ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses in theory the necessity to give sufficient attention to the intertwining and intersection between the performativity of English, identity and ideology. The discussion is mainly conducted with the notions of language ideology, practice and agency. Like the use of English being stressed as both reflective and constitutive of social identities, social relations, and systems of knowledge and belief, the concept of identity is emphatically understood as context-dependent and dynamic. Not only does this position being held call for a theoretical perspective with a sophisticated understanding of English, ideology and community, but also for a more unified vision that speaks to all these issues under a coherent framework. Suggested convincingly by the questions of how the local politics of English underpins the construction of identities and how these processes take place through the performative practice of English that are a major concern, the chapter proposes adopting a critical-theoretical perspective for studying identity constructions in bilingual advertising.
