ABSTRACT
In Chapter 5, we observe how interlocutors, while presupposing language, draw on language to talk about certain phenomena. In the process, they contribute to producing texts that researchers subsequently transcribe and then analyze in their entirety to make attributions about the knowledge (conceptions, misconceptions, conceptual framework) that a person is said to “have” on the day of the interview. Knowing, and, in an educational context therefore, learning, is not the only phenomenon of interest to educators. Motivation, interests, attitudes, locus of control, aspirations, perceptions, and the likes are also thought to be important dimensions that mediate the teaching-learning process. The concept of identity, who someone is, may be thought of as integrating all of these dimensions. But because one has to talk to a person to find out anything about who he or she is (wants to be) we may anticipate that identity, too, will be marked by characteristics of shared language and therefore by culture. It is impossible to solve the question of selfhood-of whom one speaks in designating person as distinct from things, and who speaks by designating him/herself-apart of a philosophy of language (Ricœur 1990). Precisely because language presupposes the interlocutor and is iterable, thereby describing multiple instances, the talk of identity cannot reveal what is singular about the experience of a person.
