This document discusses language and identity through examining indexicality and markedness. It provides context on Amhara Muslims in Ethiopia who face an identity crisis due to the strong association of their Amharic language with Christianity. It also examines the Speak Mandarin Campaign in Singapore, noting how Mandarin has risen to an unmarked position among Chinese Singaporeans, implying other Chinese varieties are somehow "less Chinese". The document discusses how identity involves both discovering and inventing similarities between social groups, and how markedness establishes a power hierarchy among social categories.

1. Language and
Identity
IEC 303 Sociolinguistics
Dylan Scott Low

2. Indexicality,
Language,
and
Identity

3. ● Indexicality
Amhara Muslims in Wollo, Ethiopia
● Definition of identity
● Social categories and markedness
● Markedness: Chinese languages

4. Indexicality
The Routledge Companion to Sociolinguistics

5. Guess The Language

6. Indexicality
The process by which language comes to be associated with
specific locally or contextually significant social
characteristics is referred to as the indexicality of language,
and it is crucial to a discussion of language and identity. (Dyer,
p. 102)

7. Language as an Index of
Identity, Power, Solidarity
and Sentiment in the
Multicultural Community of
Wollo Dr Rukya Hassen, Faculty of Applied Linguistics,
University of Wollo

8. Amhara Muslims in Wollo
● Christians and Muslims coexist alongside each other in harmony in Wollo,
and both religious communities share the ethnic Amhara culture as a
macroculture (Hassen, 2016).
● However the Amhara Muslims face an identity crisis due to a strong
association of the Amhara identity with Christianity and the Oromo ethnic
identity with Islam.
● . In other words, by examining indexicality, we can say that the Amharic
language is used as an index to a person’s identity as a Christian in Wollo.

9. Guess The Accent

10. Identity
Identity literally
refers
to sameness.
How do we classify
groups as “alike”?
And by what
criteria?
(Bucholtz and Hall)

11. Social Grouping
No need for pre-
existing sameness
to forge an identity.
It is not only about
discovering
similarities, but
inventing them.
(Bucholtz and Hall)

12. Obscures
differences within
the group, but
magnifies
differences between
groups.
To be distinct from
other groups, in-
group differences
may be erased for
homogeneity.
(Bucholtz and Hall)

13. Social Grouping
However, when homogeneity does not occur, in-group
differences are categorised into systematic social
categories (Bucholtz & Hall, p. 371). Often, a hierarchy of power
amongst the social categories is established.
(Bucholtz and Hall)

14. (Oxford Reference)
Markedness

15. Unmarked
categories are often
more dominant and
in a position of
power over
unmarked
categories.
See some examples
of unmarked social
categories in the US
on the right.
(Bucholtz and Hall)

16. Case Study: Markedness
A Study of Attitudes towards
the Speak Mandarin
Campaign in Singapore
Ng Chin Leong (2014), University of Niigata Prefecture

17. Speak Mandarin Campaign
● In 1979, the government of Singapore launched the Speak Mandarin
Campaign to create a Mandarin-speaking environment among Chinese
Singaporeans (Lim & Yak, 2013)
● Despite early concerns about Mandarin’s place as the “language of
socialization” among dialect speakers, a survey found that 87% of the
respondents feel that Mandarin is the mother tongue of Chinese
Singaporeans (Ng, p. 59).
● Wardhaugh states that “markedness can change” (p. 18).
● Hence, it can be argued that Mandarin has risen to an unmarked position in
the Singaporean Chinese linguistic environment.

18. Speak Mandarin Campaign

19. Speak Mandarin Campaign
● There is a Speak Mandarin Campaign poster with the slogan “Be heard in
Chinese” (p. 54), implying that the other varieties of Chinese in Singapore are
somehow “less Chinese” than Mandarin, therefore putting them down as
marked varieties.

20. ● Indexicality
Amhara Muslims in Wollo, Ethiopia
● Definition of identity
● Social categories and markedness
● Markedness: Chinese languages

21. References
Bucholtz, M., & Hall, K. (2004). Language and Identity. In A. Duranti, A Companion to
Linguistic Anthropology. Blackwell Publishing. Retrieved from
https://cloudfront.escholarship.org/dist/prd/content/qt7198t0cr/qt7198t0cr.pdf
Dyer, J. (2007). Language and Identity. In C. Llamas, L. Mullany, & P. Stockwell, The
Routledge Companion to Sociolinguistics. Routledge.
Hassen, R. (2016, June 28). Language as an Index of Identity, Power, Solidarity and
Sentiment in the Multicultural Community of Wollo. Journal of Socialomics. doi:10.41
72/2167-0358.1000174
Lim, S., & Yak, J. (2013, July 4). Speak Mandarin Campaign. Retrieved from Singapore
Infopedia: http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_2013-07-04_122007.html
markedness. (n.d.). Retrieved Sep 19, 2018, from Oxford Reference:
http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100134870.
Ng, C. (2014). A Study of Attitudes towards the Speak Mandarin Campaign in Singapore.
Intercultural Communication Studies. Retrieved Sep 19, 2018, from
https://web.uri.edu/iaics/files/NG-Chin-Leong.pdf
Wardhaugh, R. (2010). An Introduction to Sociolinguistics (6th ed.). Wiley-Blackwell.