Language and cultural identity

This paper present introductory remarks on language and identity, language and the concept of ‘nation’, language, nation, and the community of speakers, ‘threats’ to linguistic identity, language policy and the rise of English.

BẢN SẮC NGÔN NGỮ VÀ VĂN HÓA

Andreas Gardt

Trường Đại học Kassel, Đức LANGUAGE AND CULTURAL IDENTITY

0 Introductory remarks on language and identity

1 Language and the concept of ‘nation’

2 Language, nation, and the community of speakers

3 ‘Threats’ to linguistic identity

4 Language policy and the rise of English

0 Introductory remarks on language and

identity

The relationship between language and identity

is always close This is true both for individuals as

well as for groups For an individual, it may be

sufficient to say “Good morning!” in English or

whatever his native language is to be identified as

a speaker from a specific country or a specific

region, or as someone with a certain kind of

formal education, or someone belonging to a

certain social class Our phonetic patterns, our

speaking volume and rhythm, our choice of words

and of grammatical constructions function as

identity markers When we speak, it makes others

think that we are intelligent, vulgar, witty, or

arrogant.1

Ascribing identity to a speaker is always a

twofold move: it isolates him from all others –

“identity as uniqueness” (as John Joseph calls it;

Joseph 2004, 37) - and, at the same time, ascribes

him to a particular group – “identity as sameness”

One must not forget, however, that correlating

language and identity does not imply a purely

1 Although it is possible to define these markers

individually, the perception of our language by others is -

as sociolinguistic research has shown – a holistic

perception, which is dominated by the overall

constellation of the linguistic variables; cf Auer 2007, 12:

“a gestalt-like stylistic expression” - For examples see

also Joseph 2004, 1ff

passive attitude on the part of the speaker, in the sense that he is passively exposed to the judgement of others Inasmuch as he can influence his language, he can perform what Robert Le Page and Andrée Tabouret-Keller call “acts of identity” (1985), i.e the conscious or subconscious choice

of linguistic features to signal identity with a particular social group (as, for example, young people do when using their in-group-language)

Doing identity one could call it, in analogy to

doing gender What is true for the language of an individual

is also true for a language as a whole, for a national language From the outside, i.e from the perspective of speakers of other languages, a given national language and its speakers may be judged in a certain way, including appraisals of the speakers’ (alleged) ‘national character’ (e.g.:

‘French is an elegant language – just like its speakers’) But the speakers of this language themselves may also regard and use their language

as an expression of their national identity, sometimes up to a point where they pass laws to protect their language from foreign influence This illustrates two points, which I will come back to later: Firstly, that linguistic identities are not static but dynamic phenomena, and, secondly, that linguistic identities are not ‘given’ but are constructed socially

In my paper, I will concentrate on collective

linguistic identity, on a national level, as national

identity is a particularly important form of cultural

identity

1 Language and the concept of ‘nation’

National languages are not just the product of an

existing nation, but they also help to define the

nation In numerous definitions of what a nation is,

language is mentioned as an important criterion

The Oxford English Dictionary defines “nation”

this way (SOED 1973 ed.)

“A distinct race or people, characterized by

common descent, language, or history, usu [i.e

usually] organized as a separate political state and

occupying a definite territory“

The definition includes three typical aspects of

the concept of nation:

- a political aspect (political state; territory)

- a cultural aspect (language; history)

- an ethnic aspect (race; people; descent)

However, there is a fourth aspect of the

meaning of “nation” which is not mentioned in the

definition of the OED:

- volition

The nation is also often regarded as the

expression of a common will of its citizens

Of course, these fours aspects do not appear in

all texts on linguistic identity all of the time In

Germany, for historical reasons the cultural and

the ethnic aspects played a prominent role Among

them, language was of great importance In 1813

the German poet Theodor Körner wrote2:

“What links us, is the holy tie of language, is

our God, our fatherland/is our faithful German

blood“

2 “Uns knüpft der Sprache heilig Band, / Uns knüpft ein

Gott, ein Vaterland / ein treues deutsches Blut“ (Theodor

Körner: “Jägerlied”, 1813).

