Exploring social identities in public texts.
Journal Title: Token: A Journal of English Linguistics - Year 2017, Vol 6, Issue 1
Abstract
This special issue focuses on the public representations that people create for themselves or others create for them. However, rather than employing the notion of ‘representation’, we utilise a concept originating from social psychology, ‘social identity’, as something constructed by both self concept and membership in a social group or groups. According to Tajfel, this means “the individual’s knowledge that he belongs to certain social groups together with some emotional and value significance to him of the group membership” (1972: 292). In other words, it involves psychological belongingness, but also both how we act as individuals and as parts of a collective. Tajfel – Turner’s Social Identity Theory (SIT; 1979) is based on three separate mental processes. The first one, social categorisation, involves the categorisation of objects in order to understand them and identify them. Similarly, we categorise people (including ourselves) in order to understand the social environment by using such (often) binary social categories as black/white, Christian/Muslim, and student/teacher. In the second process, social identification, we adopt the identity of the group we have categorised ourselves as belonging to. For example, if someone categorises themselves as a student, they will adopt the identity of a student and begin to act in the ways they believe students act. They will also conform to the norms of the group, which ties their self esteem to group membership. The third process entails social comparison. After categorising ourselves as part of a group and identifying with that group, we tend to compare that group with other groups. In order for our self esteem to be maintained, our group needs to compare favourably with other groups. […]
Authors and Affiliations
Minna Nevala, Matylda Włodarczyk
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP334874
- DOI -
- Views 161
- Downloads 0
‘Sassenach ‘, eh? Late Modern Scottish English on the borders of time and space
The complex relationship that has always existed between Scots and Gaelic, and indeed between Gaelic and English, has often been the object of studies in language contact (e.g. Ó Baoill 1991 and 1997, Dorian 1993, McClur...
“Get the snip – and a job!” Disagreement, impoliteness and conflicting identities on the Internet
This article investigates the construction of disagreement and the emergence of conflict talk in the comment boards of the British Mail Online newspaper website. It focuses on the case of a young unemployed couple, paren...
The impact of Arabic on the English lexicon since 1801
Arabic borrowings which were introduced into English during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have as yet been relatively neglected in previous investigations. The present paper will analyse the influence of Arabic...
Social identities in an institutional network: Colonial Office correspondence on the Cape Colony in the early nineteenth century
This paper offers a sociopragmatic analysis of the correspondence of the British Colonial Office pertaining to the colonisation of the Cape of Good Hope in the early nineteenth century. This setting poses fascinating que...
Thou and you in eighteenth-century English plays.
This study is a quantitative and qualitative investigation of the use of thou and you in four tragedies and four comedies written in eighteenth-century Britain. The quantitative study deals with three factors: genre, cha...