Narratives of Language and Identity

The intricate and complex relations between language and identity have been the focus of many academic researchers in virtually all fields of the humanities. Many narratives have been produced in relation to this issue. The English Department at the Higher Institute of Applied Studies in Humanities at the University of Gafsa in Tunisia organized a study day on the topic of “Language and Identity”. Different scholars from different universities and disciplines shed light on some tricky aspects of the two concepts. They tackled them from linguistic, literary and cultural perspectives and produced interesting contributions. Articles treated, among other issues, the problematic relationships between the articulations of identity in language and vice versa. Language and identity are related to discursive topics like culture, race, virtual spaces, political discourses, universal linguistics and language teaching. Bringing together contributions from different disciplines and theoretical traditions, this collection aims both to illuminate and to move forward debates about ‘language and identity' and their meaning in contemporary social formations and cultural contexts.