Stories of Belonging and Identification

Abstract

The previous chapters set out a series of discourse analytical procedures which, seen in context, allow us to investigate the micro phenomena of the language of identity and belonging. We argued and illustrated with extracts from many examples taken from our data on (former) German and Polish borders, that the way we speak is directly and intrinsically implicated in how we position ourselves in the different contexts of our lives — as individuals and as members of a group, as social and cultural beings in social and cultural settings. The forms we select from our respective linguistic system — that is, the ways in which we develop and use a particular lexico-grammatical repertoire from the possibilities offered by our respective language system, encode and construct these positions in subtle and not instantly recognizable ways. We do not usually monitor the ways in which we select and make meanings through speech, though we all do this whenever we speak. Analysis of these discursive selections thus allow us access to the complex multi-layered constructions of identity.