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Chapter 1

General Issues in Language Policy and Identity

Introduction

Over the ages, language policy and identity has been a source of a particular interest to scholars and researchers across disciplines. With the rise of the new nation-state systems, this interest turned into an explosion of conceptual and theoretical innovations that have breathed new life into the subarea. The chapter, thereby, is concerned with a variety of miscellaneous matters centered around the issue of language policy and identity which has been discussed in the literature. In so doing and through surveying several articles and books that have dealt with this issue, the chapter treats each component of the constructs that make up the title of the chapter separately as to cover the topic more thoroughly. Under each construct, small, medium and large parts are discussed. For example, under the constructs of “language policy,” the term “language” is defined. Additionally, entrenched myths and misconceptions about language are demolished. Furthermore, the phrase “language policy” is defined and distinguished from language planning with which some writers use interchangeably. Besides, theories, types, and factors that affect language policy are discussed.

In addition, the debate over the definition of identity is outlined. It is shown that the debate not only is about bickering over the terminology in the ivory tower of academia but also concerned with the theories of identity. This is because the term “identity” has become ubiquitous within social sciences and cuts across various disciplines from political science, sociology, and psychoanalysis to sociolinguistics. As such, each discipline or, say, even scholar has had his or her own understanding of identity. For example, whereas some scholars viewed identity as essential and fixed, others regarded it as dynamic and changing. Moreover, amid the controversy over the nature of identity emerged the issue of typology. The issue is discussed in the chapter beside the different markers which affect identity.

Language Policy

Defining Language

Whatever else people do when they come into contact, whether they communicate thoughts, beliefs, emotions, promises, threats, or the like, they talk. However, the term “communicate” is not a human property alone since nonhuman species also communicate information, declarations, threats, feelings, and the like. Yet, even though they communicate, nonhuman species do not have a system of communication that resembles that of human beings, for their system of communication is primarily nonlinguistic. For example, as cited in the article “What is Language?” nonhuman species communicate with nonlinguistic means

resembling our smiling, laughing, yelling, clenching of fists, and raising of eyebrows. Chimpanzees, gorillas, and or an [sic] gutangs can exchange different kinds of information by emitting different kinds of shrieks, composing their faces in numerous ways, and moving their hands or arms in different gestures, but they do not have words and sentences. By moving in certain patters, bees are apparently able to tell their fellow workers where to find honey, but apparently not very much else. (“What is Language?” n.d., p. 2)

The above citation goes in line with the Chomsky’s view about the fact that language is an exclusively human property. He stated that “when we study human language, we are approaching what some might call the ‘human essence,’ the distinctive qualities of mind that are, so far as we know, unique to man” (Chomsky, 2006, p. 88). Extending such statement, Fromkin, Rodman, and Hyams (2014) argued that the possession of language, perhaps more than any other attribute, sets apart human beings from other species. For example, “to some people of Africa, a newborn child is called kintu, a ‘thing,’ not yet a muntu, a ‘person.’ It is only by the act of learning language that the child becomes a human being” (p. 1). The arguments above answered one of the main intriguing questions of the philosophy of linguistics: Is language only possible among human beings? Yet, whether they were intended as definitions or not, they raise one or more points of the definitions of language as will be revealed later.

As any other concept, definitions of language are many and effortlessly available, for we no longer suffer from the weight of history, as Marx suggested, but from the burden of an ever-increasing density of information (Rutsky & Cohen, 2005, p. 1). Indeed, with the tremendous quantity of data that saturates today’s society, we can get answers to almost all questions in nanoseconds no matter where we are (Mackall, 2004, p. 9). However, the following definitions of language were chosen because of their significance. The first definitions of language are proffered by Webster International Dictionary: “Language is audible, articulate human speech as produced by the action of the tongue and adjacent vocal organs.” Webster also gave a second definition of language as “any means, vocal or otherwise, of expressing or communicating feeling or thought” (Webster cited in Dash & Dash, 2007, p. 1). The first definition is very limiting since it limits language to speech and excludes the other main building block of language which is writing. The second definition is also general since nonlinguistic means such as clenching of fists and raising of eyebrows can fall under the loose terms “any means, vocal or otherwise” used in the definition. That is to say animals do use their means of communication; however, their means of communication as discussed earlier are not counted as language.

An alternative definition came from Sweet (2014), an English phonetician and linguist scholar, who defines language as “the expression of ideas by means of speech-sounds combined into words. Words are combined into sentences, this combination answering to that of ideas into thoughts” (p. 6). In this definition, Sweet overemphasizes the role of words to the extent that it seems that he reduces language to words when this is not true. Indeed, as Everett (2012) stated, “all words are ‘signs’ (a meaning paired with a form), but not all signs are words or sentences (stop signs, ‘thumbs up,’ and other gestures come to mind)” (p. 33). Furthermore, according to Robins (1964), language is “symbol systems . . . almost wholly based on pure or arbitrary conventions . . . infinitely extendable and modifiable according to the changing needs and conditions of the speakers” (pp. 13–14). The constructs deployed in this definition are loose. There is no further elaboration after the terms “symbol systems” that would show the nature of these symbol systems.

Moreover, Sapir (1921) suggested that language should be looked at “as a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols . . . [which] are, in the first instance, auditory” (p. 7). In this definition, Sapir neglects written language. In fact, his attention was on the oral communicative function of language coupled with the distinction of language as human property. Nevertheless, the communicative function he mentioned suffered from several defects. For example, his choice of the constructs “ideas,” “emotions,” and “desires” was limiting, for people communicate threats, promises, and the list is large. His choice also of the construct “idea” was imprecise.

In addition, the American linguists, Block and Trager, as cited in Bynon and Palmer (1986), stated that a language is “a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which a social group cooperates” (p. 260). Furthermore, according to Wardaugh, a language is “a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication” (Wardaugh, cited in Mesthrie, Swann, Deumert, & Leap, 2009, p. 1). Block and Trager’s definition coupled with Wardaugh’s prominently point out that language is a means of communication. In this sense, they did not pay attention to the argument that language is human property since animals do also have their system of communication.

Finally, a definition of language by one of the most influential linguists, Chomsky, should not be neglected. For Chomsky, language is “a set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each finite in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements” (1957, p. 13). Still on the same page, Chomsky (1957) added “each . . . language has a finite number of phonemes (or letters in its alphabets) and each sentence is representable as a finite sequence of these phonemes (or letters) though there are infinitely many sentences” (p. 13). Chomsky’s definition is quoted at length because it is different from the earlier cited definitions both in style and content. It does neither mention the communicative function of language and the symbolic nature of the elements nor the sequences. Instead, it does stress the structural properties of language. That is, Chomsky puts forward that each language is a group of sounds/symbols and that out of these symbols/sounds different sentences can be constructed.

Even though almost all different trustworthy sources were consulted for the identification of language, the definitions cited here were incomplete as mentioned earlier. However, this is obvious since language has myriad characteristics, and no single definition could capture all of them. Therefore, in an attempt to define language satisfactory, it might be more relevant to mention some characteristics of language. To start with, language is human. In other words, language is a universal characteristic of human beings. Only human beings could deploy oral and written language symbols to represent their thoughts as discussed earlier.

Language is arbitrary. The most instance of arbitrariness in language, and the one that is frequently mentioned by linguists, is what Fasold and Connor-Linton (2006), referred to when they stated that with few exceptions, there is generally no natural, inherent relationship between the signs (sounds or letters) human beings produce and their meaning (p. 5). One of the few exceptions, which Fasold and Connor-Linton indicated, is traditionally called onomatopoeia. Lyons (1981) defined onomatopoeia as the nonarbitrary connection between the form and its meaning. As an example of onomatopoeic words in English, Lyons (1981) stated, “cuckoo,” “crash,” and “peewit” (p. 19). In addition to onomatopoeia, there is the term “iconicity” which marks the sporadic instances of the nonarbitrary nature of language. Examples of the iconicity in English are the words “small,” “tall,” and “fat,” as stated by Dostert (2009, p. 2).

Language is symbolic. Salim (2007) defined a symbol as “a concrete event, object or mark that stands for something relatively abstract.” For instance, a cross is a symbol that stands for the “sacrifice” of Jesus Christ. It is also a symbol of a Christian (Salim, 2007, p. 4). In analogy with such example, it can be said that a flag is a symbol of a given state. Another example would be that of a capital of a state. Put differently, in a news report, a poem, a novel, a short story and well-nigh all literary and nonliterary genres, a city name, such as a capital of a state, is commonly used to represent the whole state. The examples, the one provided by Salim and the others invited by this researcher, reveal that Christ and Christian were not literally identified with their physical illumination and neither was the state by its people and geographical boundary. In this sense, the relationship between the symbolic nature and its metaphoric one becomes clear.

Language is primarily vocal. Language is a system that can be expressed through different ways. For instance, it is not only expressed by the marks on a paper or a computer screen that are called writing, by hand signals and gestures as in sign language, but also by sounds that are vocalized in speech. However, if language is expressed through the different aforementioned ways, why do linguists, most of the time, list only one way, the vocal one, as a characteristic of language and neglect the other ones? For clarity, the thread of this question should be untangled into two main parts. Why do linguists frequently hold speech as a specific marker of all language and let go of writing? Why do linguists all the time perceive speech as a characteristic of all languages and drop gestures?

To start with the question, why do linguists frequently hold speech as a specific marker of all languages and drop writing? A prompt answer would be that every language is vocal, but not every language is written. That is, there are many languages that continue to exist, even today, in the spoken form only. They do not have a written form. An example of the many unwritten languages in the world is Mpongmpong language which is spoken by Mpongmpong people in Cameroon (Thormoset, 2010, p. 3). Other answers would be the fact that a child learns to speak before learning to write. Also, some people speak languages even though they do not know how to write them. In this regard, one can claim that every writer is a speaker, but not every speaker is a writer. It is indeed, wrote Algeo (2010), for “human beings have been writing (as far as we can tell from the surviving evidence) for at least 5000 years; but they have been talking for much longer, doubtless ever since they were fully human” (p. 6). Algeo (2010) further added when ­writing developed, it was derived from and represented speech, albeit imperfectly (p. 6).

To answer the second question, that is, why linguists perceive speech as a characteristic of all languages and drop gestures all the time, one may assert that the reason behind linguists behavior is the fact that gestures are not human-specific. That is to say gestures are the means through which animals communicate with each other as mentioned in the opening paragraphs above. Even though human beings with hearing difficulties use gestures to communicate their messages, in most communication contexts, human beings’ language is primarily vocal rather than gestural. Departing from such fact and as the general rule goes li akthari houkmou al-koulou (“the majority rules,” translation mine), it is undoubtedly true that speech is primary and gestures secondary to language.

As far as language as a means of communication is concerned, little evidence from linguists needed to be brought to the discussion, for language guides and controls people’s entire activity is a fact. On a daily basis, from the moment people wake up in the morning till they fall asleep, they give and take orders, make and give request, offer and receive help, think, commiserate, chat with friends, deliberate, negotiate, gossip, seek advice and so forth. The different activities are expressed, as mentioned above, through different ways, speech, writing, and/or gesture. Nonetheless, one activity that is listed here, namely “thought,” was not discussed above. This leads us to elaborate on it. The relationship of language to thought is disputable. Great deals of speculations have been generated about the issue. Algeo (2010) summarized the speculations and came up with a view that underscored the strong relationship between the two constructs as the following extract shows:

At one extreme are those who believe that language merely clothes thought and that thought is quite independent of the language we use to express it. At the other extreme are those who believe that thought is merely suppressed language and that, when we are thinking, we are just talking under our breath. The truth is probably somewhere between those two extremes. Some, though not all, of the mental activities we identify as “thought” are linguistic in nature. It is certainly true that until we put our ideas into words they are likely to remain vague, inchoate, and uncertain. We may sometimes feel like the girl who, on being told to express her thoughts clearly, replied, “How can I know what I think until I hear what I say.” (p. 15)

It is clear that language controls and shapes human activities even those that are mental as in the case of thinking. That is to say the human’s dependence on language well-nigh resembles theirs on breathing, for every activity they do, including thinking, they do it through language.

