Mass Communication: Insights to Identity as it Relates to Language Acquisition, Opportunities, Limitations and Consequences - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages It is when the individual becomes conscious of his appearance, his face, his nose, his height, his body built and all because he starts becoming aware of others and what other might perceive about him.
I am saying this in a very personal matter as I started getting conscious about my identity only when it has become important to me about what others might think about me, and that was when I reached the "teen" age.
At that stage, my "identity" has also become of importance. What do I want other people to think about me or how do they perceive me So, the first thing of course that I actually did is to look at people my age and study how they act, dress, and even the things they like. And then, I started asking myself how do I want people to identify me
Identity is defined as "the distinct personality of an individual regarded as a persisting entity" or "the individual characteristics by which a thing or person is recognized or known" (WordNet, 2006).
In identifying the self, as earlier stated, there is a conscious interaction with the outside world. Berger (1997) presented detailed processes on how individuals as humans interact and that social reality is a form of consciousness so that society have a very important impact on the individual. Specifically, in the book (Berger & Luckman, 1966, p 51), it was stated that "Man's self-production is always, and of necessity, a social enterprise. Men together produce a human environment, with the totality of its socio-cultural and psychological formations."
But first, it is necessary to establish how one acquires language. Walqui (2000) argued that contextual factors such as the individual, social and societal affect a learner's acquisition process so that in learning languages, the student's level of proficiency and knowledge and societal attitudes all play part. Likewise, acquiring a language is sociolinguistic in a manner that social factors are described and ways are explained as how learners vary in their use of language system (Gass and Selinker, 1994). The study of language alone is widely understood as interdisciplinary in nature and encompass psychology, cognitive process, linguistic and social aspects so that besides the actual features of the learning environment is the psychological meaning attached to these features by the individual learners perceptions and interpretations of their interactions with the learning environment. In this process, the individual and the identity are impacted. Krashen (1985) contrasted "language acquisition" with formal and non-constructive "learning" while there are various factors attributed to learning a language and these include family influences, social groups or peers, teachers, school, age, and self-concept. Chastain (1976) proposed that low self-concept allows a person to shy away from learning opportunities as well as avoid activities which they feel they are compromised to speak a language uncomfortable for them and partake ...Download file to see next pagesRead More