The Relationship Between Identity And Identity

Language moulds our relationships, knowledge of the social world (Jule, 2008) and the social phenomenon of identity (Bucholtz and Hall, 2008). Interaction is crucial for the constitution of society and therefore language is the essential instrument which allows for the sociocultural construction of identities (Bucholtz and Hall, 2005). Poststructuralists Hall (1997) and Bourdieu (1997, cited in Swartz, 1997) appreciate language in relation to its social meaning. For Bourdieu, the value of speech can only be comprehended in relation to the speaker, and the speaker can only be appreciated in relation to wider systems of social affairs. Each time a discourse is spoken, our sense of self is negotiated and renegotiated parallel to the broader dimensions of the social world. Social factors such as gender are associated with this identity diplomacy, suggesting that social varieties of language are a product of powerful social networks which shape our language, and therefore, our identities (Blackledge and Pavlenko,2004). Drawing upon the works of key sociological and sociolinguistic theorists, this essay shall analyse sociolect on a macro level to reveal the connection between identities, linguistic forms and wider social structures. By investigating language in relation to powerful social arrangements, I hope to expound the intricate relationship of how identities are expressed through and designed by language.

Literature Review
Bucholtz and Hall (2005) propose a framework for the production of identities in their linguistic analysis of identities in interaction, delineated by five notions; Emergence, Positionality, Relationality, Partialness and Indexicality, the latter four of which I shall utilise as relevant to my analysis. Posi...

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...heir social placement. The esteem placed upon female modesty and the culturally valued ideal of the family in addition to the aforementioned cultural features suggests that historical, political and cultural ruling dimensions dominate our language and our interpretation of it, as well as manufacturing particular linguistic apparatus and dispensing it into specific social groupings, hence giving individuals the only available tools by which to construct their language and henceforth, their identity. Identity is therefore a social construction from the broader power dimensions within society, dispensed to particular groups through the medium of language in order to maintain social governance. I also append that this language event may lend itself to ethnicity and race as well as gender in terms of sociolect, and accept that accent may be an applicable study also.