Methods in Intercultural Rhetoric: Focus on Discourse Analysis and Text Linguistics

In “Social Languages, Situated Meanings, and Cultural Models” Gee refers to language varieties as social languages (registers) and discusses speaking as an act that reveals who we are and what we are doing. Different social languages express different versions of the speaker, which is in conflict with the notion of a stable and constant self with a central identity. This observation in linguistics appears to me as a shift away from the sense of self in modernism. Theresa Lillis’s article “Ethnography as Method, Methodology, and ‘Deep Theorizing:’ Closing the Gap Between Text and Context in Academic Writing Research” contains moments of this struggle with postmodern identity. In example 7, a writer states that when writing in English, one has to imagine how an English person would write. The insider perspective demonstrates the identity split that is on the surface for non-native speakers as opposed to Gee’s example of Jane, who did not recognize the difference in language she brings to various situations. The writer in Lillis’s example composes while aware of the identity that is temporarily taken on in order to produce writing that fits in as the work of an English-speaking person. As an outsider, one’s social identity is easier to make conscious, for everything in the environment is a reminder of this status. As the social identity interacts and intersects with the writing identity, the writer brings many complexities to the composition. How much a non-native speaker of English brings in his or her social languages into speaking and writing depends on the context. In some communities, practices like code switching are acceptable, but if the student is isolated from that environment in their personal, academic, and/or professional life, one identity shifts to make room for a new one. The new identity hopes to communicate more efficiently within its present environment. The language constructs not only identity but self-perception. Given the privileged status of English on a global scale, self-worth is directly connected to how well a student imitates that idea of an English person in Lillis’s article. The speaker or writer measures up his or her own identity in society based on the ability to adjust in communicating with an audience that views him or her as an outsider.