Language is productive. Humans are continually creating new expressions and novel utterances by combining the “building bricks” of language in endless ways, whether these are sounds, words, or sentences to describe new objects and situations. Such property is described as productivity (or “creativity” or “open-endedness”). The characteristic is related to the fact that “the potential number of utterances in any human language is infinite” (Yule, 2006, p. 10). The communication systems of other creatures do not appear to have this type of flexibility. That is, most animal communication systems appear to be more limiting than enabling. Some typical examples are brought by Yule (1996) who stated that “Cicadas have four signals to choose from and vervet monkeys have thirty-six vocal calls. Nor does it seem possible for creatures to produce new signals to communicate novel experiences or events” (p. 23). Yule (2006) elsewhere illustrated that “the worker bee, normally able to communicate the location of a nectar source to other bees, will fail to do so if the location is really ‘new’” (pp. 10–11).

The importance of productivity and its status as a marker of language was stressed in the recent linguistic literature particularly by Chomsky when he stated:

The most striking aspect of linguistic competence is what we may call the‚ “creativity” of language, that is, the speaker’s ability to produce new sentences, sentences that are immediately understood by other speakers although they bear no physical resemblance to sentences which are familiar. The fundamental importance of this creative aspect of normal language use has been recognized since the seventeenth century at least; and it was the core of Humboldtian general linguistics. (Chomsky, 1974, p. 74)

Elsewhere, Chomsky wrote:

The normal use of language is innovative in the sense that much of what we say in the course of normal language use is entirely new, not a repetition of anything that we have heard before, and not even similar in pattern-in any useful sense of the terms “similar” and “pattern”-to sentences or discourse that we have heard in the past. (Chomsky, 2006, p. 10)

The above passages show that the recognition of productivity as characteristic of language, by linguists, was not new, but rather it goes back to the seventeenth century. In the citations, Chomsky also stresses the innovation of language in the sense that it allows its users or speakers to continuously create new utterances, combining the “building bricks” of language in endless ways. Chomsky asserts that the productivity of language is manifested in its grammatical structure through the extreme complexity and heterogeneity of the rules that guarantee and constitute it. In other words, Chomsky unveils the novelty of the rule-changing creativity. However, almost all linguists insisted that the novelty of utterances which language enables its users to produce is rule-governed (Akmajian, Demer, Farmer, & Harnish, 2001, p. 7). Clearly, there are rules which control and guide the structure and function of language. Compactly, a conclusion about the productivity of language can be put as the following: language is an infinite rule-governed creativity.

In addition, displacement is an important characteristic of Language. The characteristic of displacement means that human beings can abstract, lie, and talk about talk itself in imaginary, distant, past, present, future, conjectural, and/or counterfactual statements (Algeo, 2010, p. 16). Language leaves the scope of time open to human beings in expressing their everyday life activities. Animals’ communication systems, however, enable them only to express the messages which are quite connected with their immediate environment. Proper example runs in the following passage:

When your pet cat comes home and stands at your feet calling meow, you are likely to understand this message as relating to that immediate time and place. If you ask your cat where it has been and what it was up to, you’ll probably get the same meow response. Animal communication seems to be designed exclusively for this moment, here and now. It cannot effectively be used to relate events that are far removed in time and place. When your dog says GRRR, it means GRRR, right now, because dogs don’t seem to be capable of communicating GRRR, last night, over in the park. In contrast, human language users are normally capable of producing messages equivalent to GRRR, last night, over in the park, and then going on to say In fact, I’ll be going back tomorrow for some more. (Yule, 2010, p. 12)

It seems that an infinite stock of utterances human beings produce is not limited by time or place unlike the finite stock of communication systems of animals which is time and place bounded.

Furthermore, language is noninstinctive and conventional. Every language is the result of evolution and agreement between its speakers on words and their assigned meanings (Tamasi & Antieau, 2015, p. 3). Every language, then, is a convention in a community. The convention is culturally transmitted from one generation to the next (Saraswati, 2004, p. 25). Yet, it is not genetically transmitted. For instance, Silver and Lwin (2014) asserted that language must be acquired by human beings (p. 7). Indeed, people inherit their physical features such as their eyes and hair colors from their parents, but they do not inherit their language. Noting on this matter, Yule (2010) mentioned the following example: a child born to Korean parents in Korea, “but adopted and brought up from birth by English speakers in the United States, will have physical characteristics inherited from his or her natural parents, but will inevitably speak English. A kitten, given comparable early experiences, will produce meow regardless” (2010, p. 14). Clearly, while animals inherit their system of communication by heredity, humans do not.

The final characteristic of language is its reflexivity. The ability of using language to talk about language is called reflexivity, wrote Dörries (2002, p. 64). All creatures communicate in a way or another with their species, and some communicate across their species divide, yet nonhuman species do not reflect on the way they make their communicative messages or review “how they work (or not). That is, one barking dog is probably not offering advice to another barking dog along the lines of ‘Hey, you should lower your bark to make it sound more menacing.’ They’re not barking about barking.” In contrast, “humans are clearly able to reflect on language and its uses (e.g., ‘I wish he wouldn’t use so many technical terms’)” (Yule, 2010, p. 11). Such quotation gives the premise that human beings can use language to talk about language itself, whereas animals could not as the above example of the barking dog shows. Thus, the property of reflexivity is one of the distinguishing features of language. Indeed, “without this general ability, we wouldn’t be able to reflect on or identify any of the other distinct properties of human language,” added Yule (2010, p. 11).

The eleven characteristics, discussed above, show the novelty of the characteristics of language. Such novelty, as noted earlier, is what made the identification of language a difficult task in the sense that it makes it impossible for anyone to bring out a definition that captures all of them. Moreover, in the course of mapping out these different characteristics, we came up with several remarks. To start with, the eleven characteristics are all interconnected in various ways. In addition, after scrutinizing many linguistic works written by specialized linguists, it was clear that the characteristics are not only present in all languages but also their presence is marked by a very high degree. However, few of them, for example, means of communication, are found in other systems of communication is unquestionable. Nonetheless, what is also unquestionable is that the few characteristics that are present in other systems of communication are not to be found with the same degree of interconnectedness as those of language.

Demolishing Myths about Language

The centrality of language to human beings makes it so universally important that people have contrived with their own notions about how it all works. A lot of what people think about language is true, but sometimes people get it wrong. In the following pages, some common misconceptions about language will be discussed. Only myths that are related to the topic at hand, language policy and identity, will be discussed. However, before so doing, the term “myth” needs explanation. Like any other concept, the concept “myth,” to use Schrempp and Hansen’s words, “continues to resist any definition that is uniform, universally valid” (2002, p. 240). Even though some of the different definitions of the term “myth” are cited, the one that serves the topic at hand is emphasized.

The first definition of the term “myth” was given in Britannica Concise Encyclopedia, as a “traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon” (2006, p. 1320). The definition uses the term “story” to refer to the term “myth.” However, the definition does mention a particular type of story through the use of the modifier “tradition.” The definition also points out the purpose of myth which was described as a solution provider to problematic issues that concern people, their life, or natural phenomenon. Moreover, Watts defined myth as a “tale, a fable, a falsehood, or an idea that is out of date, something untrue.” He further ran an older strict use of the term means “not something untrue, but rather an image in terms of which people make sense of life and the world” (1996, p. 73). In the definitions, Watts points out that the definition of myth has gone through changes overtime. The changes are represented in the modification of the tale from possibly true to definitely untrue.

In lying out the different myths about language and based on the above-discussed definitions, one may fathom that a myth is a story that explains a phenomenon based on guest, observation, or experience rather than scientific experiment. In this sense, it is a theoretically based concept that can be scientifically either proved or unproved. In response to the last question, language myths are misconceived sets of beliefs, hypotheses, or assumptions about language that people used to pertain to. As such, the following constructed myths about language are deconstructed.

To begin with, some languages are more primitive than others. In his reinforcement of this myth, Mackey wrote “only before God and linguist are all languages equal” (1978, p. 7). However, the following passage seems to state the opposite, for

[a]ll human languages have a system of symbols—spoken languages use sounds, signed languages use gestures—words, and sentences that can communicate the full range of concrete and abstract ideas . . . linguists believe that all human languages are equally expressive—this is called linguistic egalitarianism. In particular, there seems to be no correlation between linguistic complexity and the technological level of a society. Every language can create new words to describe new situations and objects, and every language changes over time. Even relatively new languages, such as the creoles that emerge when languages come in contact, are fully expressive. (Burton, Déchaine, & Vatikiotis-Bateson, 2012, p. 325)

Even though there are linguists who more or less agree with Mackey’s above-stated statement, the majority of them opted for the linguistic egalitarianism, which is expressed in the above passage. Extending the mainstream’s argument, Grady, Archibald, Aronoff, and Rees-Miller (2005) asserted that the reality is that no one language is more primitive than others, for languages have several functions, and all languages perform such functions. They are used as a system of communication, a medium for thought, a vehicle for literary expression, a social institution, a matter for political controversy, and a catalyst for state-building. As such, “all human beings normally speak at least one language” (Grady, Archibald, Aronoff, & Rees-Miller, 2005, p. 1). Such quotation asserts that since all languages have certain functions and all of them allow their speakers to perform them, then they must be equal.

Some linguists, however, pointed out to the primitiveness of some languages based on their functionality in scientific fields. In other words, some languages were classified as primitive because they cannot structurally and lexically function in technical areas. Such claim cannot hold. For instance, even though “German is able to construct clearly defined single words for technical ideas,” French and Italian cannot “do this so readily and instead uses phrases as a way of combining ideas” (Harlow, 1998, pp. 11–12). Furthermore, on the lexical level, there is no single language that copes with the scientific revolution based only on the invention of new terms. In fact, all languages incorporate words that are taken from other languages through a process that is called borrowing. For example, Harlow (1998) stated: “English can discuss nuclear physics because, over the centuries, as scientific thought has developed, it has acquired the vocabulary to deal with the new developments; it has not always been there as an inherent feature of English.” By the same token, “all languages are capable of the same types of expansion of vocabulary to deal with whatever new areas of life their speakers need to talk about” (pp. 13–14). Harlow’s argument unseats the mythical primitiveness of some languages. No language inherited completeness as a feature. Every language is incomplete, and the strategies through which languages cope with today’s needs are available to all of them from borrowing to loaning and the like. As such, every language can fulfill the needs of its speakers. Thus, all languages are equal.

