ABSTRACT
Most people talk comfortably about ‘the self, at least within western society. Usually this is framed in various vernacular forms of personal address: ‘I would have done it myself’, but I felt so self-conscious’. English dictionaries list around two hundred forms of selffunction, from self-abandonment to self-worth. These all relate in differing ways to the use of relationship to or with, or assumptions about, the assumed essence or fundamental individuality of a person. Increasingly, such self-references are used throughout the world, as western society exerts even more influence.
