Our attempts to understand and define ourselves are made in conjunction with our efforts in understanding and defining those who are different from us. Identities are not fixed and singular. Rather, identity is multiple and shifting, made up of different representations of gender, ethnicity, class, occupation, age, and so on. Language is one of the ways in which we are represented to ourselves and to others. Examining the extent to which language is used to serve repressive interests to marginalise or exclude different groups of people, as well as promote group unity, is one step towards understanding language as a powerful discursive tool.
Language is more than words or descriptions.
Language shapes the ways in which we think about the world and the way we are in the world. As we have noted in past weeks, we understand the world through linguistic contrasts, or oppositions - we know light through darkness, white through black, self and other and so on. However, language is a cultural construct and these oppositions are not value free. In recent years the concept of 'difference' has come under scrutiny by marginalised groups. Questions of race, class, gender and ethnicity have profoundly altered the way in which we think and write about self, identity and difference.