Another myth is that standardized languages are better than dialects. This is a myth that is proclaimed by many people as well as some linguists as the following extract shows:

The vulgar and the refined, the particular and the general, the corrupt and the pure, the barbaric and the civilized, the primitive and the arbitrary, were socially pervasive terms that divide sensibility and culture according to linguistic categories. The baser forms of language were said to reveal the inability of the speaker to transcend the concerns of the present, an interest in material objects, and the dominance of the passions. Those who spoke the refined language were allegedly rational, moral, civilized, and capable of abstract thinking. (Smith, 1984, p. 3)

Such passage along with Mackey’s above-stated statement is stigmatized, and it tends to be viewed as violating the real. The real is unearthed through defining the terms “standard variety” and “dialect.” On the one hand, “a dialect is . . . to be understood as a language system that is found within local, regional, or otherwise defined territorial boundries [sic]—a language system which is unique to a certain geographical area within a national state.” On the other hand, “a ‘standard variety’ . . . is a variety that serves as a norm or ideal standard for larger speech community, usually a national state, and which is often codified” (Auer & Schmidt, 2010, p. 23). It seems that the geographical affiliation marks the difference between the standard variety and the dialect. The difference, nevertheless, is far from implying superiority or inferiority. Another point that was mentioned in the above citation is that standard variety is always codified, written. However, does this characteristic favor a language over another in terms of value judgment? The answer is no. Most of the 6,000 or so languages spoken on the planet are not codified. That is to say spoken language is the primary form of communication. “Writing itself was invented relatively recently in the history of human kind” (Burton, Déchaine, & Vatikiotis-Bateson, 2012, pp. 327–328). Such citation entails that a script is not an inherent part of a language, but rather was developed later by some people. Accordingly, speaking about the superiority and inferiority of languages, based on their codification, is shaky and cannot hold.

It is worth noting that the abovementioned geographical affiliation, which distinguishes dialect from standard variety, mirrors other distinctions such as the social and cultural ones. According to Auer and Schmidt (2010) and Halebsky (1976), respectively, “[t]he very essence of the relation that conventionally exists between dialect and standard is that the latter—compared to other varieties—is the most prestigious variety at the national level, and it is the language that is most likely to be associated with social elites” (Auer & Schmidt 2010, p. 23) and “the occupants of positions in the political and other institutional areas of society” (Halebsky, 1976, p. 66). Just like the above geographical distinction, the social and cultural distinctions between the two varieties of language do not imply the superiority and inferiority labels. In fact, the above definitions of the terms “dialect” and “standard variety” shows that the real difference between the two varieties resides in the minds and constructed through the actions of the elites. For instance, UNESCO spelled out: “Languages . . . [are] equal before policy-makers, in the name of the cardinal principle of democracy, of the equal dignity of cultures, of human rights, of non-discrimination and of equal opportunity” (August 27–28, 2008, p. 46). Elsewhere, UNESCO concluded “in the galaxy of languages, every word is a star” (August 27–28, 2008, p. cover page). Concisely, the views which admix language varieties with superior and inferior labels are unjust.

Furthermore, linguistic diversity provides a fertile ground of mythmaking. Many people, including some linguists, see that linguistic multiplicity forms an obstacle to national unity within states. What is more, it was claimed that linguistic diversity hindered sociocultural, economic, and political development. Pool (1972) summed up the myths related to the linguistic diversity as follows:

Linguistic diversity . . . aggravates political sectionalism; hinders inter-group cooperation, national unity, and regional multinational co-operation; impedes political enculturation, political support for the authorities and the regime, and political participation; and holds down governmental effectiveness and political stability. Similarly it is said that language diversity slows economic development, by, for example, breaking occupational mobility, reducing the number of people available for mobilisation into the modern sector of the economy decreasing efficiency, and preventing the diffusion of innovative techniques. (p. 214)

The negative evaluated myths about language diversity, as properly argued Dua (1990), have been perpetuated by the myth of monolingualism (p. 84). The myths are unseated by the fact that multilingualism is the norm and monolinguallism is the exception. In African countries, for example, “an average of more than 30% of the population speaks at least three languages. Elsewhere, the multiplicity is even greater and becomes a real specter. The number of recognized languages in Africa varies from 1,200 to 2,500” (UNESCO, August 27–28, 2008, p. 47).

Since linguistic heterogeneity or multilingualism is the norm, national development, therefore, has to take place largely in the context of the multilingual settings. For instance, Fishman confessed that he could not establish any correlation between linguistic diversity and low economic development. “The many ‘deviant’ countries (rich but heterogeneous; poor but homogeneous) make this relationship a tenuous one” (Fishman, cited in the International Development Research Centre, 1997, p. 17). Besides, if the healthiness of communities and states is related positively with their monolingual homogeneity, civil wars would never have taken place in linguistically homogeneous states, such as Somalia and Rwanda, one of the rare countries with a tendency toward monolingualism, argued UNESCO (August 27–28, 2008, p. 47).

Bilingual students have a hard time at school. Some parents think that their children would perform better at school if they have been speaking one instead of two or three languages. However, researchers have proved that students who speak more than one language do not do less than those who are monolingual. In fact, speaking two or more languages benefits the students. For instance, “it increases neural pathways and improves memory and attention . . . this is a life-long advantage. A bilingual (or multilingual) brain ages more gracefully . . . it resists the inevitable decline in memory and other cognitive functions related to problemsolving, verbal reasoning, and attention” (Burton, Déchaine, & Vatikiotis-Bateson, 2012, p. 324). It is clear that speaking more than one language benefits the students’ brain. It helps them perform well throughout their learning journey as well as their social life.

Besides, some research studies claimed that bi- and multilingual students have smaller portion of vocabularies in each language and are slower to process words than monolingual students. Nevertheless, the reality is quite the opposite. Burton, Déchaine, and Vatikiotis-Bateson (2012) summed up the finding of researcher studies that refute such claim in the following passage:

[B]ilinguals perform differently on these tasks according to how balanced their bilingualism is. If they use both languages across a wide range of social contexts, they’ll learn the vocabulary items for those contexts. But if they use one language at home and another language at school, then, over time, the vocabulary items that they learn in each language will reflect these differences in social context. And as for longer processing time, this is the case only for tasks that require a bilingual to monitor both languages at the same time. In such bilingual contexts, monolinguals don’t pay attention to the other language (because for them, it’s just noise), while a bilingual pays attention to both languages. So bilinguals take longer to process the information because they’re processing more information. (p. 324)

The findings present the premise that bilingual and multilingual students have more cognitive ability than the monolingual ones.

Finally, women talk more than men do is a folk-linguistic idea that crosses freely in most societies. As such and as vehicles of society folk-ideas, many proverbs, sayings, and stories capture and read this folk-linguistic idea as follows:

a. Women’s tongues are like lambs’ tails—they are never still. (English)

b. The North Sea will sooner be found wanting in water than a woman at a loss for words. (Jutlandic)

c. Many women, many words; many geese, many turds. (English)

In addition, some adages and sayings advocate that while women talk, men are silent patient listeners.

a. When both husband and wife wear pants, it is not difficult to tell them apart—he is the one who is listening. (American)

b. Nothing is so unnatural as a talkative man or a quiet woman. (Scottish)

In her book, Gender and Discourse, Tannen (1994) told the following story:

A joke has it that a woman sues her husband for divorce. When the judge asked her why she wants to be divorced, she explained that her husband has not talked to her in two years. The judge then asked the husband, “why haven’t you spoken to your wife in two years?” He replies, “I did not want to interrupt her.” (pp. 54–55)

Nevertheless, the vast majority of research studies dispel the above-stated claims. When men and women converse, males talk more than their female counterparts do. Two Canadian researchers, James and Drakich (1993), reviewed sixty-three studies that address the question of gender differences in the amount of talk. The researchers found out that among the sixty-three studies only two studies concluded that women talk more than men (p. 284). Similarly, the result of a study carried out by Unger (2001) concluded that men are more likely than women to engage in classroom and boardrooms activities (p. 248). In addition, other studies debunked the claim that the gender differences of the amount of talk correlate with the context. While men talk more in public spaces, women talk more in private ones (Gamble & Gamble, 2014, p. 75). The different quotations unseat the myth that says women talk more than men. In fact, some of them show quite the opposite. Men tend to talk more than women. Others refute the myth by saying that the myth screams a false generalization since their findings showed that the amount of talk produced by men and women correlates with the context.

Defining Language Policy

What is language policy? Such question is commonly raised in most literature, but concrete definitions are less common than discussion of types, goals, and shapers of language policy. To fill that gap, we address the murky issue of definition in a separate entity in a separate heading. In so doing, three definitions, which might be of help in reaching appropriate synthesis of the phrase “language policy,” are discussed. The first definition is proffered by Kaplan and Baldauf (1997) who articulated that “the exercise of language planning leads to, or is directed by, the promulgation of a language policy by government. . . . A language policy is a body of ideas, laws, regulations, rules and practices intended to achieve the planned language change in the societies, group or system” (Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997, p. xi). In this definition, Kaplan and Baldauf point out that language policy is an amalgamation of abstract and concrete items that include ideas, rules, and practices. The goal of this amalgamation is to arrive at an elevation of a language or some languages on behalf of others at both social and administrational levels. It is worth noting that Kaplan and Baldauf introduce language policy as an activity or activities that are enacted by an authoritative body, government, for example. Moreover, Kaplan and Baldauf introduce the phrase “language planning” as an activity that leads to and comes as an outcome of language policy. No further explanation to disambiguate this interconnection between the two phrases was introduced in the above-cited definition. A clear disambiguation is laid out later.

A further definition to the phrase “language policy” was suggested by McCarty.

I have characterized language policy as a complex sociocultural process [and as] modes of human interaction, negotiation, and production mediated by relations of power. The “policy” in these processes resides in their language-regulating power; that is, the ways in which they express normative claims about legitimate and illegitimate language forms and uses, thereby governing language statuses and uses. (McCarty, 2011, p. 8)

Unlike Kaplan and Baldauf, McCarty’s definition extends the scope of language policy. She recognizes language policy not only as an authoritative but also as a multilayered intervention. In other words, she reveals that language policy is enacted as assemblages of the various institutions in a state from social, cultural to those which are governmental. The different angles of language policy, which are illustrated above, clarify how fuzzy the phrase “language policy” is. Putting the different threads of the above-stated definitions together, one can remark that language policy is a set of thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes that are generated about different languages, enacted consciously and unconsciously by governmental and nongovernmental institutions through different rules and regulations in order to put some languages in hierarchical orders.

Moreover, to clear up the phrase “language policy,” it is worth clearing up an issue which crops up a lot with it. The issue is that the phrases “language policy” and “language planning” are frequently used, both in the technical and popular literature, either interchangeably or in tandem. Opting for the latter use of the phrases, one can argue that such phrases are different ones as the following passage reveals:

“Language planning” is an activity, most visibly undertaken by government, intended to promote systematic linguistic change in some community of speakers. The reasons for such change lie in a reticulated pattern of structures developed by government and intended to maintain civil order and communication, and to move the entire society in some direction deemed “good” or “useful” by the government. The exercise of language planning leads to, or is directed by, the promulgation of a language policy by government. (Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997, p. xi)

The citation shows that the two phrases, “language policy” and “language planning,” represent two different aspects in the process of language change. In Orman’s words, language planning is an “action-orientated dimension of language policy” (2008, p. 40). It is shown above also that language planning and language policy are primarily enacted by body of governmental institutions, but such argument is inappropriate. Just as language policy, as the aforementioned definitions revealed particularly that of McCarty, is generated by multilayered actors, society and government, language planning is “planned by organizations established for such purposes or given a mandate to fulfill such purposes” (Rubin, 1977, p. 282). Rubin’s observation also demonstrates that language planning is included in language policy.

Furthermore, Poon (2000) distinguished between the two closely related phrases. “A macrosociological activity . . . at a governmental and national level” only [italics in the source], whereas language policy can be “either a macro- or microsociological activity . . . at a governmental and national level or at an institutional level” (pp. 116–117). Clearly, whereas language planning is always a government-led activity, language policy might be carried out by individuals, organizations, and/or government. Another distinction between the two phrases runs in Eastman’s lines: “The absence of conspicuous, concrete language planning measures within a speech community does not, necessarily, imply the absence of a language policy. One may have language policy without language planning but no society is without a language policy” (Eastman, 1983, p. 6). As stated earlier, the dependence of language planning on language policy is clear.

