IDENTITY AND
INTERCULTURAL
COMMUNICATION
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTEROBJECTIVES
• After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
1. Identify three communication approaches to identity.
2. Define identity.
3. Explain the relationship between identity and language.
4. Describe phases of minority identity development.
5. Describe phases of majority identity development.
6. Identify and describe nine social and cultural identities.
7. Identify characteristics of whiteness.
8. Explain the relationship among identity, stereotyping, and
prejudice.
9. Describe phases of multicultural identity development.
10. Explain the relationship between identity and
communication.
CONTENTS
1. THINKING DIALECTICALLY ABOUT IDENTITY
2. IDENTITY AND LANGUAGE
3. IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT ISSUES
4. SOCIAL AND CULTURAL IDENTITIES
5. PERSONAL IDENTITY
6. MULTICULTURAL PEOPLE
7. IDENTITY, STEREOTYPES, AND PREJUDICE
8. IDENTITY AND COMMUNICATION
1. THINKING DIALECTICALLY ABOUT
IDENTITY
• Identity: The concept of who we are.
Characteristics of identity may be understood
differently depending on the perspectives that
people take - for example, social science,
interpretive, or critical perspectives.
• impression management theory: The ways by
which individuals attempt to control the
impressions others have of them.
THREE PERSPECTIVES ON IDENTITY
AND COMMUNICATION
• The Social Science Perspective
• The Interpretive Perspective
• The Critical Perspective
THE SOCIAL SCIENCE PERSPECTIVE
• Cross-Cultural Perspectives
• Individualized identity: The sense of self as
independent and self-reliant.
• Familial identity: The sense of self as always
connected to family and others.
• Spiritual identity: Identification with feelings of
connectedness to others and higher meanings in life
• Identity negotiation theory: A theory that
emphasizes the process of communicating one’s
own desired identities while reinforcing or resisting
others’ identities as the core of intercultural
communication.
THE INTERPRETIVE PERSPECTIVE
• Avowal: The process by which an individual
portrays himself or herself.
• Ascription: The process by which others
attribute identities to an individual.
• Core symbols: The fundamental beliefs that are
shared by the members of a cultural group.
Labels, a category of core symbols, are names or
markers used to classify individual, social, or
cultural groups.
THE CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE
• Contextual Identity Formation
• Resisting Ascribed Identities:
Interpellation - The communication
process by which one is pulled into the
social forces that place people into a
specific identity.
• The Dynamic Nature of Identities
2. IDENTITY AND LANGUAGE
• Identity is a core issue for most people.
It is about who we are and who others
think we are.
• The labels that refer to particular
identities are an important part of
intercultural communication.
• In fact I “am” not one or another of
these ways of representing me, though
I have been all of them at different
times and still am some of them to
some degree. But, there is no essential,
unitary “I”—only the fragmentary,
contradictory subject I become. ( pp.
108–109)
3. IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT ISSUES
• How do we come to develop a sense of
identities?
=> People can identify with a multitude
of groups: gender, age, religion,
nationality, to name only a few.
IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT ISSUES
• Minority Identity Development: A sense of
belonging to a nondominant group.
• Majority Identity Development: A sense of
belonging to a dominant group.
MINORITY IDENTITY OFTEN DEVELOPS IN
THE FOLLOWING STAGES:
• Stage 1: Unexamined Identity
• Stage 2: Conformity
• Stage 3: Resistance and Separatism
• Stage 4: Integration
MAJORITY IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT
FIVE STAGES:
• Stage 1: Unexamined Identity
• Stage 2: Acceptance
• Stage 3: Resistance
• Stage 4: Redefinition
• Stage 5: Integration
4. SOCIAL AND CULTURAL IDENTITIES
1. Gender Identity
2. Sexual Identity
3. Age Identity
4. Racial and Ethnic Identities
5. Characteristics of Whiteness
6. Religious Identity
7. Class Identity
8. National Identity
9. Regional Identity
[Link] identity
GENDER IDENTITY
• The identification
with the cultural
notions of
masculinity and
femininity and
what it means to
be a man or a
woman.
SEXUAL IDENTITY
• One’s identification with various
categories of sexuality
AGE IDENTITY
• The identification with the cultural
conventions of how we should act, look,
and behave according to our age.
RACIAL IDENTITY
• Identifying with a particular racial group.
Although in the past racial groups were
classified on the basis of biological
characteristics, most scientists now recognize
that race is constructed in fluid social and
historical contexts.
ETHNIC IDENTITY
• (1) A set of ideas
about one’s own
ethnic group
membership;
• (2) a sense of
belonging to a
particular group and
knowing something
about the shared
experience of the
group.
HYPHENATED AMERICANS
• U.S. Americans who identify not only
with being U.S. citizens but also as
being members of ethnic groups.
CHARACTERISTICS OF WHITENESS
• What does it mean to be white in the
United States?
• What are the characteristics of a white
identity?
• Is there a unique set of characteristics
that define whiteness, just as other
racial identities have been described?
• Normative Race Privilege
• A Standpoint from Which to View Society
• A Set of Cultural Practices
RELIGIOUS IDENTITY
• A sense of
belonging to a
religious group
CLASS IDENTITY
• A sense of belonging to a group that
shares similar economic, occupational,
or social status.
NATIONAL IDENTITY
• National citizenship
REGIONAL IDENTITY
• Identification with a specific geographic
region of a nation.
5. PERSONAL IDENTITY
• Who we think we are and who others
think we are.
6. MULTICULTURAL PEOPLE
• Global nomads third-culture kids:
People who grow up in many different
cultural contexts because their parents
relocated.
• Culture brokers: Individuals who
act as bridges between cultures,
facilitating cross-cultural interaction
and conflict.
7. IDENTITY, STEREOTYPES, AND PREJUDICE
• Stereotypes: Widely held beliefs about a group
of people.
• Model minority: A stereotype that characterizes
all Asians and Asian Americans as hardworking
and serious and so a “good” minority.
• Prejudice: An attitude (usually negative) toward
a cultural group based on little or no evidence.
IDENTITY AND COMMUNICATION
• Identity has a profound influence on
intercultural communication processes.
• Sometimes we assume knowledge
about another person’s identity based
on his or her membership in a particular
cultural group