as a system and a discourse (29). On this basis, Evans goes on, defining language not only as cultural capital, but also as ideological capital (30-32). The following citation may stand for an important aspect of a conclusion of the reflections made here:
The more generic facets of human identity are contained in grammatical structures such as gender, subject/object, identities, singular and plural, formal and informal etc. The more interactive and intersubjective language becomes, in the encounter with the social world, the more identity itself becomes personalized in the semiotic-social dialectic. (34)
Philippe Chassy(1) discusses the question of “How Language Shapes Social Perception” (36-51), thus testing the Sapir-Whorf-Hypothesis, which postulates that human beings only have access to reality through language. After making reflections on the phenomenon of social relativity (37-43), which is a consequence of this hypothesis, she exemplifies the latter by the perception of numbers in different languages (45-49). One of the examples she launches is French, where the number 94 is rendered as 'four-twenty-fourteen', thus representing a combination of multiplication and addition (44). Language being an indicator of identity (49), she brings up Catalonia as being a very strong linguistic community having successfully defended their language after numerous attempts of suppressing it made under Franco. She concludes, saying that even if the strong claim of Whorf's hypothesis, according to which people's thoughts can be determined through language, cannot be withheld, "language is a marker of identity and also contributes to shape our social perception of the self and of others” (50).
Part Two “Languages, Discourses and Identities in the World” (53-142) comprises four articles, the first one being by Ruth Kircher, whose topic is Quebec's Shift from Ethnic to Civil National Identity: Implications for Language Attitudes Among Immigrants in Montreal (55-80). Focusing on immigrants of the first and second generation and comparing them to non-immigrants, the author examines whether individuals of different social backgrounds presently see themselves as 'Quebecers' after Quebec has developed from an ethnic to a more civic society. Starting from a questionnaire (64-65) and a matched-guise experiment (65-66), with a sample of 161 college students having delivered usable data (62-64), she formulates the central result of her study as follows:
The fact that the immigrants shared the non-immigrants' privately held attitudes as well as their notions of what is considered socially acceptable and desirable is tentatively interpreted as a sign of all participants sharing the social identity (or identities) underlying these linguistic evaluations. (76)
Whereas students’ identification was the same no matter their ethnic or migration background, immigrants – unlike Quebecers – did not consider French as their common group language. This finding, if confirmed by further studies, definitely casts an illustrative light on the problem.
An article dealing with a similar problem is that on “Trilingualism and Uyghur Identity in the People's Republic of China” by Mamtimyn Sunuodula (Durham University, UK), Anwei Feng (University of Nottingham, Ningbo, China) & Bob Adamson (Hong Kong Institute of Education, China) (81-104). Mandarin having been imposed on them, Uyghurs – Turkic people living in Northwest China and representing one of the 55 minority groups officially recognised in China – feel unfairly treated as their own language is no longer institutionally recognised (81). After giving some background information on the Uyghur language (83-85), Chinese taught to and learnt by Uyghurs (85-89), and the role of English in their territory (89-91), the authors present a study of their own in which they analysed Uyghur's perceptions of language education (94-98) and their perceptions of English (98-99). The most important result may be that for Uyghurs, their language is of utmost importance for their ethnic identity, Chinese and English being regarded as offering chances for their personal careers (99-100). As Chinese is the predominant language of the three, this configuration does, however, not reflect a "win-win-win" situation, but one which causes tensions among the Uyghur population (100).
A clearly historical perspective is taken by Marije van Hattum (University of Lausanne, Switzerland) in her contribution on “'Queensland for Ever & Augus on ballybug go braugh': The Expression of Identity in Nineteenth-Century Irish Emigrant Letters” (105-122). On the basis of examples taken from letters written by three Irish emigrants of the first generation and sent back to Ireland from Australia, their new home, the author demonstrates and analyses the use of their Irish dialect and the way it reflects their former identity. Starting from illustrative examples (113-119), the author finds that the three emigrants researched upon showed no to little signs of linguistic accommodation or of having yet adopted an Australian identity (119-120). She estimates that the investigation of written language use by Irish emigrants to Australia may be insightful, which is especially true in view of the small data basis she had at her.
The article by Alex Guilherme on “Indigenous Languages, Cultures and Communities in the Amazon: Strengthening Identities” (123-142) represents the last contribution to Part Two. For the author, just as is the case in the previous articles, language is an index of identity. Amazonian languages being marginalised just like Uyghur in China, they are even in danger of extinction, with their culture possibly dying together with them. After elucidating the relation between language death and culture death (124-128), the author describes the educational situation in the Amazon area from a historical perspective (128-136) and then analyses native education in today’s Brazil (136-139). From his analysis, he draws the conclusion that
we are now faced with the ‘mass extinction’ of languages, cultures and communities and therein lies the importance of finding ways of providing peoples with ways for their sustainable existence, and this can only be done through the strengthening of their ‘identities’. (140)
Part Three of the book is on Critical Pedagogies (145-230) and comprises four articles and the Conclusion. In the first of these articles, Wendy Bignold writes about “The Language of Leisure and Physicality: Constructing and Re-constructing Identity” (145-165). The author analyses alternative discourse and alternative identity, taking the activity of unicycling as her field of research. Unicycling being a lifestyle sport (148-150), it allows teenagers to reconstruct their identity (146-148) and develop a sense of their own selves (150-152). Having identified culture and subculture as closely linked to language (152-157), she analyses two unicycling narratives and shows how identity is constructed and reconstructed in this context (157-163). Here, non-verbal language (e.g. facial expressions, eye contact, close spatial proximity, high-five slaps) plays an eminent role in expressing personal identity and establishing group identity (160-161). Dress and style then go hand-in-hand with (non-verbal) language (162-163). This is a special type of spoken, and often non-verbal, language, which is authentic, natural and unplanned, and whose central function is to create “a sense of being and belonging” (163). While verbal language has a specific orientation and serves to describe the necessary technical equipment for unicycling, the primordial function of non-verbal language in this field is to construct and reconstruct identity (163).