Theories of Language Policy

As an outset, it is required to define the constructs of the heading. Having defined the phrase “language policy,” the term “theory” remains begging. According to Grimes (2014), the term “theory” traces its roots to the Greek philosophers of the classical era, especially Plato and Aristotle. It comes from the Greek word theoria, which means “to look at.” “In its ancient Greek sense, theoria is not a passive gaze. It is an act of deep receptivity. Theoria is what happens when spectatorship is transformed into visual and emotional participation” (Grimes, 2014, p. 166). In contemporary arts and humanities, the term “theory,” however, has at least two meanings. “In one usage, it labels almost any collection of terms or concepts used to frame discrete bits of information. In a second usage . . . the term ‘theory’ refers to concepts capable of orienting a transformation or intervention” (Grimes, 2014, p. 166). From the different definitions of the term theory, it can be said that the term “theory” refers to a set of assumptions that are intended to explain or resolve an issue related to a particular phenomenon. As such, a rehearsal of theories of, or about, language policy is laid out in the upcoming pages.

The emergence of language policy as an academic discipline is relatively new, with the first use of the phrase “language planning” attributed to Haugen’s (1959, p. 8) description of the development of a new standard national language in Norway after its independence from Denmark in 1814 (Karam, 1974, p. 105; Fettes, 1997, p. 13). Ever since, the phrase and the discipline were subjected to many changes due to the enormous interest they were given. The changes or evolutions can be summarized in two stages. However, such changes do not imply a lack of interaction. Rather, they complement each other. The early stage of language policy, which lasted from the late 1950s to the late 1980s, was revolutionized by many works among which are the works of Haugen (1959); Fishman (1968a, 1972, 1974); Kloss (1969); and Cooper (1989). The scholars’ works were intended to answer the sociopolitical needs of the time. That is, decolonization and formation of new statehoods across Africa and Asia, after the Second World War, led many scholars to seek solutions to the issue of selecting and developing national language in multilingual settings. Fishman (1968b) spelled out the reason quite explicitly in the following lines:

Precisely because the developing nations are at an earlier stage in development . . . the problems and processes of nationhood are more apparent in such nations and their transformations more discernible to the researcher. As a result the developing nations (“new nations”) have come to be of great interest to those sociolinguists who are interested in the transformations of group identity in general as well as to those interested in societal (governmental and other) impact on language-related behavior and on language itself. (p. 6)

Given the perceived needs of these “new states,” early works focused on typologies and approaches to language planning. For example, Haugen (1959) developed a language planning model in which he addressed the codification of language. For him, language planning is “the activity of preparing a normative orthography, grammar, and dictionary for the guidance of writers and speakers in a non-homogeneous speech community” (p. 8). The model was later known as corpus planning which is concerned with the manipulation of the form of language. Extending Haugen’s model, some scholars called for a new one that would take into consideration the use of the codified language in the society. In this regard, Kloss (1969) introduced a distinction between corpus planning and status planning. The former is concerned with language itself, grammar, spelling, vocabulary and so on while the latter is concerned with language selection (p. 81).

After Kloss’s introduction to status planning, scholars started to develop theoretical frameworks of language planning. One influential model was the one developed by Haugen.

a. Selection of a norm (i.e., selecting a language variety for a particular context)

b. Codification—development of an explicit, usually written, form

c. Implementation—attempt to spread the language form

d. Elaboration—continued updating of the language variety to “meet the needs of the modern world.” (Haugen, 1983, p. 273)

For Haugen, selection and implementation are status planning, and codification and elaboration are corpus planning (1983, p. 275). To the status-corpus planning, Cooper introduced another phrase, “acquisition planning” to language planning which he identified as “increasing the numbers of users—speakers, writers, listeners, or readers of a language through promoting its learning by giving people the opportunity and the incentive to learn it” (1989, p. 33).

While some scholarly works, in the first phase, concentrated on devising models of language planning, other works focused on social, economic, and political effects of language contact. That is, the issue of selecting a national level and its ramification was brought to the fore. In this regard, while some scholars said that ideology should be the engine that drives language planners, others vocalized the necessity of divorce between ideology and the selection. For instance, Tauli (1974) insisted that languages can be categorized objectively according to their usefulness. For him, ethnic languages are less developed than those of the colonizer (p. 51). That is, he developed a hierarchical scale in which he listed the indigenous languages as primitive and the colonizer’s as the more developed. Haugen (1983), nevertheless, opposed such division arguing that any selection must remain very objective even though “a stand on difficult value judgment” is unavoidable (p. 276).

A reflection of the debate bred taxonomy of bi/multilingualism and diglossia. However, the supposed neutrality of diglossia and multilingualism which were devised as means of national development and stability were called into question since historical inequalities and conflicts did not diminish. The selection of indigenous people’s languages that could function in particular domains beside the colonizers’ languages perpetuated socioeconomic asymmetries between the societies of one nation rather than omitting them (Ricento, 2000, p. 16). Such orientation led to the persistence of the colonizers’ languages because they were codified and adequate for education and other governmental institutions, observed Ricento (2006, p. 12). Omitting nuance, for the sake of rough generalization, one can observe that most of the early scholars saw language diversity as an obstacle to state-building. Extending this observation, Ferguson (2006) asserted that the early people who were involved in language policy, in the spirit of earlier European nationalists, used to consider language diversity as primarily a problem, and thus a hindrance to state-building. Therefore, the thrust of policy was to identify and select a language or few languages for official uses (p. 10). Scholars reduced sociolinguistic complexity to two languages or handy proportions of languages (Blommaert, 1996, p. 212).

The second stage, final stage, which started from the end of the second phase up to the present time, witnessed a move to broaden the scope of language policy. The scholars of this stage, who are postmodernists and human right activists, sought to provide alternative framework to language policy that the scholars of the first stage, who represented different schools, structuralism, pragmatism, poststructuralism, modernism, and critical linguistics, failed to present. The classification goes in line with that of Ricento (2000) who divided the stages of language policy intellectually into three stages. The scholars shifted from the processes of language standardization, codification, and selection limitation to the standards which were associated with the state-building, though still important, to “language revitalization, minority rights, globalization, and the spread of English, the preservation of linguistic ­diversity, and bilingual education” (Ferguson, 2006, p. 10). Indeed, typical example would be the works of Ferguson (2006) and Kaplan and Baldauf (1997).

The shift, therefore, turned the discipline’s attention to be no longer so geographically biased toward the postcolonial states of Africa and Asia. With migration, globalization, and the rise of regional nationalism, the issue of language policies crossed freely to the old established nation-states (Ferguson, 2006, p. 9). The overall trend has been a tendency toward geopolitical diversification since there is almost no country outside language policy consideration. Ricento, stated: “of the estimated 6,000 languages spoken today, 95% of the world’s population speak 100 languages, with 5% speaking the remaining thousands of languages” (2000, p. 17). In Alaska and the Soviet North, about forty-five of the fifty indigenous languages (90 percent) are waning. Similarly, in Australia, about 90 percent of the aboriginal languages still spoken are dying (Krauss, 1992, p. 5). In the United States, Krauss (1998) asserted that only twenty (13 percent) of the 155 extant Native North American languages are spoken by all generations (p. 11). Such statics depict a phenomenon which is described by sociolinguists as language loss and which, according to Dreyer (2009), refers to the suppression or the abandonment of a language or mother tongue (p. 146).

The primary reason behind the language loss is the policies adopted by the early stage politicians and academic scholars. For postmodernists, their policies were reductionist. Critical scholar, Phillipson (1997), viewed the reductionist approach as a mirror of what he described as language imperialism, unequal official use of languages (p. 239). In order to remedy the situation, many scholars called for the maintenance and the promotion of language diversity. The calls bred many policies which adopt language diversity. Two illustrative examples are

the 1996 post-apartheid South African constitution, which, in sharp contrast to the practice of most African states attaining independence in the early 1960s, extends official status to eleven languages and calls on the state to promote the status of previously marginalised languages, stated. Another, in a different context, is the qualified welcome given to the 1992 European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, which calls on signatory states to protect and promote these languages. (Ferguson, 2006, p. 10)

The above two examples are a celebration of language diversity which is the current supported trend by almost all academic scholars and some decision-makers.

Types of Language Policy

Even though scholars of language policy have offered many views and interpretation of issues related to language policy, almost all of them seem to overlook an offer of a well-organized framework of the typology of language policy. Instead, most of them discussed the types of language planning, status-corpus, and acquisition planning, which, as mentioned above, are only the practice of language policy. Among the few scholars, who categorized language policy, was Johnson (2013) whose integrative framework is presented in this work. Johnson (2013) articulated that there are four schemes based on which language policy can be classified. These schemes are mapped based on the following identifiers or criteria: Genesis, means and goals, documentation, and law and practice.

There are four typologies of language policy. The first typology, based on the genesis, classified language policy into two main categories, top-down and bottom-up. The former is carried out by people with power and authority (most of them are part of the body of the government) who make the decisions related to language in the state. The decisions are taken with minimal consultation with grassroots language learners and users, observed Kaplan and Baldauf (1997, p. 209). The latter, however, is derived by language learners and users. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that language policies are developed across multiple “levels” of policy creation and even a language policy typically considered bottom-up and become top-down. For instance, “a policy developed in a school district for that school district, can still be top-down for somebody (like, teachers or students)” (Johnson, 2013, p. 10). Accordingly, the terms “top-down” and “bottom-up” are relative since they depend on “who is doing the creating and who is doing the interpreting and appropriating” (Johnson, 2013, p. 10).

The second typology of language policy is defined by means and goals into two main types, overt and covert policies. To start with, overt policy, as its name suggests, is unhidden and overtly vocalizes spoken and written texts. Covert policy, however, intentionally makes no mention of any language in spoken and/or written texts. “The notion of ‘covert’ carries with it strong connotations of something that is intentionally concealed and, therefore, a covert policy is one which is intentionally hidden or veiled . . . , not openly shown, for either collusive or subversive reasons” (Johnson, 2013, p. 11). The slight difference between the overt/covert distinction from the following explicit/implicit dichotomy and the distinguishing characteristic proposed by Johnson is intent (Johnson, 2013, p. 11). He also provided a typology based on documentation in which language policy is either explicit or implicit. Explicit/implicit dichotomy points out to the official status of language whether it is officially stated or not and how a policy is documented. A typical example of this policy would be that of the status of English in the United States of America, for even though there is no official declaration of English as the official language, but unofficially, it certainly is (Johnson, 2013, p. 11).

The de jure and de facto labels are used slightly differently. Johnson (2013) asserted that respectively, “the terms are typically used to connote policies that are based on laws (de jure) versus what actually happens in reality or in practice (de facto)” (2013, p. 11). Johnson (2013) brought the situation of language policy in Morocco as a typical example of de jure and de facto policies. He argued that while the official languages are Arabic and Tamazight, in practice (in education) many Moroccans use French (p. 11). In this sense, it seems that the notion of de jure lines up with the notion of overt and explicit policies since all of them refer to the “official-ness” of language policy; nevertheless, Johnson paid attention to this overlap and in disambiguating it he asserted:

[A]n activity that is de facto is not necessarily covert or implicit or even a “policy” in the traditional sense—it is an activity that occurs in practice despite whatever the de jure policy states. This does appear to imply that whatever happens in practice is somewhat different than what is officially stated as a de jure language policy. For example, even within schools and classrooms which are officially monolingual, teachers can include the multilingualism of their students as resources for classroom practice. . . . In this case, de facto refers to both the classroom policy as created by the teacher and the classroom practices, which are closely related but (here proposed as) distinct nonetheless; thus de facto refers to locally produced policies that differ from what is explicitly stated (in law) and local practices that may be in line with local de facto policies but do not reflect what is officially documented in de jure policies. (Johnson, 2013, pp. 11–12, emphasis in original)

The distinction does not imply that policies do not overlap; in fact, it is worth noting that the above-discussed typologies are elusive since they are interconnected. That is, policies overlap both within and across typologies. For instance, a policy can be both top-down and bottom-up; top-down and covert; bottom-up and explicit, and so forth.

