Cover not available
Article published In:
Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 8:2 (2009) ► pp.195–222

Between “I” and “We”

Studying the grammar of social identity in Europe (1900–1950)

| Smolny College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, St.Petersburg and University of Konstanz

Starting with Rene Descartes and Albrecht Dürer, Europeans obsessively contemplated, registered and expressed their being-in-the-world and assigned those self-expressions a universal cognitive value. Such generalized personal accounts as Cartesian cogito ergo sum or John Locke’s memory- based theory of personal identity formed the basis of sweeping statements about nations and epochs. For instance, the turn-of-the-century decadent deconstruction of subjectivity brought to life the myth of a smooth transition from the 19th century individuated (‘I’-based) Self to the 20th century shared (‘We’-based) Self. To correct this uninformative and factually inaccurate social description of personal identity, I suggest searching for social identities beyond the realm of self-reflection. In this light, a cursory survey of first-person statements found in books, journals and newspapers published in major European languages between the First and the Second World Wars, is subjected to various kinds of discursive analysis in the light of the chosen topic. As a result, a few politically and aesthetically privileged self-identifications of Europeans give way to a diverse social hierarchy, providing a possible strategy for linguistic description of social identity beyond the European terrain.

Keywords: European society, social identity, self-reference, personal pronouns, personal identity
Published online: 9 September 2009
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.8.2.02pos
References
Adorno Theodor
[1956] 1990 Zur Metakritik der Erkenntnistheorie. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Alighieri Dante
[1321] 1965 La Divina Commedia. Milano: Martello.Google Scholar
Anscombe G. E. M
1975 The First Person. In: Samuel Guttenplan (ed.). Mind and Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Arendt Hannah
1958 The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York:Google Scholar
Ardrey Robert
1966 Territorial Imperative. New York: Kodansha Globe.Google Scholar
Arnheim Rudolf
1978 Space as an Image of Time. In: Karl Kroeber, William Walling (eds.). Images of Romanticism: Verbal and Visual Affinities, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1—12.Google Scholar
Assman Jan
1992 Das kulturelle Gedächtnis: Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen. München: C. H. Beck. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bergson Henri
[1906] 2001 L’évolution créatrice. Paris: Quadrige.Google Scholar
Berlage Andreas
1994 Empfindung, Ich und Sprache um 1900: Ernst Mach, Herman Bahr und Fritz Mauthner im Zusammenhang. Frankfurt am Main: Fritz Lang.Google Scholar
Bernauer Markus
1990 ästhetik der Masse. Basel: Wiese.Google Scholar
Bielefeld Ulrich
2003 Nation und Gesellschaft. Selbstthematisierungen in Frankreich in Deutschland. Hamburg: Hamburger Edition.Google Scholar
de Biran Maine
[1800s] 1966 L’effort Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.Google Scholar
BÖschenschtein Bernhard
1988 HÖlderlins ‘Tod des Empedokles’. In: Ulrich Füllerborn, Manfred Engel (eds.). Das neuzeitliche Ich in der Literatur des 18. und 20. Jahrhunderts. München: Fink, 219—229.Google Scholar
Borst Arno
1979 Barbarossa’s Erwachen. In: Odo Marquard, Karlheinz Stierle (eds.). Identität München: Fink, 17—60 Google Scholar
Broszat Martin
1960 Der Nationalismus. Weltanschauung, Program und Wirklichkeit. München: Deutscher Verlags-Anstalt.Google Scholar
Botev Christo
[1873a] 1971 Komu da govorim i kakvo da govorim, kogato nikoi ne ni chuie. In: Christo Botev. S’brani s’chineniia v dva toma, Tom 2. Sofia: B’lgarski pisatel, 282—284.Google Scholar
[1873b] 1971 Zaschio i za kogo pisha? In: Christo Botev. S’brani s’chineniia v dva toma, Tom 2. Sofia: B’lgarski pisatel, 300—303.Google Scholar
[1874] 1971 Zaschio i za kogo az pisha. In: Christo Botev. S’brani s’chineniia v dva toma, Tom 2. Sofia: B’lgarski pisatel, 498—503.Google Scholar
Brugmann Karl
1904 Die Demonstrativpronomina der indogermanischen Sprache: Eine bedeutungsgeschichtliche Untersuchung. Lepzig: B. G. Teubner.Google Scholar
Burrow John W
2000 The Crisis of Reason: European Thought, 1848—1914. New Haven & London: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Cassirer Ernst
[1923] 1997 Philosophie der symbolischen Formen. [Band] 2. Das mythische Denken. Darmstadt: Primus Verlag.Google Scholar
Castañeda Hector-Neri
1999 The Phenomeno-logic of the I: Essays on Self-Consiiousness. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
