Language and Identity

Abstract

The relationship between language and identity is a topic of major interest in linguistic anthropology, sociolinguistics, the sociology of language, psychology, applied linguistics, and education. Identity can be approached in a number of ways, from individual projections (such as the use of attribution labels or self‐identifiers) to more “primordial” characteristics (such as those involving gender, race, or ethnicity). Contemporary work has shown that, however it is revealed or indexed linguistically, “identity” is a complicated process – socially co‐constructed, sometimes contradictory and ever‐changing.

The identity of social impact venture capitalists: exploring social linguistic positioning and linguistic distinctiveness through text mining

“…Intrigued by the study of organizational identity, researchers have developed the original construct to account for its multiple facets (Gioia et al, 2013). However, there is currently no universal way to operationalize, conceptualize, and theorize organizational identity (Corley & Gioia, 2004;Khor, 2020). Instead, disparate disciplines (e.g., organization, strategy, sociolinguistic) have applied their precise angles to uncover and define the distinctive characteristics of organizational identity.…”

“…In the past decades, language scholars have scrutinized the role of language in constructing and defining identities (and identity types) using different approaches (e.g., spanning corpus linguistics, sociolinguistics, or psycholinguistics) (De Fina, 2019;Edwards, 2012;Zenker, 2018). Despite the wide range of perspectives adopted, there is an overall agreement that language is inextricably linked with identity (De Fina, 2019;Khor, 2020). Language, broadly understood, has the power to shape how organizations identify and present themselves (Eckert, 2000;O'Connor, 2002), which, in turn, affects the different inferences that audiences make about an organization's identity (Cutolo et al, 2020;Lounsbury & Glynn, 2001;Martens et al, 2007).…”