Factors Affecting Language Policy

Language policy is not a neutral phenomenon. In fact, the word “neutral” does not exist in the dictionaries of sciences. There is no phenomenon that can happen in vacuum. On the contrary, every phenomenon has some forces that influence and shape its nature and lead to its birth or rebirth. As such, there are many factors that influence language policy. The factors can be categorized into five main categories: political, linguistic, social-demographic, linguistic culture, and religion. Politics is a major force that influences language policy. The influence of the general policy of the former colonial powers, on the colonized countries across continents, is a typical example of the political factors’ influence on language policy. In Mauritania, or, say, the North African countries, for example, even though French was not the mother tongue of the people of the geographical area, it was imposed on the countries and thus gained the status of the official language in them. Even today, French, whether explicitly expressed as in the case of Mauritania or implicitly felt as in the case of Morocco, is the official language of the countries beside Arabic and Tamazight in some of them. What is more, some countries of the ex-colonizers, like Portugal, pursued a policy of restricted assimilation and discouraged the uses of the vernacular languages. Spencer (1974) stated that the Portuguese authorities asserted that “nothing may appear in print in an African language without a concurrent translation in Portuguese. Portuguese is the only language permitted in education” (p. 170). In addition, the counter narrative to the above-discussed colonial linguistic policy is an instant where politics influences language policy. In the 1960s, when almost all the ex-colonies got their independence, some of them elevated the status of the local languages as Mauritania did to Arabic.

Linguistic factors are mainly concerned with the status and character of language. With the fact that the ex-colonized countries are located in multilingual continents, Africa and Asia, the choice of selecting a national language was based on the very characteristics of the local languages. That is, codified languages were considered the best candidates for the states’ use. Given the fact that most of African languages are not codified, the colonial languages gained the race (Appel & Muysken, 2005, p. 56). In addition, the similarities between languages can influence language policy. For example, the predominance of Swahili in Tanzania was due to the fact that it is an amalgamation of well-nigh all languages that were spoken in Tanzanian’s history. Therefore, it was considered easy to understand and learn by all Tanzanians, observed Appel and Muysken (2005, p. 56).

Sociodemographic factors refer to the number of languages spoken, the numbers of their speakers, and their geographical distribution. A typical case is East Africa, particularly the contrast Tanzania-Kenya. Appel and Muysken (2005) stated that Tanzania has about a hundred languages. “The fact that these ethno-linguistic units were numerically small clearly favoured the selection of Swahili as a national language. . . . In contrast to Tanzania, Kenya has . . . small number of languages. They were able to compete with Swahili, and therefore English could strengthen its position” (p. 56). It is clear that the competition between languages to the position of national language is more strengthened whenever the number is big and less strengthened whenever the number is small. Pertinent example that depicts the influence of the number of the language speakers and their geographical distribution on language policy is Indonesia and Malaysia, which consist of thousands of islands. The fact that Malay became the lingua franca, a common language, was to a great extent determined by the number and distribution of its speakers. Malay is the mother tongue of people who lived in both sides of the Straits of Malacca, the most important sea rout in this sea. As such, Malay was chosen as a national language in Malaysia “and as the base for the national language Bahasa Indonesia in Indonesia, although it was culturally and quantitatively (with regard to numbers of mother-tongue speakers) not the most important language of the Malay-Polynesian group” (Appel & Muysken, 2005, p. 56).

Another factor, which has a great impact on language policy, is linguistic culture. By linguistic culture, is meant the beliefs about and attitudes toward language. As such, we line up our definition of linguistic culture with that of Schiffman who argued that it refers to “a set of behaviors, assumption, cultural forms, prejudices, folk belief systems, systems, attitudes, stereotypes, ways of thinking about language, and religio-historical circumstances associated with a particular language” (1996, p. 5). In this sense, the issue is more or less related to myths that are held about a language. Some languages were seen as primitive and others as more developed. By the same token, in contrast to monolingualism, bilingualism, and multilingualism were seen as an obstacle to political and economic stability as discussed earlier under the heading of “myths about language.” Accordingly, many states adopted monolingual approach in their language policy. In the United Sates, for instance, indigenous languages and immigrant languages have limited or no legal status because of the national attitudes toward language which favor monolingualism and consider multilingualism as unhealthy. Such view is reflected in the existence of English only Movement in the United States (Grenoble & Whaley, 2006, p. 30).

In addition to political, linguistic, social-demographic, linguistic culture, religious factor affects language policy. According to Ouedraogo (2000), Christianity, particularly Catholicism, has promoted the teaching of Latin and Greek in parochial schools such as seminaries (p. 36). Furthermore, Arabic is gaining more importance in new territories because of its relation to Islam since the Quran, the central religious text of Islam, is written in Arabic. Ouedraogo (2000) reported that religious pressure groups, in Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, and so forth, are creating schools where Arabic is either used as the medium of instruction or as main the subject matter. Because the groups have great influence on a considerable proportion of the people, politicians, and decision-makers cannot ignore their demands. The local groups are not alone; in fact, the Arabic-speaking countries and international organizations related to the Islamic world, say, the organization of Islamic conference, the Islamic Bank of Development, the Islamic education, science and cultural organization, support and call for the promotion of Arabic in the countries where Islam is the religion of the majority of the population (p. 36). As a result, and because of its relation to Islam, Ouedraogo concluded that “Arabic is likely to emerge as the third language of wider communication alongside English and French” (2000, p. 36).

Identity

In his introductory note to identity, Riley (2007) stated that for over 2,000 years, identity has been viewed “as a philosophical aporia, a problem so deep that we can hardly formulate the questions, let alone the answers.” Some thoughts of just how knotty a problem is can be collected from the fact that “not only is the debate as intense now as it was in the times of Aristotle or Aquinas, say, but it is still essentially about the same issues and concepts” (p. 70). Riley’s remark reveals that even though enormous works have been generated about identity, a single overarching framework of it is a far-reaching goal. Similar observations about identity are made by Erikson (1974) who thought that identity is a phenomenon which “the more one writes about,” the more it “becomes a term for something as unfathomable as it is all-pervasive” (p. 9). Nonetheless, in order to comprehend this all-pervasive notion, some of the different conceptualizations that this notion has been subjected to in the literature are mapped out in this study. In so doing, its definitions, theories, types, and factors, which affect it, are explained.

Defining Identity

The term “identity” is derived from the Latin word idem, which indicates sameness and lack of change and is, indeed, still used in this sense, though most frequently in its adjective form “identical.” The Latin word identitas, nevertheless, refers to “the way in which the substantia of an entity remains the same despite all the changes undergone by its accidentes” (Van der Ven, 1994, p. 28). Both Latin words idem and identitas, the root for the English word “identity” and its synonyms, rest on the idea of sameness. The idea of sameness, which suggests uniqueness, people difference in relation to others, and which defines identity according to the above-stated Latin terminologies, crosses freely into the minds of many scholars. Nonetheless, the sameness in relation to difference cannot be pinned down in one single definition since there are many factors, ethnicity and gender, to name but two, which lead people to define themselves in different places at different times. The following definitions run some of the different views of identity.

In The Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English two definitions of identity were given. The first one described identity as “1. state of being identical; absolute sameness; exact likeness. 2. who sb. is; what sth. is” (Hornby, Gatenby, & Wakefield, 1963). In the definitions, identity is regarded as the distinction of sameness form change or unity from diversity. In addition, in the APA Dictionary of Psychology, identity was described as “an individual’s sense of self defined by (1) a set of physical and psychological characteristics that is not wholly shared with any other person and (2) a range of social and interpersonal affiliations (e.g., ethnicity) and social roles” (Vandenbos, 2006, p. 312). Unlike the first definition’s incomplete introduction to the idea of sameness as the definition of identity, the last definition gives it more references. The idea of sameness is introduced as external features and internal characteristics that distinguish an individual or group of people from others; thus, the distinctions render a particular uniqueness.

Furthermore, Castells stated: “by identity, as it refers to social actors, I understand the process of construction of meaning on the basis of a cultural attribute, or related set of cultural attributes, that is/are given priority over other sources of meaning” (2002, p. 6). The definition relates identity to culture and highlights the plurality and hierarchization of identities. Another definition that captures identity through the lenses of a range of sociocultural, religious, and biological dimensions runs in the following lines: “Identity is . . . the way individuals and groups define themselves and are defined by others on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, language, and culture” (Deng, 1995, p. 1). Clearly, identity is determined by many factors. As such, there are many identities that an individual or group of people who share one or some of such factors can have.

In this sense, identity is an ongoing process that is limited by neither time nor place, but rather by different traits that distinguish an individual or a group of people from others. “Indeed, identity is objectively defined as location in a certain world and can be subjectively appropriated only along with that world. . . . [A] coherent identity incorporates within itself all the various internalized roles and attitudes” (Berger & Luckmann, 1966, p. 132). A similar definition was spelled out in the form of question by Clifford “what if identity is conceived not as a boundary to be maintained but as a nexus of relations and transactions actively engaging a subject?” (Clifford, 1988, p. 344). Consolidating such views, Hall (1991) reminded both the readers and the writers that “we have now to re-conceptualize identity as a process of identification. . . . It is something that happens over time, that is never absolutely stable, that is subject to the play of history and the play of difference” (p. 15). The definitions present the premise that an individual or group’s identity changes over time as the roles they play are shifted, and/or the individual or group of people with whom the contrast is made changes.

As a concluding definition to such all-pervasive notion, Erikson’s discussion of identity is invoked. He argued that it is impossible to have a single overarching definition to the term. This is because, as he mentioned, “at one time . . . [identity] will appear to refer to a conscious sense of individual identity; at another to an unconscious striving for a continuity of synthesis.” Additionally, it appears “as a criterion for the silent doings of ego synthesis, and finally, as a maintenance of an inner solidarity with a group’s ideals and identity.” In such different reflections of identity, Erikson pointed out that identity connotes both “persistent sameness within oneself” and “a persistent sharing of some kind of essential character with others” (Erikson, 1956, pp. 56–57). Indeed, the trail of arguments about identity which are spelled above leads one to argue that identity is an indefinable concept in terms of fixed positions which are a priori defined and ready to be stepped into. In contrast, “identity” is a slippery term which can be understood only through the dialectical relations between and across self and other based on internal and external determining factors, such as age, gender, race, religion, and so forth. Based on the different determining factors, identity is both what constitutes an individual in relation to himself or herself and what constitutes him or her in relation with other groups. As such, everyone has one and numerous identities based on the traits s/he is put against either by himself/herself or by others.

Theories of Identity

Castells started his book, The Power of Identity, with the statement: “Our world [sic] and our lives, [sic] are being shaped by the conflicting trends of globalization and identity” (2002, p. 1). He thought of identity as a powerful phenomenon, alongside, and aroused by, globalization. Whatever form it takes, and whatever implications it carries, identity has occupied the center-stage, not only in world politics but also in the world of humanities and the social science (Weedon, 2004, p. 1). Indeed, identity has attracted the interest of scholars from a wide spectrum of scientific disciplines. The spectrum includes, inter alia, philosophy (e.g., Flanagan, 1994; Popper & Eccles, 1977; Strawson, 1997), anthropology and cultural studies (e.g., Hall, 1992; Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner, & Cain, 1998), political science (e.g., Preston, 1997), sociology (e.g., Stryker & Statham, 1985), and psychology (e.g., Baumeister, 1986; Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987).

