Short notes on language as an act of identity
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Man is a social being. He or she is linked to other people through an emotional connection, sometimes seen as a form of friendship, affection or love. A group consists of at least two people. The first group to which a person belongs from birth is the baby and mother group. Then a person belongs to more and more groups, at first smaller and then larger.
F. de Saussure defined language structurally as a system of signs used for communication. The signs are arbitrary (made up) and language is a social phenomenon. Language has two basic functions: communication and identity. We will deal with the communicative and linguistic aspects in other chapters. Here we will consider the identity function.
The main requirement of a group is to find a way to distinguish members from non-members. Group members learn a language within the group and only those who belong to the group can use it to a high degree of competence. Therefore language is the principal factor through which people can distinguish whether a stranger belongs to their group or not, and in most cases also to which other group that person belongs.