ABSTRACT

In seminars, as we talk about our understanding of the text, we also construct, negotiate, and sometimes resist social identities. Social identity is not selfcontained, unchanging, and definable; it is instead an on-going process that takes place in every conversation and seminar. Researchers use the term social identities as a way of distinguishing this on-going process from a fixed notion of the self. We are always negotiating multiple social identities as we talk and we draw on language to do that by choosing particular phrases, deciding whether to ask a question or make a statement, and using an informal or formal style, among other things.