Even though identity has developed as a field of study and has branched out into various disciplines and directions, two important issues about identity remain constant, identity as essence and as difference, identity as individualist and as collectivist, identity as singular and as plural, identity as real and as imaginative, which can be thought of as markers pointing to two different poles of the wider spectrum of these scientific disciplines contributing to the study of identity. That is, the debate over identity hinges on paradoxical combination sameness and difference. In order to lay out some of the different perspectives about the discussion of these paradoxical combinations, one can group the scholars of the different disciplines, who have approached identity, into what one can name the “five modes of thinking on identity,” individualist, essentialist, symbolic interactionist, postmodernist and postpositivism realist. To be scholarly to some extent, it is worth noting, however, that this researcher is aware of the problematic issue of grouping people inside and across these different modes of thinking since every scholar in a way or another viewed identity in a different way. As such, it is clear that presenting a scholar or some scholars’ thought as representative to the whole group is problematic; however, an equidistant position from Feyerabend’s radical relativism—“unless we want to assume that they [theories or assumptions] deal with nothing at all we must admit that they deal with different [conceptual] worlds” (Feyerabend, 1978, p. 70)—leads the investigated effort of grouping and representing some scholars as comforting to the whole group’s views to be laudable since the invited scholars express more or less the same views of the uninvited ones inside each of the different groupings.

To start with, individualists believe, primarily, in what Appiah (2005) called “the autarky of the soul” (p. 70). That is to say individualists lessen the reliance on the other when identifying the self. According to them, “the person, the personality, the inner core of the personality or, literally, the self” is the referent of self-concept or identity. “One could talk of an idyllic, lone being contemplating about oneself in a Wordsworthian world. Such an outlook emanated from personality psychology” [sic] (Mehdi, 2012, p. 32). In Lawler’s words, the uniqueness or sameness “is seen as something which belongs to the person in question and is nothing to do with the social world. The social world might impact upon it and shape it, but (it is generally assumed) it does not make it” (2014, p. 15).

However, the begging question is what is that thing inside us which makes us unique? The answer was offered by Lawler. He argued that in some versions, it might be a unique mixture “of genes; in others, it is a ‘soul’.” Nevertheless, “that posits some notion of some part of a person that is not produced by the social world, what is being posited is an essence. . . . It is often seen as what lies ‘inside’ and is understood as being ‘deeper’ or ‘truer’ than what is ‘outside’” (2014, p. 15, emphasis in original). Lawler seems to hold a view of identity that praises the inner core of the person and thus makes him the determinant marker of an individual or a group of people’s identity. However, the use of the terms “deeper” and “truer” entails that there is another identity which is less deep and true, for, linguistically speaking, the two terms are used in the form of comparative adjectives. In other words, individualists posit that there are two ways through which identity should be looked, identity distanced from society and identity interlocked with it; nonetheless, they choose the former which they regarded as deeper and truer.

Furthermore, the standpoint, which emphasizes true identity, attracted Elias’s attention. He confessed that this distinction between the inside and outside, true and less true was widely held by many people from roughly the Renaissance on. In contemporary sociology, the same basic experience finds theoretical expression in the acting ego, which finds itself confronted with people outside as others (Elias, 1994, p. 473). Even though Elias posited that “at most one can . . . juxtapose the two conceptions unconnectedly, that of the individual as homo clausus, as ego, as individual beyond society, and that of society as a system outside and beyond individuals” (Elias, 1994, pp. 472–473), and dedicated much space of his book to explaining this juxtaposition as reflected in the excerpts cited earlier, he called for the need to go beyond this “dead end of sociology and political sciences” (Elias, 1994, p. 473). Elias’ call for the need to go beyond such juxtaposition is a reflection of his views of its limitation. For him, the juxtaposition suppresses an alternative view which understands identity in terms of their relation to a web of other identities. In other words, he calls for an understanding of identity that is formed between rather than within the individuals. Such view is what conceptualized the individual as a being. He suggested a view of identity that bridges the individual with the society, the inner core with the outside world. Elias’s position is a social constructionist critique to individualism and essentialism which are introduced next (Elias, 1994, pp. 481–482).

Essentialism is another mode of thinking which sees identity, even though in terms of essence, differently from individualism. While individualism attributed uniqueness and authenticity to the individual, essentialism attributed them to a group of people. Essentialism, then, is seen as the “reiterated and totalizing use of ethnonyms: entire groups are hypostatized as cohesive entities” (Conversi, 2003, p. 271). The essentialist approach is reinforced by Romanticist arguments, “to be yourself; to be true to your nature” (Calhoun, 1994, p. 15). In this sense, essentialists structure the “common sense” of identity. They situate identity, or some part of it, in the sphere of some aspects of the person’s nature rather than in the social relations. That is, identity is understood as an essence. “[A]n essence refers to something fundamental and integral to the person, which is not alterable (it is not possible to ‘be’ contrary to one’s essence) and is held to persist throughout time and despite other social changes” (Lawler, 2014, pp. 17–18). The essence, as mentioned earlier, stems primarily from some aspects that are related to the individual: The body (biological essentialism) or the mind (psychological essentialism) or as existing in a ‘soul’ (religious essentialism). “Whatever the form, an essence of identity is understood as being ‘internal’ and as divided from the ‘external’ world of others” (Lawler, 2014, p. 18).

To lay out some of the essentialists’ thought very clearly, an example is worth mentioning. They posit gender as the sole aspect which determines the social meaning of the individual experience. They tend to describe one woman in terms of the others. They blur all possible distinctions such as social class, literacy, motherhood, and so forth, between women; as a result, they generalize that a woman is the same as other woman in every corner of the world. According to Lawler, essentialists consider a slave woman living in antebellum America can experience her “womanness” in the same way a middle-class housewife living in Victorian England might do. Moreover, they argue that two women living in close proximity to each other (such as a Zulu maid and her Afrikaner madam) can be so similarly “situated in relation to the category of gender that their experiences, and the social meanings inscribed in those experiences, can be usefully described in the same terms” (Moya, 2000, p. 3). The representations of identity are criticized by many scholars. For example, according to Moya, “the social meanings attached to each woman’s gender might be so different as to render the project of describing one woman in terms of the other meaningless” (2000, p. 3).

In fact, essentialists’ tendency to perceive identity primarily in light of social categories, such as gender, class, age and ethnicity, should be appreciative, for on daily basis, people from all walks of life claim membership based on such categories. However, as critics said, the problem with essentialists is that their essentialization does not take into account the variation of the contexts of the attributes. No speech can be made about one context as the essentialists seemed to do. On the contrary, every attribute operates within different contexts and thus gives the individual different meanings of himself or herself.

There are variants of essentialism. Bucholtz (2003) anchored her theory of “authentication of identity” to a distinction she drew between essentialism and strategic essentialism. In so doing, she pointed out that essentialism actually serves a positive end in the way that it enables researchers to “identify a previously undescribed group and offer a preliminary description” (p. 400). She further added that, essentialism, for group members, “promotes a shared identity, often in opposition to other, equally essentialized social groups,” whereas the latter “may be a deliberate move to enable scholarly activity, to forge a political alliance through the creation of common identity, or to otherwise provide a temporarily stable ground for further social action” (Bucholtz, 2003, p. 401). Bucholtz’s typology seems to lessen the critique which is directed to essentialism’s representation of identity.

In addition to individualism and essentialism, symbolic interactionism has its own picture of identity formation. “The symbolic interactionist perspective, associated with the Chicago school of sociology, seems to provide the link between psychologists’ lone individual and sociologists’ social processes. In its approach, identity is the process through which individuals become members of the society” (Mehdi, 2012, p. 34). Mead and Cooley are perhaps the main theorists of symbolic interactionism beside James, Strauss, and others. As such, let us consider the main theorists views about identity. To start with, Cooley asserted that “self and society are twin-born” (1962, p. 5). It seems that symbolic interactionism is moving us away from the static categorization of individualism and essentialism. Indeed, Cooley reveals that the individual and the society are interlocked. That is, the individual is “always cause as well as effect of the institutions” (Cooley, 1962, p. 314).

In order to explain how identity is constructed, Cooley coined the phrase “looking- glass self.” The reflective process, which this phrase suggests, is explained in Cooley’s words as follows:

As we see our face, figure, and dress in the glass, and are interested in them because they are ours, and pleased or otherwise with them according as they do or do not answer to what we should like them to be, so in imagination we perceive in another’s mind some thought of our appearance, manners, aims, deeds, character, friends, and so on, and are variously affected by it. A self-idea [self-image] of this sort seems to have three principal elements: the imagination of our appearance to the other person; the imagination of his judgment of that appearance; and some sort of self-feeling, such as pride or mortification. . . . The thing that moves us to pride or shame is not the mere mechanical reflection of ourselves, but an imputed sentiment, the imagined effect of this reflection upon another’s mind. . . . We are ashamed to seem evasive in the presence of a straightforward man, cowardly in the presence of a brave one, gross in the eyes of a refined one, and so on. We always imagine, and in imagining share, the judgment of the other mind. (1964, p. 184)

Cooley’s metaphor of “looking-glass self” reinforces that self is formed and maintained through ongoing interaction with and evaluation of (imagined ones) the others. As such, Cooley sees identity formation as a life-long process; accordingly, personality and self-concept are not stable or fixed.

Drawing on Cooley’s “looking-glass self,” Mead (1934) developed his own theory of the self. For Mead, the self is socially constructed. He wrote “the self is something which has a development; it is not initially there, at birth, but arises in the process of social experience and activity” (p. 135). Such quotation demonstrates that Mead opted for interaction between the self and society in identity construction. The sense of sameness and difference that underlies “identities” arises as we participate in what Mead (1934) called the “conversation of gestures” (p. 43). Therefore, we can only comprehend ideas and concepts through our engagement with the symbolic, the gesture, the word, the representation. Mead introduced the notion of “I” and “me” to illustrate his views about identity more explicitly. The “I”/“me” are Mead’s two dynamic aspects of the self.

The “I” is the response of the organism to the attitudes of the others; the “me” is the organized set of attitudes of others which one himself assumes. . . . The “I” is his action over/against that social situation within his own conduct. . . . The “I” gives the sense of freedom, of initiative. (Mead, 1934, pp. 175–177)

Such distinction reveals that the “I” stands for the individual’s own perception of himself or herself, and the “me” reflects his or her interlocutor’s perception about him or her. Elsewhere, Mead added that the “me” embodies the “generalized other,” “the organized community or social group which gives to the individual his [sic] unity of self” (1934, p. 154). As a result of the dialectical relationship between the two aspects of the self, the “I” and “me,” Mead asserted that individuals are characterized by different identities. Every individual has multiple identities since his or her identity is constructed through their relationship with different interlocutors who keep changing. The self is not a stable entity across time, but it changes as the context changes. Indeed, Mead said: “a multiple personality is in a certain sense normal. . . . There is usually an organization of the whole self with reference to the community to which we belong, and the situation in which we find ourselves” (pp. 142–143). Mead’s view about identity construction has similarities with the postmodernist perspectives which are introduced next since both of them perceive that the individual is able to change his or her identity in line with the changing social context. Nevertheless, “Mead’s concept pointed out to the differing variants of a single identity, “parts of the self,” (1934, p. 142) and not of multiple, fragmented identities, postmodernist view.