de Certeau Michel
1986 Heterologies. Discourse of the Other. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Chilton Paul
2004 Analyzing Political Discourse: Theory and Practice. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Davidson Donald
2001 Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Demetriou, Andreas
2000 Organization and Development of Self-Understanding and Self-regulation: Towards a General Theory. In: Monique Boekaerts, Paul R. Pintrich, Moshe Zeidner (eds.). Handbook of Self-Regulation. San San: Academic Press, 210—299. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dürrenberger Gregor
1989 Menschliche Territorien. Geographische Aspekte der biologischen Evolution. Zürich: Verlag der Fachvereine.Google Scholar
Dunham Vera S
1976 In Stalin’s Time: Middleclass Values in Soviet Fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Elias Norbert
1987 Die Gesellschaft der Individuen. Frankfurt am Main: SuhrkampGoogle Scholar
Elliott Jane
2005 Using Narrative in Social Research: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. London: SAGE Publications. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Evola J
1920 L’arte come libert� e come egoismo � prologo. Noi, 11, 6—7.Google Scholar
Fichte Johann G
[1796] 1979 Grundlage des Naturrechts. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag.Google Scholar
[1804] Die Wissenschaftslehre. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag.Google Scholar
Frank Manfred
1992: Allegorie, Witz, Fragment, Ironie. Friedrich Schlegel und die Idee des zerrisenen Selbst. In: Willem van Rejien (ed.). Allegorie und Melancholie. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 124—146.Google Scholar
Freud Sigmund
[1921] 1993 Massenpsychologie und Ich-Analyse. Die Zukunft einer Illusion. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer.Google Scholar
[1923] 1992 Das Ich und das Es. Metapsychologische Schriften. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer.Google Scholar
Gerhard Ute, Link Jürgen
1991 Zum Anteil der Kollektivsymbolik an den Nationalstereotypen. In: Jürgen Link, Wolf Wülfing (eds.). Nationale Mythen und Symbole in der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts: Strulture und Funktionen von Konzepten nationaler Identität. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 19911, 16—52.Google Scholar
Gubrium, Jaber F, Holstein James. A
1998 Narrative Practice and the Coherence of Personal Stories. Sociological Quarterly, 39 (1), 163—187.Google Scholar
Greenberg Joseph H
1966 Some Universals of GrammarWith Particular Reference to the Meaningful Elements. In: Joseph H. Greenberg (ed.). Universals of Language, Joseph H. Greenberg (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966), 73—113.Google Scholar
Hamilton III William J, Watt Kennenth E.F
1970 Refuging. Annual Review of Biological Systems, 11, 263—286. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hebbel Friedrich
[1843] 1965 Ich und Du. In: Friedrich Hebbel, Sämtliche Werke, Band 1. München: Müller.Google Scholar
Heckmann Heinz-Dieter
1991 Wer (oder was) Ich bin? Zur Deutung des intentionalen Selbstbezuges aus der Perspective der ersten Person singularis. In: Bertran Kienzle, Helmut Pape (eds). Dimensionen der Selbst: Selbstbewusstsein, Reflexivität und die Bedingungen der Kommunikation. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 64—84.Google Scholar
Heymann Thomas
1989 Komplexität und Kollektivität des Sozialraumes. Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag.Google Scholar
Hintikka Jaakko
1974 Knowledge and the Known. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hume David
[1737] 1969 A Treatise on Human Nature. London: Penguin Press.Google Scholar
Jantsch Erich
1980 The Self-Organizing Universe, Oxford: Pergamon PressGoogle Scholar
Jespersen Otto
[1924] 1963 The Philosophy of Grammar. London: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Karavelov Liuben
[1874] 1968 Znaesh’ li ti koi sme? Liuben Karavelov. V”zrozhdenski feiletoni. Sofiia: B”lgarski pisatel’, 187—191.Google Scholar
Kartschoke Dieter
2001 Ich-Darstellung in der volkssprachigen Literatur. In: Richard van Dülmen (ed.) Entdeckung des Ich. Die Geschichte der Individualisierung vom Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart. KÖln: BÖhlau. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Korzhikhina Tatiana P
1997 Izvol’te byt’ blagonadezhny! Moskva: Rosspen, 1997.Google Scholar
Kracauer Siegfried
[1927] 1963 Das Ornament der Masse. In: Siegfried Kracauer. Das Ornament der Masse. Essays. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 50—63.Google Scholar
Kris Ernst
