1. Identity is defined as who a person is and the groups they identify with, such as their name, nationality, and culture. Culture plays a key role in shaping a person's identity and worldview. 2. Language is intrinsically tied to culture and identity. It is through language that cultures express themselves and are transmitted across generations. The loss of one's native language can negatively impact cultural identity. 3. Different theories discuss the relationship between language, culture, and thought. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis proposes that the language we speak influences our perceptions and thought processes.

1. ASSIGNMENT SUBMITTED TO: MA’AM
FARKHANDA
DICIPLINE; BS ENGLISH 8TH SEMESTER
DATE:AUGUST 8TH , 2020
NAME: KARISHMA IQBAL
CLASS NO: 03
SUBJECT: LANGAGE, CULTURE
AND IDENTITY

2. WHAT IS IDENTITY?
 When I meet a new person, the first question that is
always asked is: “What is your name?” to which I
respond, “Lourdes.” That is my first identity, my
name. The second question that typically follows in
the society where live is, “Do you live here?”. Since I
know where this conversation is going, limit my
answer to the precise question asked, so respond,
“Yes, live in Miami”. I know that the question the
person wants to ask is, “But where are you really
from?”. My second identifier is now revealed, “I am
Cuban.”. This second identity element tells you much
more about who really am than knowing my name
and where I live.

3.  Our name, our national origin, and our citizenship,
constitute very intimate elements of our being and our
identity. People have fixed ideas and stereotypes,
often inaccurate ones, which dictate whether we are
embraced or ignored, accepted or rejected.
 Identity, simply stated, is who you are; individuality;
the condition of being a certain person. In the social
sciences, identity s defined as the way that
individuals label themselves as members of a
particular group; in psychology, it refers to an
individuals’ self-esteem or self-image. We can speak
about social identity, gender identity, cultural identity,
religious identity, national identity and many other
identities.

4.  Culture is a defining feature of a person’s
identity. The shared values, customs and
histories characteristic of a particular culture
have a very strong influence on how a person
behaves and thinks, and views the world.
Cultural identity then encompasses for all that
relates to self, belonging, systems of beliefs and
sentiments of self-worth. It is the total sum of
ways of living built up by a group of human
beings transmitted from one generation to
another.

5. WHAT IS THE ROLE OF LANGUAGE IN THE
DEVELOPMENT OF IDENTITY AND CULTURAL IDENTITY?
 Language is intrinsic to the expression of
culture. Language is a fundamental aspect of
cultural identity. It is the means by which we
convey our inner most self from generation to
generation. It is through language that we
transmit and express our culture and its values.
“Language – both code and content – is a
complicated dance between internal and
external interpretations of our identity”. Words,
language, have the power to define and shape
the human experience. It is because of
language that we can name our experiences.

6.  One repeatedly encounters poignant stories of having
to forget one’s language in order to assimilate or
acculturate to a new environment.
 Sadly, this forgetting often includes losing one’s roots.
This loss of language, which inevitably leads to loss
of cultural identity, carries with it many dangerous
implications. In the words of the renown linguist,
Joshua Fishman, when we take away the language of
a culture we take away, “its greetings, its curses, its
cures, its praises, its laws, its literature, its songs, its
rhymes, its proverbs, its wisdom, and its prayers”.

7. CULTURE
 According to American Heritage Dictionary ‘’culture is
the totality of socially transmitted behaviour patterns,
arts, beliefs, institutions and all other products of
human work and thought and these patterns, traits
and products considered as the expression of a
particular period, class, community or population’’.
 Culture is highly intertwined with language to the
extent that Kim states ‘’without culture, language
cannot exist’’. Culture is something considered to be
non-static and culture can be adopted and expressed
by language and it is language that is used to
maintain it.

8.  The correlation between language and identity, with
language used in a large way to maintain identity,
with the reasoning behind this being, in Zhang’s
views because human’s thought and ideology is an
important element of culture and because language is
a medium to convey thought and consequently
language being unable to be isolated from culture.
Culture is also closely related to the field of
semantics, especially in idiomatic phrases, which
second language learners can struggle with. This
struggle is often in spite of ‘knowing ’the words,
providing evidence to the concept of the close
correlation between language and culture, impacting
L2 learners in a great way.

9.  Conceptual metaphors are yet another example of
how culture affects language, with idioms being
overtly metaphorical.
 SAFIR- WHORF HYPOTHESIS: One Important
hypothesis is to note Safir-Whorf hypothesis which
first brought to attention the notion of connectedness
between culture, language and thought i.e.; the
language we speak is responsible for how people
perceive the world we inhabit. Whorf in particular
argued the very notion that the thoughts we have are
our own, i.e. ‘’that the pattern of language we speak
largely determines the patters of our thought
processes and ultimately of our culture’’.

10.  Importantly, the theories which were borne out
of this initial hypothesis include linguistic
determinism and what is seen as a weaker
claim of linguistic relativism, again promulgated
by Whorf. These hypotheses refer respectively
to one’s interpretation of the world being
fundamentally determined by one’s language
and the latter the notion of language influencing
an individual’s thought on the world. Those who
dispute the hypothesis seem to favour
universalism over relativism.

11. THANK YOU FOR LISTENING