Balirano, G. 2015. Language, Identity and Diversity (original) (raw)

2015, Balirano, G. 2015. “Language, Identity and Diversity”. In Balirano, G. / Nisco, M.C. (eds) 2015. Languaging Diversity: Identities, Genres, Discourses, pp. 325-331. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Our initial aim, when assembling this volume, was to bring a small contribution to the investigation of the far-reaching concepts of diversity and identity in emerging discourse(s) on Otherness. As we see it, one of the main and most difficult tasks of linguistic research today is to understand and describe the nature of these concepts and the theoretical speculations which gravitate around them. We thus planned to investigate ‘diversity’ and ‘identity’ in discourse and in any form of linguistic and semiotic representation, in other words, we set out to effectively examine the way we 'language’ them. Overall, previous linguistic research in the vast field of diversity, or more recently ‘super-diversity', and identity presents a significant backdrop for tackling multifaceted issues in the area of social justice and injustice, representation and/or discrimination within contemporary societies, institutions and organisations. However, although several discourses on immigration, racism, ethnicity, (post)nationalism and gender are increasingly debated topics in our Western societies and in the academic world, we believe that the wide domain(s) of diversity studies seem to be inevitably informed by contradictory theoretical, political and academic speculations, to the point that the very term diversity often presents diverse acceptations (see Vincent’s Prologue; and Zanca, in this volume). It is also, however, widely employed to variously express an idea, a classification, or a whole apparatus for ‘disciplining’ identities (Ahmed 2012; Foldy 2002; Nkomo and Stewart 2006).