The political unit (fatherland) is linked to the cultural dimension (language), to the ethnic dimension (blood), and to religion (God), i.e to another cultural aspect of nation

In statements like this the nation is not seen as the result of historical processes and decisions taken by social individuals, but as something of an almost timeless quality The more ideological these comments become, the more ahistorical they

become The political entity (nation, country,

empire, fatherland) is then presented in a way that suggests that it contains a kind of core which transcends time and guarantees the identity of the entity, its sameness throughout history – which, in fact, is a basic assumption in identity discourse And within the logic of this argument this does not seem alltogether implausible: After all, how can something function as a firm point of orientation, if it is not stable in itself? History and social change are the enemies of identity politics This essentialist view of the nation stands in sharp contrast to the approach taken in contemporary research Benedict Anderson speaks

of the nation as an imagined community (1991): it

is not only kept alive only by the wish or desire to belong to it, but it is brought into being by the will

to create it In a similar way, Stuart Hall speaks of

narrating the nation (1996), and Eric Hobsbawm

and Terence Ranger use the expression the

invention of tradi- tion 3 These analytical approaches are constructivist: social entities are

3 Hobsbawm 1983, 1: “‘Invented traditions’ is taken to mean a set of practices, normally governed by overtly or tacitly accepted rules and of a ritual and symbolic nature, which seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behaviour by repetition, which atomatically implies continuity with the past In fact, where possible, they normally attempt to establich continuity with a suitable historic past.” – See also Hutchinson/Smith on ethnicity (1996, 6f.): ethnic groups show six central features: a common proper name; a myth of common ancestry/fictive kinship; shared historical memories/shared memories of a common past; one or more elements of common culture, normally including religion, customs or language; a link with a homeland (not necessarily physcial, but symbolic);

a sense of solidarity.

not seen as the inevitable results of processes

governed by teleological laws, but as social

constructions governed by social interests To

point out the constructivist dimension of an entity

like a nation does not mean, however, that it has

no ontic reality Of course, it has: once the

concept of nation has been established, it is part of

what we regard as ‘objective reality’ And to point

out, that there is no ‘natural necessity’ for a nation

to become reality, does not mean to say, that at

any point in history anything is possible

A short summary of the first section:

In definitions of the concept of nation four

aspects play a dominant role – a political, a

cultural, an ethnic and a volitional aspect In

different countries, different aspects dominate: In

Germany, for example, the cultural dimension of

the concept (with language being central to it) and

the ethnic dimension (common descent) were of

particular importance Whereas modern research

regards nations as the results of processes of social

construction, identity politics tend to point out the

assumed ontological, ‘natural’ quality of the nation

2 Language, nation, and the community of

speakers

Much of what has been said about the nation is

also true for the national language

Jacob Grimm, as one of the Grimm brothers

best known for his collection of fairy tales, was

also one of the leading historical linguists of his

time With his brother he started a comprehensive

German dictionary, the preface of which he ended

in these words in 1854:

“Beloved German countrymen, of whatever

territory or belief you may be, enter the great hall

of your inherited, ancient language, learn it,

hallow it and cherish it, the life and future of your

people depend on it.”4

4 “Deutsche geliebte landsleute, welches reichs, welches

glaubens ihr seiet, tretet ein in die euch allen aufgethane

halle eurer angestammten, uralten sprache, lernet und

There are many statements like this, from many countries To mention just one more from the German tradition: In 1982, a few years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the East German writer Peter Schneider states in his book “Der Mauerspringer”:

“If there is still a fatherland of the Germans, it has most likely survived in their mother tongue.”5

These and many other quotations illustrate that

in the discussion of language and identity there is often the assumption of a strong interdependence

between language, its speakers (the people) and the political entity (nation, empire etc.)

Current linguistic theory is characterized to a high degree by the conviction that language does not just denote pre-existing reality, but segments the amorphous mass of impressions into distinct semantic units, thus guiding our view of reality along these lines of segmentation In an early text

of the 17th century, the English philosopher and statesman Francis Bacon had put it in a nutshell

by saying “verba res secant” – words dissect

things (Novum Organum, aphorism 59) This

constructivist position is, as said before, widely accepted in present academic thought (and not just

in the field of liguistics), and Wilhelm von Humboldt’s remark from the 19th century is still regarded as valid: that the different languages are

“the means of the particular ways of thinking and feeling of the nations”.6 According to this view, it

is due only to this linguistic structuring that we can deal with reality intellectually: a national language contains a particular view of the world which more or less guides our thinking, our cognitive access to reality

This view of the close correlation between language and thinking leads to my next point:

heiliget sie und haltet an ihr, eure volkskraft und dauer hängt in ihr” (Grimm 1854, LXVII).

5 “Wenn ein Vaterland der Deutschen weiterhin existiert,

so hat es am ehesten in ihrer Muttersprache überlebt.”

