Language Policy and Identity in Mauritania. El Hacen Moulaye Ahmed
identity. When the individual perceives information and knowledge from his or her interlocutor, s/he will revise it and then define himself/or herself accordingly. Before closing on the different threads about identity which have been discussed so far, it is worth noting that individuals have essence, and such essence is both internal and external to the individual. Put differently, the body as a whole encompasses the internal essence, and the society at large has the individual’s whole body besides other bodies. As such, the identity formation is strategic in the sense of symbolic interactionist and realist in the sense of postpositivism realist. In other words, the individual constructs his or her identity through a dialectic relation with the social world. Since the social world is characterized by plurality, the individual’s identity is real and multiple. In every context, the individual can construct an identity that fits such context. In the classroom, for instance, based on a complex set or configuration of self-aspects, gender, race and so forth, and the interlocutor’s aspects, a professor forms his or her identity as a result of the existence in the classroom setting and the students. The same professor, based on the same self-aspects and the interlocutor’s aspects, is likely to construct other identities when s/he is in the presence of his/or her wife/or husband or children in the house. In this way, the construction of the individual’s identity follows up.
Types of Identity
According to Burke (2003), it is almost a truism to say that everyone has numerous identities (p. 195). Indeed, the aforementioned theories indicated the individual’s identity shifts as the context and the interlocutors change. Such idea was expressed in Huntington’s words: “Everyone has multiple identities which may compete with or reinforce each other: kinship, occupational, cultural, institutional, territorial, educational, partisan, ideological, and others” (1996, p. 128). Some scholars have categorized such multiple identities into three main categories: personal, role, and social (Smith-Lovin, 2003, p. 170). Others have followed another typology, social, personal, and collective (Rydgren, 2004, p. 47). From the different typologies, we follow the last one since role identity, which was mentioned in the former typology, is part and parcel of the social identity as will be explained later.
To begin with, personal identity refers to “one’s unique personal characteristics such as personality, relationships, and self-esteem” (Taknint, 2015, p. 2). “Personal identity refers to specific attributes of the individual such as feelings of competence, bodily characteristics, intellectual concerns, personal tastes and interests” (West, Nicholson, & Arnold, 1987, p. 155). Another definition of personal identity is offered by Marohl. “Personal identity is the term given to that aspect of the individual’s identity that is unique to the individual and may be based upon a relationship with another individual, or object, or upon a unique attribute of the individual” (Marohl, 2014, p. 99). The definitions illustrate that personal identity is about specific attributes which are relatively unique to a particular individual.
The attributes, based on which the person can define himself/or herself, are divided into three main groups: individual self, relational self, and collective self. The individual self refers to the unique traits and characteristics which are derived from interpersonal comparison and differentiation processes. The relational self points out to a set of attributes which are shared with relationship partners, parent-child relationships, friendships, and romantic relationships as well as specific role relationships such as teacher-student or clinician-client. The personal identity, here, is constructed and represented as a result of appraisal or motive. Finally, the collective self is achieved when the person draws comparison and contrast between a set of attributes of his or her in-group and out-groups (Sedikides & Brewer, 2001, pp. 1–2). In this division, Sedikides and Brewer equate the personal identity with self-identity.
It is worth highlighting that the above-cited division elucidates that personal identity has social extensions, relational and collective ones. In fact, such extensions are required, for personal identities “serve as the pegs upon which social identities and personal biographies can be hung. If an individual could not be recognized from one occasion to another as the same person, no stable social relationships could be constructed, and therefore there would be no social identities at all” (McCall & Simmons, 1966, p. 65).
In the same vein, Edwards posited that even though personal identity—or personality—is essentially “the summary statement of all our individual traits, characteristics and dispositions, it is important to realise that individuality does not arise through the possession of psychological components not to be found in anyone else” (2009, p. 19). Rather, it is logical to see
[t]he uniqueness of the individual comes about, then, through the particular combination or weighting of building blocks drawn from a common human store. To accept this is to accept that no rigid distinction can in fact be made between personality and social identity. Again, this is a view of very long standing: “no man is an island, entire of itself.” . . . Our personal characteristics derive from our socialisation within the group (or, rather, groups) to which we belong; one’s particular social context defines that part of the larger human pool of potential from which a personal identity can be constructed. Thus, individual identities will be both components and reflections of particular social (or cultural) ones. (Edwards, 2009, p. 20)
Edwards illustrates above the overlap between personal identity and social identity is unavoidable since as cited above “no man is an island, entire of itself.” In other words, personal identity cannot be constructed and represented without the reliance on and the mention of social dimensions, say, race, for example.
It should be noted that the three sets of attributes, individual, relational, and collective, of the individual are not only relatively unique but also continuous. In fact, the uniqueness and the continuity of the individual are two components of personal identity. Hart, Maloney, and Damon (1987), for instance, stated
for an individual to believe that she will be the same person five years from now, she must suppose that the person that will be her in the future has developed out of the person she is now (causally related). She also must believe that she will grow into only one person in the future (unique); if there are many people who could be her in the future, then her sense of personal identity would be disrupted. (Hart, Maloney, & Damon, 1987, p. 66)
It seems that a feeling of individuality is characterized by a relatively unique set of attributes that are expressed over time.
Beside the uniquely sense of personal identity, there is also collective identity that represents the various groups to which the individuals belong. Collective identity is understood in terms of social categories. An influential formulation of collective identity was offered by Taylor and Whittier (1992) who defined collective identity as “the shared definition of a group that derives from members’ common interests, experiences and solidarity” (p. 105). The citation exhibits that collective identity refers to “we,” the group, instead of the “I” the person in personal identity. Just as personal identity, the group identity or collective identity is derived from a set of attributes which are shared between the members of one group and different from other significant groups. The attributes of the collective identities can be understood as (potentially) encompassing shared interests, ideologies, subcultures, goals, rituals, practices, values, worldview, commitment, solidarity, tactics, strategies (Fominaya, 2010, p. 398), occupations (role identities), religious affiliation, and country of citizenship (Carducci, 2009, p. 478). Clearly, collective identity refers to unique attributes shared by group of people and thus set them apart from other groups. Like personal identity, collective identity is not fixed, but is in constant construction and negotiation through repeated interaction among the group members.
The final label of identity is social identity. A social identity is identification in terms of membership in a social category. For instance, a person can construct his or her social identity based on a broad social category such as race, religion, gender, age, class, and so on. Individuals can have also social identity based on their social roles such as an occupation, say, professor and soldier or family roles, say, husband and wife. “In both of these cases, social identities, which are often rooted in categorical ascriptions or memberships, are based on social interaction and through this process are given to an actor by others” (Sherrod, Flanagan, & Kassimir, 2006, p. 320). Another definition to social identity came from