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LANGUAGE VERSUS IDENTITY: HOW CULTURE AND LITERATURE SHAPE THE
PERSONAL SPHERE OF ADVANCED MULTILINGUALS?
Sattorbek Jurayev Normamatovich
4th year student of UzDJTU
Sattorbekjurayev95@gmail.com
+998931428616
Abstract:
This article investigates the association between language and identity among
proficient multilinguals, emphasizing the key points of culture and literature as shapers of the
personal formation. Many individuals feel immersed after trying to dive into multiple languages
through different cultural backgrounds, literature frameworks, self-perception, and humor that
they got in a fast-paced globalized world. Playing a pivotal role as a reflection of someone's
historical values and cultural identity, language also further navigates the way of thinking among
multilinguals by shaping their mindset completely differently. In turn, this serves as a
globalization act and offers several insights to better understand common sense and lead the
community quickly from different backgrounds. By understanding society and expressing
opinions fluently, advanced multilinguals often undergo changes in their personal sphere as they
navigate through cultural differences. The ambiguity locked the doors first when those nuances
had an impact on language learners and became clearer as language proficiency was enhanced. It
also had been felt that literature, in its own, changes how people feel emotionally, their native-
like thinking, and how they get along with language. By examining the cultural understanding
via language and literature, this study references examples and explanations from different
scholars to expand and express how multilinguals experience the transformation in their personal
sphere of inner identity.
Key words:
Proficient multilinguals, language, identity, literature, culture, cultural backgrounds,
personal sphere, communicate.
Introduction:
Linguistic systems, what we call a language, and identity—the self-concept, or personal
identity—are intricately linked when it comes to determining individuals' way of thinking,
communication, and understanding themselves, combining with the surrounding environment
and social context. There have been extensive studies examining language acquisition among
multiple language speakers, but the effects on communication skills or the impact of interaction
abilities among advanced multilingual speakers have been lacking. There was relatively little
research examined, and there was insufficient focus by scholarship for that nuanced identity
change. Language changes when it comes to skilled polyglots and how they got influenced by
the culture and the language when it comes to changing motive, interacting, and reflecting the
personal identity or selfhood, in other words. Many people learn languages for everyday
communication or conversations to engage with native speakers, but expert language learners
interact with socio-cultural frameworks and textual heritage, and in turn they learn societal
subtitles to shape affective responses, drive behavior orientation, and create cognitive
frameworks in their own minds for the world around them. Representations of cultural heritage
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and social conventions serve as a central function, providing novel insights towards cognitive
schemes and expressive capacity. There has been a jointly influenced internal identity. By
analyzing distinctions of proficient polyglots, the impact on the identity has a dynamic change
compared to basic language learners. Investigating these processes, it can be easier to clarify the
role of multilingual exposure and blended selfhood that has been formed by different
backgrounds of the languages. Cultures and the literature in the evolution of individuals and
many other identities.
Language is commonly accepted as a structured system for communication, formed and evolved
over centuries. Each language is unique in its own way, without a doubt, with precise grammar
and vocabulary usage and a distinct way of being used by its owners. Language would be
meaningless if it had never been used in a real context. Alternatively, it could have been hard to
understand why exactly language works in a certain pattern with word order alongside cognitive
semantics. That is, the link has connected language to the culture of its users. The certain
elements have different meanings; however, when they are all gathered, they can form a new
meaning that can only be digested by their native or native-like users. “Understanding why a
language works in a certain pattern, including word order and cognitive semantics, requires
acknowledging the deep connection between language and the culture of its users” (Pavlenko,
2004). Here is an example, the English idiom "It is raining cats and dogs." Without a certain
level of English language, it can be so overwhelming to understand the point of the animals that
were used in that context. All the languages have their own versions of words like these. They
are casually used in different meanings, but the connection of something back to cultural or
historical heritage can alter it in an exact moment. “All languages contain similar idiomatic
expressions, which reflect cultural or historical heritage and shape the meaning in context”
(Norton,2013). Language and identity are inseparable. Despite the fact language is called a
structure or a tool that has been made for communication, it is not just for that at all. It also
reflects how people perceive themselves in their society, reflecting their role. All of the words
that were expressed and the structures that were revealed share cultural values, emotional states,
and thought patterns. When it comes to multilinguals, they create multiple "selves" of themselves.
While providing a language barrier to themselves, they often go and come beyond just the way
of their own identity in their native language. They might take something seriously when they
face culture shock or crises of different cultures. Language has been actively used as a tool to
perform and negotiate, but nowadays, it has been the expression of the heart, humor, and inner
self, not just the way to communicate. “Language functions both as a mirror of self-concept and
as a tool for constructing personal identity”. (Norton,2013) Take an example: writing a reflective
journal in any language can make people analytical, whereas thinking in their native language
might make them more emotional, or vice versa. It has been confirmed that many people switch
to other languages while they talk about emotions and relations. In many cases, it has always
been English for non-native speakers. They have set social norms, they have added motivation
and personal values for that language, and after all, they create their own native-like version in
themselves, and that changes the way they think and adapt to the language. After mastering a
language, many people understand the politeness, hierarchies, humor, or metaphors in English
literature subtly shaped by the way they evaluate situations more academically and start to
interact socially in their own.
Using a language differs from owning a language, and speaking in a language; only goes deep
when it is connected to learner's worldview. As Kramsch (1998) notes, to know a language is to
know a culture; language learning is not only a cognitive act, but also a social and cultural one.
The language learning is inseparable from cultural understanding. There is no way of accepting
and consuming all the information without the basic knowledge about the culture itself.
Language is not only a system of rules, but also a medium that carries social norms, values, and
worldviews. They internalize culture through language use; it is not like they learn culture
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because of the language.
