Transcript Language and Identity

Language and Identity
Culture embodies those moral, ethical and
aesthetic values, the set of spiritual eyeglasses,
through which (people) come to view
themselves and their place in the universe.
Values are the basis of a people’s identity, their
sense of particularity as members of the human
race (Ngugi wa Thiong’o).
WEEK EIGHT:
OCTOBER 26:) Readings: Clark Blaise “North”
Eva Hoffman “Life in a New language”
Film: The Voice of Our land..
OCTOBER 28: Bilingualism
Readings: Bonvillain Chapter 12
Michael Ignatieff “Blood and Belonging”
WEEK NINE:
NOVEMBER 2: Bilingualism
Readings: Bonvillain Chapter 12(cont)
Film: Between the Solitudes
Review
NOVEMBER 4: (Second exam)
The Power of Language
• Transmit culture
• At the center of cultural, political and
economic struggle
• Potent instrument of control
Resistance
• Rejection of dominant language for a local
language
• Appropriation of a colonial language:
creolisation
Language always political
• ]Identified structures of languages as
enforcing structures of power
• Identifying languages as important for
nation
The Voice of the Land is in Our
Languages
• Produced by: The Assembly of First Nations
(1996)
• It is the story of the destruction of the
traditional ways of life of natives people.
Individually
• 1. Summarise each article and
video
–a.
What is the story about?
–b.
What is the main theme?
In Group
The authors in these two articles view language as
inextricably linked with identity. Focusing on these
authors, explain how this is so for each of them. Do
they mean different things when they discuss identity
and language, or do you see their arguments as
fundamentally similar? Explain.
• A language can assume a symbolic significance in
what Clark Blaise refers to as individual’s “moral
landscape”. Consider the ways in which language
functions as symbol in the two readings and the video.