ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses more on macro level of various countries' official recognition of themselves as multilingual states to the more micro level of people's multilingualism. It should be clear that all the languages or varieties that we use have both instrumental and identity functions. However, in any given place and time, some languages will be perceived as being more useful resources than others, with immigrant minority languages often at the bottom of this hierarchy. At the same time, a negatively valued language can have a highly positive identity function associated with it for a particular group of people. The chapter describes to understand this identity function of language and how, in multilingual situations, identity may be linked to more than one language. It provides how other people influence the identity through processes of categorization. The ethnic identity of the dominant group in a particular state is often equated with 'national' identity, while minority groups are considered to be 'ethnic'.