From symbolic interactionism, we move on to what Mehdi called “cultural constructivism” (2012, p. 39). “A media culture has emerged in which images, sounds, and spectacles help produce the fabric of everyday life, dominating leisure time, shaping political views and social behavior, and providing the materials out of which people forge their very identities” (Kellner, 1995, p. 1). This is the culture of the postmodern, in which one seizes no essence (depth) and is shaped incessantly by the whims fashion. As such, postmodernist called for the death of “metanarrative” and thus meta-identity, of a grand sense of self, for they assert that people have fragmented multiple selves instead of fixed and stable ones. In Kellner’s words, “once upon a time, it was who you were, what you did, what kind of a person you were—your moral, political, and existential choices and commitments, which constituted individual identity. But [sic] today it is how you look, your image, your style, and how you appear that constitutes identity” (Kellner, 1995, p. 259). It is clear that postmodernist theorists believe neither in a true self nor in continuity in or unification of our selves.

Drawing a comparison between modernism and postmodernism, Bauman (2002) remarked that “[i]ndeed, if the modern ‘problem of identity’ was how to construct an identity and keep it solid and stable, the postmodern ‘problem of identity’ is primarily how to avoid fixation and keep the options open.” He added: “in the case of identity. . . . The catchword of modernity was creation; the catchword of postmodernity is recycling” (p. 18). Clearly, the postmodernist identity is flexible and uneven that its meaning in the sense of “sameness” and continuity has to be replaced with “difference.” It is an unattainable phenomenon.

“[I]dentity,” though ostensibly a noun, behaves like a verb, albeit a strange one to be sure: it appears only in the future tense. Though all too often hypostasized as an attribute of a material entity/ identity has the ontological status of a project and a postulate. To say “postulated identity” is to say one word too many, as neither there is nor can there be any other identity but a postulated one. Identity is a critical projection of what is demanded and/or sought upon what is; or, more exactly still, an oblique assertion of the inadequacy or incompleteness of the latter. (Bauman, 2002, p. 19)

Such citation summarizes postmodernist view of identity. Identity, for postmodernist, is fragmented and characterized by loss and uncertainty.

With the construction of identity, the postmodern perspectives are mainly concerned about the “I” and “we,” and “us,” for, as Mehdi observed, “it is the intense winds of fashion and power blowing inside us that shape our identities” (2012, p. 40). Baudrillard expressed this view by saying that there is no “other” out there in the society that can identify us in the process of interaction. Put in his words, “[i]t’s no longer possible either to hope to come to existence in and through the eye of the other for there is no longer a dialectic of identity . . . everyone is . . . called upon to appear, just appear, without worrying too much about being” (Baudrillard cited in Gane, 1993, p. 41). It is clear in the citation that postmodernists distance themselves from the interlocutor when it comes to agency. Thus, as mentioned earlier, they consider social actors as irrelevant to the “moral” and “political growth” of the individual (Mohanty, 2000, p. 32). It is revealed also in the citation that they attain the distinction between “I” and “me.” However, this distinction is not meant to distinguish between two stable blocks, the self and the other, that might construct a stable and unified identity. In contrast, the distinction directs attention to the multiplicity of the self as a result of the plurality of the other, the context. This is because, as argued earlier, the postmodern subject is conceptualized as being fragmented and his or her identity as permanently shifting, as one that is “formed and transformed continuously in relation to the ways we are represented or addressed in the cultural systems which surround us” (Hall, 1992, p. 277). “It is from this position that the postmodernists and poststructuralists say that identity is in reality a myth, illusion, a construct of discourse and power, ‘false consciousness,’ a prototype of society’s reigning cultural scripts” (Mehdi, 2012, p. 40).

It is worth noting that the postmodernist proposition of a fragmented identity does not mean that they do negate the existence of an identity. Instead, they see that the individual holds a privileged identity vis-à-vis the society. However, the construction of this identity is promoted through the experiences or interpretations “thereof, that strengthen people’s individual identities (or their placeholders)” (Simon, 2004, p. 65). However, the postmodern perspective of identity did not remain unchallenged. Postpositivist realist, for example, maintained:

Postmodernist conceptions—which tend to deny that identities either refer to, or are causally influenced by, the social world—have been unable to evaluate the legitimacy or illegitimacy of different identity claims. Because postmodernists are reluctant to admit that identities refer outward (with varying degrees of accuracy) to our shared world, they see all identities as arbitrary and as unconnected to social and economic structures. This renders postmodernists incapable of judging the male patriarch (whose identity claims might include a belief in his own gender superiority) as being more or less credible than, say, a woman (whose identity claims might include a belief in her own disadvantaged position vis-a-vis a “glass ceiling”). My point . . . is not to say which one of these individual’s identity claims is more justified, but simply to suggest that the issue is at least partly an empirical one: the different identity claims cannot be examined, tested, and judged without reference to existing social and economic structures. (Moya, 2000, pp. 10–11)

The postpositivism realists’ discontent with postmodernist view about the discontinuity, uncertainty and fragmentation of identity is clear in the above citation. They claim to be the first organized block that gives an alternative to the essentialist, interactionist, and postmodernist views about identity (Moya, 2000, p. 11).

The postpositivism realist viewed that identity is both real and constructed. They “show . . . how identities can be both real and constructed: how they can be politically and epistemically significant, on the one hand, and variable, nonessential, and radically historical, on the other” (Mohanty cited in Moya, 2000, p. 12). To how question to this view, the leading scholar of postpositivsm realist, Mohanty added “individual knowledge is based on cognitive theoretical grounds on which knowledge is constructed. In effect, people construct their knowledge from the resources they have with group knowledge from personal and social experiences, and interactions based on cognitively mediated processes” (Mohanty cited in Liggett, 2010, p. 93).

Mohanty (2000) further asserted the epistemic privilege of the oppressed is partially influenced and shaped by social location “and that it needs to be understood and revised hermeneutically” (p. 58). It seems that postpositivist realists deny the postmodernist irrelevant social actors and thus the fragmentation of identity. For them, the individual can understand his or her identity only when s/he sets it against the social actors; as a result, s/he would be able to revise his or her identity. When the individual perceives information and knowledge from his or her interlocutor, s/he will revise it and then define himself/or herself accordingly. Before closing on the different threads about identity which have been discussed so far, it is worth noting that individuals have essence, and such essence is both internal and external to the individual. Put differently, the body as a whole encompasses the internal essence, and the society at large has the individual’s whole body besides other bodies. As such, the identity formation is strategic in the sense of symbolic interactionist and realist in the sense of postpositivism realist. In other words, the individual constructs his or her identity through a dialectic relation with the social world. Since the social world is characterized by plurality, the individual’s identity is real and multiple. In every context, the individual can construct an identity that fits such context. In the classroom, for instance, based on a complex set or configuration of self-aspects, gender, race and so forth, and the interlocutor’s aspects, a professor forms his or her identity as a result of the existence in the classroom setting and the students. The same professor, based on the same self-aspects and the interlocutor’s aspects, is likely to construct other identities when s/he is in the presence of his/or her wife/or husband or children in the house. In this way, the construction of the individual’s identity follows up.

Types of Identity

According to Burke (2003), it is almost a truism to say that everyone has numerous identities (p. 195). Indeed, the aforementioned theories indicated the individual’s identity shifts as the context and the interlocutors change. Such idea was expressed in Huntington’s words: “Everyone has multiple identities which may compete with or reinforce each other: kinship, occupational, cultural, institutional, territorial, educational, partisan, ideological, and others” (1996, p. 128). Some scholars have categorized such multiple identities into three main categories: personal, role, and social (Smith-Lovin, 2003, p. 170). Others have followed another typology, social, personal, and collective (Rydgren, 2004, p. 47). From the different typologies, we follow the last one since role identity, which was mentioned in the former typology, is part and parcel of the social identity as will be explained later.

To begin with, personal identity refers to “one’s unique personal characteristics such as personality, relationships, and self-esteem” (Taknint, 2015, p. 2). “Personal identity refers to specific attributes of the individual such as feelings of competence, bodily characteristics, intellectual concerns, personal tastes and interests” (West, Nicholson, & Arnold, 1987, p. 155). Another definition of personal identity is offered by Marohl. “Personal identity is the term given to that aspect of the individual’s identity that is unique to the individual and may be based upon a relationship with another individual, or object, or upon a unique attribute of the individual” (Marohl, 2014, p. 99). The definitions illustrate that personal identity is about specific attributes which are relatively unique to a particular individual.

The attributes, based on which the person can define himself/or herself, are divided into three main groups: individual self, relational self, and collective self. The individual self refers to the unique traits and characteristics which are derived from interpersonal comparison and differentiation processes. The relational self points out to a set of attributes which are shared with relationship partners, parent-child relationships, friendships, and romantic relationships as well as specific role relationships such as teacher-student or clinician-client. The personal identity, here, is constructed and represented as a result of appraisal or motive. Finally, the collective self is achieved when the person draws comparison and contrast between a set of attributes of his or her in-group and out-groups (Sedikides & Brewer, 2001, pp. 1–2). In this division, Sedikides and Brewer equate the personal identity with self-identity.

It is worth highlighting that the above-cited division elucidates that personal identity has social extensions, relational and collective ones. In fact, such extensions are required, for personal identities “serve as the pegs upon which social identities and personal biographies can be hung. If an individual could not be recognized from one occasion to another as the same person, no stable social relationships could be constructed, and therefore there would be no social identities at all” (McCall & Simmons, 1966, p. 65).

In the same vein, Edwards posited that even though personal identity—or personality—is essentially “the summary statement of all our individual traits, characteristics and dispositions, it is important to realise that individuality does not arise through the possession of psychological components not to be found in anyone else” (2009, p. 19). Rather, it is logical to see

[t]he uniqueness of the individual comes about, then, through the particular combination or weighting of building blocks drawn from a common human store. To accept this is to accept that no rigid distinction can in fact be made between personality and social identity. Again, this is a view of very long standing: “no man is an island, entire of itself.” . . . Our personal characteristics derive from our socialisation within the group (or, rather, groups) to which we belong; one’s particular social context defines that part of the larger human pool of potential from which a personal identity can be constructed. Thus, individual identities will be both components and reflections of particular social (or cultural) ones. (Edwards, 2009, p. 20)

Edwards illustrates above the overlap between personal identity and social identity is unavoidable since as cited above “no man is an island, entire of itself.” In other words, personal identity cannot be constructed and represented without the reliance on and the mention of social dimensions, say, race, for example.

It should be noted that the three sets of attributes, individual, relational, and collective, of the individual are not only relatively unique but also continuous. In fact, the uniqueness and the continuity of the individual are two components of personal identity. Hart, Maloney, and Damon (1987), for instance, stated

for an individual to believe that she will be the same person five years from now, she must suppose that the person that will be her in the future has developed out of the person she is now (causally related). She also must believe that she will grow into only one person in the future (unique); if there are many people who could be her in the future, then her sense of personal identity would be disrupted. (Hart, Maloney, & Damon, 1987, p. 66)

It seems that a feeling of individuality is characterized by a relatively unique set of attributes that are expressed over time.

Beside the uniquely sense of personal identity, there is also collective identity that represents the various groups to which the individuals belong. Collective identity is understood in terms of social categories. An influential formulation of collective identity was offered by Taylor and Whittier (1992) who defined collective identity as “the shared definition of a group that derives from members’ common interests, experiences and solidarity” (p. 105). The citation exhibits that collective identity refers to “we,” the group, instead of the “I” the person in personal identity. Just as personal identity, the group identity or collective identity is derived from a set of attributes which are shared between the members of one group and different from other significant groups. The attributes of the collective identities can be understood as (potentially) encompassing shared interests, ideologies, subcultures, goals, rituals, practices, values, worldview, commitment, solidarity, tactics, strategies (Fominaya, 2010, p. 398), occupations (role identities), religious affiliation, and country of citizenship (Carducci, 2009, p. 478). Clearly, collective identity refers to unique attributes shared by group of people and thus set them apart from other groups. Like personal identity, collective identity is not fixed, but is in constant construction and negotiation through repeated interaction among the group members.