Drama pedagogy is the object of research of Bernie Hughes, who addresses “Drama and the Identity of the Language Learner” (166-187). After elaborating on the relationship between language learning, dramatic play and identity (166-168), the author describes the phenomenon of ‘thirdness’ triggered by drama, which represents a playful and unreal game (168-169), in which the teacher has a leading role (169) and where a sense of a ‘third culture’ is developed, thus opening up a ‘third place’ for the learner (169-170), in which he or she develops a special L2 identity (171-172). Relating to undergraduate students, who are also trainee teachers who need to develop an identity as primary practitioners and, at the same time, be supportive of young learners in finding their own language-learning identities (172), the author shows that this complex identity of (trainee) teachers requires their overcoming a lack of confidence (174-176) and potential limitations in their language knowledge (177). By being urged to enact a scene, wandering around between a French, Spanish, German and an ‘other language’ space which they had first filled with graffiti, thus creating “extraordinary stories” (178), and by reflecting on the feelings they have when using the foreign language (181-182) students learn how to become confident speakers of the respective foreign language (180-181) even if they master it anything but perfectly. According to the author, this positive development is triggered by the complexity of the students’ role, combining that of a learner and that of a teacher in manyfold ways (184-185), and by the fact that, in the creative and playful setting they are offered, they experience the phenomenon of communication beyond the verbal level.
In his second article, apart from Introduction and Conclusion, book editor David Evans moves “Towards a Cultural Paradigm of Alterity in Modern Foreign Language (MFL) Learning” (188-206). He advocates that the language learner be regarded as a learner of culture. In an attempt to substantiate identity in the realm of language learning (193-195), using extracts of research observations in British secondary schools, he documents gender differences and a situation of heteroglossia, which stand for the phenomenon of a third identity. Indirectly contrasting socio-economic and social driving forces (197) with a pedagogy of culture (199-200), he argues that the latter is the better one for language learning. Language learning is then like a journey towards alterity, i.e. otherness, undertaken within the framework of the so-called third place (see Hughes above). Students’ development of otherness and that of their identity would then be dialectally linked (204-205).
The last article by Richard Kiely (University of Southampton, UK) in on “English Language Teacher Identity: A Framework for Teacher Learning and Professional Development” (207-228). The author defines four aspects of language teacher identity. The first aspect is language identity, in which L1 teachers may be reduced to their sole (mother-tongue) expertise, whereas L2 teachers may be regarded as teaching what they are deficient in (212-214). The second aspect is that, due to the increasing importance of testing and certifying language proficiency, the teacher’s professional identity has gained importance, now representing another important dimension besides that of language identity (215-217). The third aspect is represented by Wenger’s understanding of learning as experience (meaning), as becoming (identity), as belonging (community), and as doing (practice), in which the respective driving forces – shared repertoire (221-222), mutual engagement (222-223), and joint enterprise (223-225) – have to be consciously activated so as to enhance learning (217-218). The fourth aspect, teacher awareness, has to be raised with respect to the institutions in which they work and the practices applied there (224-225).
The Conclusions (229-239) by David Evans round off the present volume. In briefly reviewing the different chapters, lifting the notion of identity in its various forms to an even higher theoretical level (229), he predicts future research to be in the areas of multilingual and multicultural identities (230), which appears to be highly realistic.
Apart from his articles, the editor needs to be praised for the way he guides the reader through his book in the form of the Editor’s Introduction to every single article, not only summarising it very briefly, but also linking up different approaches and ideas and establishing a relationship between the different articles. In doing so, he does not only help the reader understand the different dimensions of identity, but gives unity to individual contributions, some of which might otherwise have been regarded as simply unconnected. If they are now seen as being part of a given entity, this is his merit.
All in all, the present publication, with its wide scope of topics and its vast range including highly theoretical articles as well as decidedly practice-oriented ones, represents an informative book for all those who are interested in the language learner and the language teacher, and the identities they adopt in the (different) process(es) of language acquisition. Every reader who has ever learnt a foreign language has definitely undergone a (temporary or permanent) change of identity; every language teacher has definitely noticed that he or she has different (inter)cultural personalities when being inside or outside the classroom. It is easy to see, then, that the problems and research questions presented here are of high relevance. Although the topic of (teacher and learner) identity has been widely researched upon in the past few decades, it can be stated that the editor’s and the authors’ courage to tackle it anew is a justified – and successful – attempt to give it new impulses and new research orientations.
1 Those contributors whose geographic location is not mentioned in this book review teach at Liverpool Hope University (United Kingdom).
Reviewer:
Professor Thomas Tinnefeld
Applied Languages
Saarland University of Applied Sciences
14, Waldhausweg
66123 Saarbrücken
Germany
Email: thomas.tinnefeld@htwsaar.de
Email: thomas_tinnefeld@htwsaar