[1936]. 1952 Laughter as an Expressive Process. Contribution to the Psychoanalysis of Expressive Behavior. In: Ernst Kris. Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art. New York: Schocken Books, 216—238.Google Scholar
Lakoff George, Johnson Marc
1999 Philosophy in the Flesh:the Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought. New York, Basic Books.Google Scholar
Lawrence D.H
[1920s] 1957 The Red Wolf. In: D.H.Lawrence, The Complete Poems. Vol. II1. Melbourne: Heinemann, 139.Google Scholar
Levinson Stephen G
2003 Space in Language and Cognition: Explorations in Cognitive Diversity Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Leyrer Georg
1997 Das überindividuum. Arthur Schopenhauer, der Nationalsozialismus, Wir und Ich. Wien: Universiät Wien.Google Scholar
Locke John
[1698] 1959 An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Vol. 11. New York: Dover Publications.Google Scholar
Loffler-Laurian Anne-Marie
1980 L’ Expression du locuteur dans les discours scientifiques. Revue de linguistique Romane 441, 135—157.Google Scholar
Lorenz Adolf
[1936] 1949 Ich durfte helfen. Mein Leben und Wirken. Wien: Albrecht.Google Scholar
Lubbock John
1893 The Beauties of Nature and the Wonders of the World we Live In Leipzig: Tauchnitz.Google Scholar
Luhmann Niklas
[1998] 2002 Die Politik der Gesellschaft. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Luther Martin
[1525] 1917 Wir glauben all an einen Gott. In: Martin Luther, Werke. Bd.1. Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut, 14.Google Scholar
Maitinskaia, Ksenia E
1969 Mestoimeniia v iazykakh raznykh system. Moskva: Nauka.Google Scholar
Makarski Wladyslaw
1973 Konstrukcje pluralis maiestatis w gwarach rzeczowszczyzny. Poradnik Jezykowy 11, 30—34.Google Scholar
Malcolm Norman
1979 Whether ‘I’ is a referring expression. In: Cora Diamond and Jenny Teichman (eds.). Intention and intentionality. Sussex: Harvester Press, 14—28.Google Scholar
Margueritte Paul
[1940] Nous, les méres� Paris: Plon.Google Scholar
Marinetti Filippo Tommaso
1923 A chacun, chaque jour, un métier different (L’Inégalisme). Noi, 41, 1—2.Google Scholar
Merten Klaus
1977 Kommunikation Eine Begriffs- und Prozessanalyse. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag.Google Scholar
Morgenstern Christian
[1914]. 1934 Die Weisheit meines hÖhern Ich. In: Christian Morgen-stern. Wir fanden einen Pfad. München: Piper, 28.Google Scholar
Mühlhäusler Peter, Harrè Rom, Freyne Michael
1990 Pronouns and People: The Linguistic Construction of Social and Personal Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Müller Ruth
1993 F. T. Marinettis Manifeste zum Totaltheater. Wien: Universität Wien.Google Scholar
Nenon Monica
1993 “Wir Jünglinge”: Selbstkonstitution und Ausschlussverfahren in Klop-stocks Ode Der Zürchersee . In: Bärbel GÖtz, Ortrud Gutjahr, Irmgard Roebling (eds.). Verschwiegenes Ich. Vom Un-Ausdrücklichen in autobiographischen Texten. Pfaffenweiler: Centaurus Verlagsgesellschaft, 83—93.Google Scholar
Ostwald Wilhelm
1902 Vorlesungen über Naturphilosophie. Leipzig: Veit.Google Scholar
Pagliuka Maria
1997 ‘Je’ et ‘nous’. La metamorphose du sujet dans Terre des Hommes d’Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Instituto universitario Orientale, Annali (Sezione Romanza) 391, 515—531.Google Scholar
Parsons Talcott, Shils Edward A
1951 Toward a General Theory of Action. New York: Harper and Row. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Piaget Jean, Inhelder Bärbel
1948 La representation d’espace chez l’enfant Paris: Presses universitaires de France.Google Scholar
Postoutenko Kirill
2006 “Mezhdu ‘ia’ i ‘my’: k voprosy o sotsial”noi grammatike Evropy v promezhutke mezhdu Pervoi i Vtoroi mirovymi voinami”, Povestvovavnie i istoriia. Moskva: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 427—434.Google Scholar
Rappoport Anatol
1953 Operational Philosophy: Integrating Knowledge and Action New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Riedel Manfred
1988 Grund und Abgrund der Subjektivität. In: Ulrich Füllerborn, Manfred Engel (eds.). Das neuzeitliche Ich in der Literatur des 18. und 20. Jahrhunderts. München: Fink, 29—57.Google Scholar
Rosenberg Morrice, Rosenberg Florence
1981 The Occupational Self: A Developmental Study. In: Mervyn D. Lynch, Ardyth A. Norem-Hebeisen, Kenneth J. Gergen (eds.). Self-concept. Advances in Theory and Research. Minneapolis: Ballinger Publishing Company, 172—189.Google Scholar
Ryan Judith
1991 The Vanishing Subject: Early Psychology and Literary Modernism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Sack R.D
1986 Human Territoriality: Its Theory and History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Schegloff, Ochs and Thompson
1996 Introduction. In: Emanuel A. Schegloff, Elinor Ochs and Sandra A. Thompson (eds.). Interaction and Grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schelling Friedrich W. J