6 “die Organe der eigenthümlichen Denk- und Empfindungsarten der Nationen” (Humboldt 1821[?], 26)

3 ‘Threats’ to linguistic identity

An alleged threat to the language is nearly

always also perceived as a threat to the identity of

the corresponding community of speakers and the

corresponding cultural/political entity Despite the

differences between the various historical

situations, there is an underlying pattern to this

argument which appears again and again To give

only a few examples, both from history and from

the present

In a German text of 1647 the author states that

by the use of French loan words in German “the

German spirit is alienated, the natural way is

corrupted” (Hille 1647, 3).7 And, in a very similar

mode: “If you make [your] language a maid [by

using foreign words, thus serving foreign interests,

A.G.], you will become a servant”.8

In the current debate on the presence of

English loan words in German (anglicisms) most

of the arguments bear a striking resemblance to

the arguments used against French loan words in

the 17th century The most conservative position in

this debate is held by the Verein deutsche Sprache

[Association for the German Language], a private

language society

To quote from a programmatic article written by

a leading member of the society (Dieter 2004, 142):

“the spoken and written vocabulary of a

language could […] ‘be described as’ the

(genocultural) code of that ‘culture which uses it’

(Kerckhove 1994: 158) Put simply: 1 word stem

= 1 gene […] Too many mutations at once […]

destroy the phenotype This is how a linguistic

breach is occurring at present - called ‘Denglisch’

in Germany […].”

Structurally, this modern argument is not

7 “Durch die Sprachverderbnis wird die Rede / und der

Teutsche Geist erfremdet / die rechte Art / verunartet”

(Hille 1647, 3).

8 “Machst du die Sprach zur Magd: So wirst du werden

Knecht” (Sigmund von Birken, in Neumark 1668, b6r).

different from traditional arguments: language corresponds to the culture of its speakers on a very basic level When language is influenced in its

‘deep structure’ by foreign elements, this will inevitably affect the culture in its ‘deep structure’

as well The term “Denglish” reflects this mutation: following the logic of the argument, it

should be either “Deutsch” or “Englisch” – but not a hybrid: Denglisch As the author of 1647 put

it: by foreign words “the natural way is corrupted“

(Hille 1647), a change of the species has taken

place This line of thought ignores the central cultural quality of language by turning it into a biological phenomenon, thus ‘de-socialising’ and

‘ontologising’ it

A second quotation by the Verein deutsche

Sprache 9: The use of English words in German “weakens the linguistic and cultural autonomy of the European countries The linguistic autonomy as the most important sign of the economic and cultural independence of the European countries threatens to get lost”

The organisers of the Verein deutsche Sprache

make it quite clear that the loss of European

“linguistic and cultural autonomy” would be a sign of the subordinantion of Europe to the United States, to its (alleged) linguistic and cultural dominance Structurally, this conviction is identical to the one set forth in the above quoted text from 1668: “If you make [your] language a maid, you will become a servant”

Before I come to my final point, let me sum up what has been said so far

Language plays a central role in the formation

9 “Diese Entwicklung ist nicht nur eine Modeerscheinung

- sie schwächt die sprachliche und kulturelle Eigenständigkeit der europäischen Länder Die sprachliche Eigenständigkeit als wichtigstes Merkmal der wirtschaftlichen und kulturellen Selbstbehauptung der europäischen Länder droht allmählich verloren zu gehen.” (http://www.vds-ev.de/leitlinien) (20.7.2014)

both of individual and collective identity In

identity discourse what is regarded as true for the

nation is also regarded as true for the national

language: both are seen to possess a quality that

transcends time, neither of them is regarded as a

social construction, but, more or less, as a natural

phenomenon And in the logic of this argument,

only because they are ‘natural’, they can provide

identity to their citizens and speakers

In this process, language is not just a passive

expression of peoples’ thinking, but it helps to

shape their thinking: each language contains a

specific view of the world, which its speakers

grow up with and which guides their cognitive

access to reality

Because language, speakers, and the

cultural/political unit correspond with each other

so closely, a threat to the language is always also

seen as a threat to the identity of the speakers and

to the well-being of the cultural/political body

In linguistic identity politics – in fact, in any

kind of identity politics – identity is regarded as

stable, permanent, natural, not as socially

constructed In academic discourse, the opposite is

the case: identity is regarded as man made, as the

result of social dynamics The same holds true for

language: in popular discourse (in folk linguistics,

so to speak) a language that is supposed to supply

identity tends to be seen less as a historical and

social phenomenon, exposed to change, following

fashions, but rather as something monolithic,

resting in itself Whereas in linguistics and in the

social sciences the opposite is assumed

– So where does this leave us? How are we to

respond to the ever greater influence of English in

a world of globalization?

