Language and identity
| dc.contributor.author | Mugambi, P.J.M. | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2015-06-02T09:38:59Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2015-06-02T09:38:59Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 1999 | |
| dc.description | Article | en_US |
| dc.description.abstract | Language is primarily an essential tool for communication. People are endowed with vocal abilities so that they can pass messages and other information in verbal form whether it involves two or more participants. Language, therefore, enables us to convey our thoughts, desires, feelings and emotions. This communication is influenced by our geographic, regional, ethnic, clan or other cluster inclinations and expectations. We belong to certain groups and by virtue of our membership - real or imagined, we often communicate information that is either beneficial or harmful to us and the society at large. Language can and has been used negatively as an identity symbol. People at times use language selectively to attain certain selfish goals and in so doing seek to co-opt and/or corrupt those they communicate with to achieve their aims. Of course languages positively identify and enhance people's culture, aspirations and heritage but often these collective gains are taken for granted and instead, people use language to denote identity and consequently derive some advantage. Language has for instance been used as an ethnic weapon to show either the superiority or inferiority of a people depending on the angle one looks at it from. Indeed as Parkin notes in Whiteley (1974: 186) "the ebb and flow of vernacular interchange among specific pairs of ethnic groups is a function of their positions of "dominance" relative to each other. "Dominance" is seen as resting singly on or on a combination of socio-economic status, political and numerical factors People are constantly conscious about these social signifiers and they as a result strive to outdo each other in terms of achieving material or social well-being. Language itself is a distinctive feature and consequently people usually exploit it to maximize their sectarian pursuits. At the individual level, language is used by some people to achieve-an immediate unfair advantage over those who do not identify with the same language. Envisage the following episodes: | en_US |
| dc.description.sponsorship | Kenyatta University | en_US |
| dc.identifier.citation | CHEMCHEMI International Journal of Arts and Social Sciences VOLUME 1 DEC. 1999 | en_US |
| dc.identifier.issn | 1563 - 1028 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://ir-library.ku.ac.ke/handle/123456789/12736 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | en_US |
| dc.publisher | Kenyatta University | en_US |
| dc.title | Language and identity | en_US |
| dc.type | Article | en_US |
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