[1800] 1992 System des transzandentalen Idealismus. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag.Google Scholar
Schewan A
1913 The pluralis maiestatis in Homer. Classical Quarterly 71, 125—131.Google Scholar
Schurig Volker
1975 Naturgeschichte des Psychischen. Band 2. Lernen und Abstraktionsleistungen bei Tieren. Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag.Google Scholar
Schütz Alfred, Luckmann Thomas
1991 Strukturen der Lebenswelt. Band 1. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Schwartz Howard S
1987 On the Psychodynamics of Organizational Totalitarianism. Journal of Management 13 (1), 41—54. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schoenfeldt Michael C
1999 Bodies and selves in Early Modern England: Physiology and Invardness in Spenser, Shakespeare, Herbert and Milton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Serino Carmencita
1998 The Personal-Social Interplay: Social-Cognitive Prospects on Identity and Self-Others Comparison. In: Stephen Worchel, J. Francisco Morales, Dar�o Páez, Jean-Claude Deschamps (eds.). Social Identity: International Perspectives. London, Thousand Oaks & New Delhi: SAGE Publications, 24—43. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sinclair J. McH
1987 On the Integration of Linguistic Description. In: Teun A. van Dijk (ed.). Handbook of Discourse Analysis, London: Academic Press, 13—27.Google Scholar
Slotty Friedrich
1927 Der sog[enannte] pluralis modestiae. Indogermanische Forschungen XLIV1, 161—162.Google Scholar
Steinberg, Mark
2002 Proletarian Imagination: Self, Modernity and The Sacred in Russia, 1910—1925. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stephens Anthony
1988 “Wie beim Eintritt in ein anders Leben:” Geburtsmetapher und Individualität bei Kleist. In: Ulrich Füllerborn, Manfred Engel (eds.). Das neuzeitliche Ich in der Literatur des 18. und 20. Jahrhunderts. München: Fink, 195—214.Google Scholar
Stites Richard
1989 Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Stoichita Victor
1998 Das Selbstbewusste Bild. Vom Ursprung der Metamalerei. München: Fink.Google Scholar
Strawson Paul F
1959 Individuals: Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics. London: Methuen. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tajfel Henry
1981 Human groups and social categories. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor Ralph B
1988 Human Territorial Functioning: an Empirical, Evolutionary Perspective on Individual and Small Group territorial Cognitions, Behaviors and Concequences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tugendhat Ernst
1979 Selbstbewusstsein und Selbstbestimmung: Sprachanalytische Interpretationen. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
2006 Egozentrizät und Mystik: Eine Anthropologische Studie. München: C.H. Beck.Google Scholar
Turner John C
1987 Rediscovering the Social Group. Oxford & New York: Basil Blackwell Ltd. Google Scholar
Varela Francisco J
1981 Autonomy and Autopoesis. In: Gerhard Roth, Helmut Schwegler (eds.) Self-Organizing Systems: An Interdisciplinary Approach. Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag, 24—38.Google Scholar
Wales Kathleen
1980 Exophora Re-examined: The Uses of the Personal Pronoun ‘We’ in Present day-English. University of East Anglia Papers in Linguistics 121, 22—44.Google Scholar
Walzel Oscar
[1916] 1968 Schicksale des lyrischen Ichs. In: Oscar Walzel, Das Wortkunstwerk. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 260—275.Google Scholar
Wat Alexandr
[1920] 1978 JA s jednei strony i JA z drugiej strony mego mopsozelaznego piecyka. In: Helena Zaworska (ed.). Antologia polskiego futurizmu u nowej sztuki. Wroclaw: Ossolineum, 225—271.Google Scholar
von Wiese Leopold
1965 Die Philosophie der personlichen Fürworter. Tübingen.Google Scholar
Wunderlich Dieter
1982 Sprache und Raum. Studium Linguistik 121, 1—19.Google Scholar
Zamiatin Evgeny
[1920] 1989 My. Moskva: SovremennikGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 4 other publications

Carta, Caterina
2014. Use of metaphors and international discourse: The EU as an Idiot power, a deceptive Pangloss and a Don Juan in his infancy. Cooperation and Conflict 49:3 ► pp. 334 ff. DOI logo
Carta, Caterina
2015. The swinging “we”. Journal of Language and Politics 14:1 ► pp. 65 ff. DOI logo
Heinz, Matthew
2011. Transmen on the Web. In The Handbook of Gender, Sex, and Media, ► pp. 326 ff. DOI logo
Santulli, Francesca & Chiara Degano
2022. Agreement through Language. In Agreement in Argumentation [Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology, 31], ► pp. 49 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 24 may 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.