Byram (1997) underlines the engage of language to the literature, providing into social and
cultural dimensions. According to him, literature serves as a pivotal medium for better
understanding and engaging with culture, especially in the context-based language learning.
Byram (1997) notes in Teaching and Accessing Intercultural Communicative Competence,
literary texts provide learners with an access to what is called beliefs, different kinds of norms
and awareness. That is why when proficient language learners excel in their language targets,
they often go inside of the language not because they know advanced grammar but because they
started to understand culture and literature. As a result, literature acts as a bridge between
language and culture, making learners to expand beyond their imagination. Those relations were
supported by Lee (2003) and Jiang (2000) as they also argue “a distinctive and inseparable
relationship between language, culture and identity”; so that they have seen them as a single unit
rather than separable items.
An American author and speaker James Clear worked on his books to renew old habits and
change it to something better with not changing identity but small habits; so identity still will be
changed over time. As a form of literature “Atomic Habits” this book changes identity in a small
fraction by self-assumptions and clear explanations that were proved by examples mentioning
about productivity, motivation and self-discipline.
Although the connection between language and literature may not seem strong as it is, the power
it holds undeniable. When a reader dives into literature they start to see the world different: they
will be to understand complex nuances as they can guess from overall meaning or sharpen their
minds with sociolinguistic knowledge. In addition to that, the mixture of culture and literature
can be powerful mediators as a shaper of the language and identity by reinforcing the idea that
cannot be separated from culture. As Kramsch (1998) points out that learning a language is not
merely the mastery of grammar or vocabulary, it is an entry into cultural meaning, systems
where norms of politeness, humor, metaphorical expression, and social hierarchies are embedded.
In its own, literature deepens this process as a tool for identity formation. Unlike other learners
use the language for everyday conversation, advanced-level multilinguals use literature as a
transmission of collective memory, moral value, and worldviews through the narrative and
metaphor. Norton (2013) argues that How much people engage with text, they can learn to
negotiate identities beyond their imagination. Comparatively, Pavlenko (2004) highlights the
emotional attachment in the stories of a second language can change the sense of learners as an
expand to their repertoires.
Language now is not simply a kind of a knowledge; it fundamentally acts as a personal sphere –
emotions, self-concept, social role of people and worldview. It all differs when it is side with
proficient multilinguals. Unlike other language learners advanced users broaden into intercultural
competence and identity. Therefore, multilinguals build hybrid identities that shaped by both
languages but also with the power of literature and culture (Bradby,2002). Multilinguals are
unique because they live at the intersection of cultural frameworks and literature transmits. For
them, language plays the role of a medium; that is why their identity will be the result of the
constant negotiation between the culture and the literature. (Pavlenko & Blackledge, 2004;
Kramsch, 1998). Additionally, for proficient language users, language acts as a mirror to their
own identity. As long as they carry their own identity, they form up new ones with the
worldview, idioms, and cultural assumptions whenever they master a new language. And all the
time they use different languages; they just switch from one to another, like they're changing the
phase. When it comes to literature, it acts as a space of negotiation. Reading in multiple
languages exposes them to different literature traditions, writers, and cultural backgrounds. All
around the world, literature has different forms, and multilingual users have the ability to
understand different cultural norms through literature. As a result, literature doesn't just tell
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stories but also changes the way of thinking and sharpens the mindset. Multilinguals often feel a
sense of belonging to multiple cultural places. Whenever they switch the language, they can
adapt to the place as long as they fully change their identity by the language and the literature.
As long as they master the language, they get better when it comes to understanding the culture
and adapting to it. And after that, the tension becomes much thinner, and the chance of facing a
cultural shock will be less. Not all the languages are valid equally. However, when multilingual
people can use them all, they can shape them by navigating these languages as their power
structures. Different languages carry different emotional weights. Sometimes people feel better
when it comes to sharing their own thoughts, beliefs, and emotions, not only in their own native
language but also in the target, chosen language. That is why the power of literature in any
language can evoke childhood, family, and tradition, while in a foreign language, it brings them
back to nostalgia.
Conclusion:
There are interconnected forces that shape the experience of multilingual speakers by language
vs. literature compared to identity vs. culture. Language is not only a tool for communication but
also a carrier of personal and collective identity while shaped by literature and culture. For
multilingual individuals, those elements intertwine, offering both opportunities and challenges.
On the one hand, they can switch from one to another smoothly, offering them a lot of chances to
get along. On the other hand, it may also create tension and identity in their beliefs and sense of
belonging. Ultimately, the relationship between language, literature, identity, and culture
demonstrates the paradox of human expression. One side with the importance of multilingualism
and the other side with the connection to the inner identity of a human being.
References:
1. Kramsch, C. (1998). Language and culture. Oxford University Press.
2. Norton, B. (2013). Identity and language learning: Extending the conversation (2nd ed.).
Multilingual Matters.
3. Pavlenko, A., & Blackledge, A. (Eds.). (2004). Negotiation of identities in multilingual
contexts. Multilingual Matters.
4. Byram, M. (1997). Teaching and assessing intercultural communicative competence.
Multilingual Matters. (Can't browse full page but frequently used; acknowledged academically).
5. Pavlenko, A. (2006). Bilingual minds: Emotional experience, expression, and representation.
Multilingual Matters.
6. Bradby, H. (2002). Translating culture and language: A research note on multilingual
settings. Sociology of Health & Illness, 24(6), 850–869.
7. Lee, S. K. (2003). Multiple identities in a multicultural world: A Malaysian perspective.
Journal of Language, Identity & Education, 2(3), 137–158.
8. Jiang, W. Y. (2000). The relationship between culture and language. ELT Journal, 54(4),
328–334. https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/54.4.328
9. Clear, J. (2018). Atomic Habits: An easy & proven way to build good habits & break bad
ones. Avery.
