How can the South African situation broaden students' notions of language & identity as they become world citizens?

Identity is defined as “the state of having unique identifying characteristics held by no other person or thing”. How can such an easy concept be so difficult to examine when it applies to you? While in South Africa one of the major themes of our class discussions was identity and what it means in different contexts.

Looking back, I can definitely use my experience from South Africa to broaden my own idea, not only about my personal identity, but the identity of people and ideas around me. One of the biggest lessons I learned in the classroom and saw in the real world while in South Africa was the idea that identity is constructed and ever changing. The easiest way for me to explain this was to point out one individual, for example the girl I met at the University of Johannesburg, Nellie. Upon first meeting Nellie it was obvious she was African, which was the first level I constructed. The more I talked to Nellie, the more  I could get more specific in levels, she explain to me that she was born in Zambia, which immediately had me on a new level, nationality. Her first language was Zulu, which formed another category in my mind, one of the 11 languages of South Africa. Our conversation continued as I could get closer and closer to finding one identity, one set of unique characteristics that no one else in the room held.

One thing seemed certain of all the South Africans we met; compared to us they seemed to have such a clear understanding of their personal identity. The idiolect of one individual seemed so distinct from another person. They identified themselves as Zulu, as Xhosa as any ethnicity which, because of their use of language, they had close ties with. They identify with their families, which seem so much closer than American families. They identify with their hometown, with their job, with anything. This got me wondering about what I identify with? I identify with a white female, and with an American. After these few basic identities Nellie and I could agree that in order to find our identities we would be losing more people we could identify with by moving just one more level.

When we started we could identify with each other because we were both females, because we were both currently sitting in the same room. After switching to nationality however, we no longer fell into the same category.  I think this is an important concept to grasp as I enter the world because it reminds me that I’m an individual and that although I may side with one political group for one issue I may identify with another for something else. It’s important to know that although I may be able to identify with one of my best friends for many levels, I am still my own person. In addition it is important to know that you can identify with all sorts of people, all over the world. For example the war on Iraq; although I may be able to identify as a supporter, I can also identify as being sympathetic toward families that lose members due to the war. Understanding identity means I have a unique set of characteristics that can be constantly changing and that there are millions of categories I could fall into one day, but not the next, because identity is constructed, as well as changing.

~Riley

References

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/identity