The final label of identity is social identity. A social identity is identification in terms of membership in a social category. For instance, a person can construct his or her social identity based on a broad social category such as race, religion, gender, age, class, and so on. Individuals can have also social identity based on their social roles such as an occupation, say, professor and soldier or family roles, say, husband and wife. “In both of these cases, social identities, which are often rooted in categorical ascriptions or memberships, are based on social interaction and through this process are given to an actor by others” (Sherrod, Flanagan, & Kassimir, 2006, p. 320). Another definition to social identity came from Snow. He stated that a social identity is an identity attributed to others in an effort to situate them in social space. “They are grounded typically in established social roles, such as ‘teacher’ and ‘mother,’ or in broader and more inclusive social categories, such as gender categories or ethnic and national categories, and thus are often referred to as ‘role identities’ . . . and ‘categorical identities’” (Snow, 2001, p. 3). The definitions emphasize that social identity is derived from and attached to a particular social category of the group to which the individual belongs. They show also that social identity is often given to the person in contrast with personal identity where the individual self-defines himself/or herself. Such distinction is one of the instances where social personality distances itself from personal identity though they frequently overlap.

Indeed, as shown earlier, “our personal characteristics derive from our socialisation within the group (or, rather, groups) to which we belong. . . . Thus, individual identities will be both components and reflections of particular social (or cultural) ones” (Edwards, 2009, p. 20). In fact, the overlap does not occur only between social identity and personal identity but crosses freely to the three types of identity. Such overlap is likely to be the reason behind Brewer and Gardner’s description of all of them as “social selves” (1996, p. 83). In addition, Llamas’ definition of social identity mentioned that social identity is part and partial of both individual identity and collective identity and that this concept, social identity, pervades in the writing of researchers and scholars who investigate human behavior both individual and collective (Llamas, 2006, p. 95). Another mention of the strong ties between the three types of identity, personal, collective, and social identities, came from Lawler who asserted that “there is no aspect of identity that lies outside social relations” (Lawler, 2014, p. 180).

Markers of Identity

No one can argue that someone engages in self, collective, and/or social interpretation as a “tabula rasa,” for identity markers are born with the person. Indeed, from the day s/he is born, the individual has his or her chains of markers, personal traits (age, ideology, and sex) and shared attributes (cultures, ethnicity, and religion) based on which s/he relies when defining himself or herself. This is what led to the general agreement or ascription to the statement that people have multiple identities. Although a complete list of the factors affecting the construction of identity is an impossible attainment since they are related to the person and the social world with which s/he interacts, a “laundry list” of some of the most common ones, that are discussed in the literature, namely, gender, race and ethnicity, occupation, and place, is charted out. To eschew redundancy, language is held for later discussion.

To start with gender, Harris (1995) started his book, Messages Men Hear: Constructing Masculinities, with the following passage:

All boys are born innocent, capable of becoming Charles Manson or Dr Martin Luther King Jr. With constant love and nourishment boys have the capacity to grow into cuddly teddy bears. With hatred, abuse, and abandonment they can become fierce grizzlies. Young boys become men by responding to situational demands and social pressures. Surrounded with expectations about how they, as men, ought to behave, boys have to sift through various demands placed upon them by their culture, their associates, their teachers, their friends, and their family to construct their own gender identities. (p. 9)

Clearly, based on biological differences and as a result of socialization, people construct gender identities. It seems also that individuals are rewarded by the different social actors, say, parents and professors, for constructing such identities and thus conforming to gender roles which are assigned to them. The concept “gender identity” refers to “an individual’s own feelings of whether he or she is a woman or man, a girl or a boy. In essence [sic] gender identity is self attribution of gender” (Kessler & McKenna, 1978, p. 8). It is clear, then, that gender is a significant marker of identity.

Furthermore, people are frequently situated on the axes of ethnicity and race. However, before providing an example, it is worth clearing up the terms “ethnicity” and “race” and clearing some common misunderstanding of them.

“[R]ace” is a social category based on the identification of (1) a physical marker transmitted through reproduction and (2) individual, group and cultural attributes associated with that marker. Defined as such, race is, then, a form of ethnicity, but distinguished from other forms of ethnicity by the identification of distinguishing physical characteristics, which, among other things, make it more difficult for members of the group to change their identity. (Smelser, Wilson, & Mitchell, 2001, p. 3, emphasis in original)

Smelser, Wilson, and Mitchell do not provide a more detailed definition to ethnicity, in the above citation, as they did with the term “race.” Below is another example that explains the two terms and thus distinguishes between them. Race is associated “with biologically based differences between human groups, differences typically observable in skin color, hair texture, eye shape, and other physical attributes. “Ethnicity” tends to be associated with culture, pertaining to such factors as language, religion, and nationality” (Bobo, 2001, p. 267). Bobo (2001) further added: “[a]lthough perceived racial distinctions often result in sharper and more persistent barriers than ethnic distinctions, this is not invariably the case, and both share elements of presumed common descent or ascriptive inheritance” (p. 267). The cited references demonstrate that race and ethnicity are different terms. There are some criteria that separate the two terms. The criteria are summed up primarily in the cultural icons and language, for example. While both terms point out to the physical appearance, the cultural icons are particular markers of ethnicity.

The definitions of the terms “ethnicity” and “race,” provided above, show that the terms categorize people into different categories and thus mark them from other significant groups. The following citation shows that people single out others and classify them based on their race and ethnicity. “people confuse me for an African American. . . . They ask me, ‘Are you Black?’ I’m like, ‘No, I’m Hispanic. . . . ’ Because . . . the way I talk, my hair . . . I use a lot of slang. You can confuse . . . Dominicans as African American by their color” (Bailey, 2000, p. 565). The excerpt illustrates race and ethnicity in action. The speaker said that he is always marked out based on his physical appearance (race and ethnicity) and his language (ethnicity).

Moreover, the individual’s role is a fundamental marker to his or her identity. Such role can be an occupation or a family role. According to Weaver, Reid, Valien, and Johnson (1939), occupation refers to any employment for which wages is to be received (p. 86). The role of the family, remarked White and Klein (2002), refers to a partnership between members of the family, such as father-daughter, husband-wife and so forth (p. 96). Based on such roles, people define and are defined by others. Many organizations, companies, and institutions give their workers a particular cloth that sets them apart from those who do not work in them. When people also are asked to introduce themselves, they tend to identify themselves based on their roles. For instance,

Japanese businessmen employed by large corporations have traditionally worn a small lapel pin to signal their company affiliation . . . some [people] in the United States . . . wear a polo shirt or a tie with a company logo. . . . In Japan a person’s organizational identity is so important that during introductions the company’s name is given before the individual’s name . . . In the United States an individual is introduced first by his or her name, followed by the organization. (Samovar, Porter, McDaniel, & Roy, 2007, p. 222)

The above examples offer insight to how occupation stresses identity. People practice their identity on daily basis based on their affiliation to their job organizations.

In addition to gender, race, ethnicity, and occupation, place has a great impact on the way people define themselves. Place is a “geographical space that has acquired meaning as a result of a person’s interaction with the space” (Hauge, 2007, p. 3). Place identity, then, is defined as a “potpourri of memories, conceptions, interpretations, ideas, and related feelings about specific physical settings, as well as types of settings” (Proshansky, Fabian, & Kaminoff, 1983, p. 60). Many theories have been developed in recent decades to explain the impact of place on identity, place-identity theory, social identity theory, and identity process theory, to name but few. Nevertheless, since the scope of the study is beyond such theories and due to lack of space, only ­typical examples are introduced to show the importance of place is as an identity marker.

In his study, Munroe (2002) concluded that, in the Caribbean, individuals define themselves primarily on the bases of their island identity, whether they are Jamaican, St Lucia, or Barbadian. They did so in relation to other people who belong to different places. They transcended race, ethnicity religion, and all identity markers and relied primarily on their geographical affiliation when they introduced themselves (p. 13). It is clear that people’s belonging to geographical space lead them to define themselves accordingly. In fact, people from all around the world define themselves based on their affiliation to a particular space. People’s geographical affiliation is spelled out in almost every identification card. When they are out of their homeland, people also tend to define themselves based on their geographic affiliation. Succinctly, people are situated on different axes, race, ethnicity, gender, place, to name but few. As the setting or the context shifts, people choose to rely on one or some of these axes. For instance, in the house, people adopt their family role identity such as son, daughter, father, mother, and so on. In the university, the same people may shift to other axes such as by occupation; thus, they define themselves as professors, students, and so forth. In such environments, other axes, such as sex, ethnicity, race, religion, are also present but in a peripheral position.

Conclusion

An attempt was made in order to answer the question, what is language policy and identity? In so doing, many answers were offered which were crystallized in the forms of definitions, theories, types, and factors of possible effects. The chapter started by defining the term “language.” It was argued that the term “language” is best understood through laying out its different characteristics since no one single definition can capture all of them. The characteristics contain, but not limited to, human, arbitrariness, and reflexivity. Additionally, it was demonstrated that, as a result of generalization and sweeping claims, some linguists and almost all nonlinguists tend to hold some misconceptions (myths) about issues related to language. In contrast to what the people think, it was proved that all languages are equal, and language multiplicity does not scotch social and political stability and economic growth. Besides, solid evidence was provided to dismantle the myth that people hold concerning the low performance of bilingual and multilingual students in comparison with monolingual ones. Finally, an alternative view of language that underlines the verbosity of women in comparison with their male counterparts was provided.

After conceptualizing language and some of its related myths, the chapter dived into the heart of language policy. It was defined as ideas, rules, and practices formed by different actors, government, institution, and society, to name but few. It was also distinguished from language planning which some researchers in the literature used as its synonym. Language policy is language planning in practice, we clarified. Furthermore, the old and the recently developed theories of language policy were mapped out. Aside from their different takes on the nature of language policy, scholars of language policy offered four main schemes to language policy, each of which is formulated based on a different identifier. Based on genesis, the first typology classified language policy into two main categories, top-down and bottom-up. The second scheme classified language policy into two main types, overt and covert policies, based on means and goals. Finally, language policy was marked as the de jure and de facto labels. In addition to the types of language policy, the different factors that influence language policy were discussed. These factors were categorized into five main categories, political, linguistic, social-demographic, linguistic culture, and religious.

Beside language policy, different themes, definitions, theories, types, and markers, which helped in clarifying identity, were discussed. It was found out that identity is an ongoing process that is limited by neither time nor place, but rather by different traits and distinguishing characteristics which mark an individual or group of people from others significant actors. The literature revealed also that scholars across disciplines have developed many theories. Individualism theorists argued that identity should be understood in terms of sameness. Moreover, essentialism theorists remarked that identity is manifested in a set of categories, say, gender and race. The identity, they asserted, is stable and the same across different societies. Symbolic interactionism theorists observed that identity is strategic. Postmodernists painted identity with uncertainty, arbitrariness, and fragmentation. The recently developed theory was that of postpositivism realism. Theorists of this block criticized the preceding theories and asserted that the individuals construct their identity through a dialectic relation with the social world. In every context, the individual can construct an identity that fits such context.

In addition to offering possible definitions and devising different theories, scholars classified identity into three main types, personal, collective, and social. The different types of identity indicated that there are many identity markers. The chapter, thereby, pointed out that people are situated on different axes, race, ethnicity, gender, place, to name but few. As the setting or the context shifts, people choose to rely on one or some of these axes. In one context, for instance, the individual may identify himself or herself based on race; however, other markers, such as sex, ethnicity, religion, are also present but in a peripheral position.