4 Language policy and the rise of English

It think it was the British Linguist David

Crystal who first called English “the

Tyrannosaurus Rex” of languages10, devouring any language that gets in its way However, English cannot be blamed for everything: changes

in the linguistic world map are not always or only due to the international spread of English The rapid increase of various forms of communication,

in combination with an increase of mobility and a drift from rural, seclosed areas to larger cities are major reasons for the decrease in the use of minority languages In Europe, there has been a response to this by the European Council, which

in 1992 passed the European Charter for Regional

or Minority Languages In May 2014 the Council renewed its claims:

“The Committee of Experts of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML) recalls that the Charter is designed for pluralist and multilingual societies and reiterates that ’the protection and promotion of regional or minority languages in the different countries and regions of Europe represent an important contribution to the building of a Europe based on the principles of democracy and cultural diversity within the framework of national sovereignty and territorial integrity’ (Preamble of the Charter).“11

So one way of trying to protect one’s linguistic and thus cultural identity is:

a) protection of regional/minority languages While this measure may be described as a

‘positive move’ – as it helps to increase linguistic plurality – a second kind of linguistic policy measure consists of a ‘negative move’, by trying

to exclude exogenous linguistic elements, particularaly loan words, such as anglicisms: b) exclusion of foreign linguistic influence (e.g loanwords)

This can take place on the legal level, and there are several countries which have chosen this

10 See also Swales 1997.

11 http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/education/minlang/default_en.asp

alternative, among which France is a well known

example 12 Since 1635 France has had the

Académie Française which controls the usage of

French However, the decisions of the Académie

are not binding legally, which is different in the

case of the Loi Toubon, a law passed in 1994,

regulating the use of non-French languages in the

public sphere (commercial slogans, for example,

must be translated into French)

English loan words may stick out clearly from

the surface of a native language, thus provoking

opposition concerned with questions of linguistic

identity But of far greater cultural impact for a

language and its speakers might well be the

practice of using English for certain areas of

intellectual life, i.e for specific fields of knowledge

in the sphere of science.13 In some scientific

disciplines not just publishing in English has

become standard practice in a number of countries,

but also the teaching of university courses

It is extremely difficult to come to a decision in

this question, that does justice to all its

dimensions Of course, any scientist who wants to

join the international scientific community will

have to follow its rules, i.e publish papers in

chemistry, the nanosciences or in internet

technology etc in English For the country and

culture he lives in, however, this will mean that

sooner or later whole areas of knowledge cannot

be dealt with anymore by the public, as the

necessary linguistic means – such as the special

terminology – are not available in his native

language anymore Hence, these areas of knowledge

are not accessible cognitively anymore for anyone

who does not speak English In a curious way, this

situation reminds of the European Middle Ages,

where only Latin was the language of scholarly

discourse, and where the native languages had to

fight for their ‘intellectual rights’

12 Christian Schmitt (2000).

13 For the situation in Germany cf Ehlich 2012 and

Ehlich/Meyer 2012.

But the importance of English is not as great in fields of knowledge other than the natural sciences In many academic disciplines – ranging from law, the humanities, the social sciences, even partly up to economics – the languages and texts within these disciplines are culturally ‘loaded’ to a noticeable degree This comes at no surprise: Languages inevitably ‘contain’ and thus reflect the culture of those who speak it, most obviously in their vocabulary The more specific a cultural item

is, the less the word that denotes it can be replaced

by a word from a different language And cultural distinctiveness also reaches beyond the lexical level of a language German sentence structure, for example, differs from the syntactic structures

of English, and the stylistic and textual traditions and approaches in dealing with a given subject matter are also quite different Of course, this is the case even more where the typology of languages and the traditions of speaking and writing in them differ as much as they do between Indo-European and Asian languages

In order to do justice to these demands – i.e to accept the practical dominance of English in

certain fields of knowledge and to accept that each

language and the texts produced in it are culturally

specific in many respects and to accept and

support one’s own linguistic identity – the educational institutions of many countries are called upon to practice the teaching of foreign

languages, following a rule of a + b or c: teaching

the native language plus either English or a different language, be it German, French, Japanese, or any other language, which is either traditionally connected with a given country or which seems useful for present political or economic reasons This then might turn out to be the most promising way to deal with the correlation of language and identity14:

+ English

14 See also Crystal 2004 and 2012.

c) teaching the native language

or + German or French or Spanish…

However, what might look like a symmetrical

structure, is not really one: in most countries,

where several languages are taught, English

clearly dominates the other languages, for reasons

mainly due to the strong geopolitical, economic,

and cultural position of the United States But no

country in the world does only do business with

the United States, and there will always be the

need of experts who not only speak a language

different from English but who are also familiar

with life in the country that language is spoken in,

with the political, social, economic, historical, and

everyday traditions and practices of the people

who live in this country A wide range of political,

economic and cultural contacts based on a

knowledge of various languages has always been

an advantage for any country in the world

– We like to see identities as stable and permanent,

providing reliability in the face of change

But identities are in a state of constant flux,

even if we do not notice it: we are not the same as

our forefathers were a hundred or even fifty years

ago And our linguistic identities change with us

If we want to control this change, we must achieve

a balance between linguistic and cultural tradition

and innovation

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