Writing and identity
This essay explores the relationship between writing and an emblematic notion of our age, identity. It describes the symbolic functions of writing for three planes on which it is instrumentalized as a marker of identity, religion, nation and language. The discussion revolves around scriptures as a means of codifying religion, the practical and symbolic functions of writing for modern nation states, and the question of how writing affects linguistic systems, with regard to individual speakers, communities of speakers, and languages themselves. It thus appraises writing as a culture technique without which god, nation, and self wouldn’t be what nowadays we think they are.
Article outline
- 1.Prologue
- 2.God
- 3.Nation writ large
- 4.Languagehood
- P.S.
- Notes
-
References
References (29)
Anderson, Benedict R. O’G.
(
1991)
Imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. (Revised and extended. ed.) London: Verso.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Assmann, Jan
(
1991)
Stein und Zeit. Mensch und Gesellschaft im Alten Ägypten. Munich: Wilhelm Fink.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Bakhtin, Mikhail
(
1981)
The dialogic imagination. Austin: University of Texas Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Benso, Silvia
(
1989)
La conquista di un testo: Il “Requirimento”. Rome: Bulzoni.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Bourdieu, Pierre
(
1991)
Language and symbolic power. Cambridge: Polity Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Coulmas, Florian
(
2016)
Guardians of Language: Twenty voices through history. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Coulmas, Florian
(
2019)
Identity. A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Fukuyama, Francis
(
1992)
The end of history and the last man. New York: Free Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Goody, Jack
(
1986)
The logic of writing and the organization of society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Habermas, Jürgen
(
1962)
Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit: Untersuchungen zu einer Kategorie der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Hays Gries, Peter
(
2005)
China’s New Nationalism. Pride, Politics, and Diplomacy. Berkeley: University of California Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Heine, Heinrich
(
1981)
Sämtliche Schriften in zwölf Bänden: Schriften 1817–1840. Ed.
Klaus Briegleb. Vol. 11. Frankfurt am Main et al.: Ullstein.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Hulle, Dirk & Joseph Leerssen
(
2008)
Editing the nation’s memory: Textual scholarship and nationbuilding in nineteenth-century Europe. Leiden: Brill.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Hume, David
(
1889 [1757])
The natural history of religion. Edited with an introduction by
John M. Robertson. London: Bradlaugh Bonner.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Hutchinson, John & Anthony D. Smith
(eds.) (
1994)
Nationalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Illich, Ivan & Barry Sanders
(
1988)
A B C: The Alphabetization of the Popular Mind. San Francisco: North Point Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Jones, Mari C.
(
2014)
Endangered languages and new technologies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Kamusella, Tomasz
(
2012)
The global regime of language recognition.
International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2181: 11–21.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Kim-Renaud, Young-Key
(ed.) (
1997)
The Korean Alphabet. Its history and structure. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Lin, Yutang
(
2015 [1935])
Mein Land und mein Volk. Esslingen: Drachenhausverlag.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Lord, Albert B.
(
1960)
The Singer of Tales. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Maalouf, Amin
(
2012)
Les identités meurtrières. Paris: Éditions Grasset.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Moïsi, Dominique
(
2009)
The Geopolitics of Emotion. New York: Anchor Books.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Pallas, Peter Simon
(
1786)
Linguarum totius orbis vocabularia comparativa. St. Petersburg: Johannis Caroli Schnoor.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Renan, Ernest
(
1882)
Qu’est-ce qu’une nation? (
Lecture delivered at the Sorbonne, 11 March 1882.) Paris: Calman Lévy.
[URL]
Smith, Anthony D.
(
2004)
Chosen Peoples. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Tabouret-Keller, Andrée
(
1998)
Language and identity. In
Florian Coulmas (ed.),
The Handbook of Socio-linguistics, 315–326. Oxford: Blackwell.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Taylor, Insup & M. Martin Taylor
van der Horst, Joop
(
2008)
Het einde van de standaardtaal. Amsterdam: Meulenhof.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Cited by (1)
Cited by 1 other publications
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 july 2024. 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.