Blog Post #5 - Analytical Consolidation of Language and Identity

I agree that language shapes our identity, but it doesn’t define the type of person we are. The language(s) we speak can shape our identity by giving us possible advantages, especially when traveling around the world being international students. In most cases, the more languages a person speaks the more opportunities are available, however some languages have more power than others. For example, me only speaking English could be more powerful than someone who speaks five languages that are rarely used in the world, but someone who knows English and Mandarin has more of an advantage in life than me.

The ways our language(s) shape(s) our identities, is/are by giving us opportunities that open different doors depending on which languages we speak and how many languages we speak. People are defined by their friends, their family and their culture. For example, their culture could define a person by the movies/films they watch, the music they understand, the literature they read and the writing they produce. The more powerful languages that you understand, the more educational and career opportunities become available to you. Our culture, the people around us, our education and our careers are all entwined into our identities. In “Me Talk Pretty One Day” by David Sedaris that even if you know the common language you may still be at a disadvantage when in an environment where the language isn’t English. Sedaris shows this by using random letters to represent what is being said, for example “apzkiubjxow.” Another example is from Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue.”

I don’t feel that language defines who we are completely, for example; our instinct makes us who we are and it doesn’t have anything to do with language. Babies, even though they don’t know any language, create their own personalities and rely on instinct to meet their needs. Some of our behaviour doesn’t rely on any language at all.

            Finally, I don’t feel that language fully shapes our identity but I feel that our community has more of an impact on our identity and the type of person we are, although the language we hear and speak will definitely have some sort of influence on us.