language as a mask sociocultural identities

Language is one of the many masks individuals and communities wear in their self-presentation, in their conscientious demarcation between self and other. In her rhetorical analysis of post-Rodney King Los Angeles in Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, Anna Deavere Smith uses the medium of theater to aptly convey the theme of identity construction. One of the characters, Rudy Salas, Jr. uses the mask metaphor most meaningfully in the play, showing how people do not remain true to their authentic selves. Instead, they put on masks that announce their affiliation with a racial, ethnic, or subcultural group. “Well, they put on the mask—you ever notice that?—it’s a sort of mask, it’s uh...you know how they stand in your face with the ugly faces,” (Smith 5). Masks are more than just wearing gang colors or adopting a scowl that signifies power in the community. The concept of mask even goes beyond visible features of ethnicity or gender, and extends deeper into the subtleties of language. Moreover, a person can use language differently in different situations, as bilingual and multilingual people do as they fluidly float between worlds or when a person shifts from the formal discourse used in the workplace to the slang used among friends. Language becomes a mask when it is used to emphasize community or subculture affiliation, to show solidarity or to isolate outsiders, and to create multifaceted and malleable identities.
The use of language as a mask refers to the “sociolinguistic variables” that determine identity and implicate community cohesion (Bauman 1). For example, people in Los Angeles who identify with being Chicano would include language as one of the core features of their identity, with Chicano slang distinguishing the subculture from other Latin American or Hispanic groups in America. English and whiteness are both similar concepts, in that both are part of a dominant culture. Other languages are situated vis-a-vis English, just as other races are posited as “other” than white. Members of the Anglo community often forget the ways language serves to unite people along the domain of language, even when other variables like socioeconomic class, race, religion, and ethnicity are taken into account. Especially in societies in which language is actually an important means of dividing otherwise similar communities, such as in Canada or Belgium, the importance of language as a sociolinguistic variable becomes apparent.
When people can wear different linguistic “masks,” they can more easily move between different cultures and subcultures. For example, a person who is both black and Hispanic, and who speaks both English and Spanish fluently, can fluidly move between two or more otherwise distinct worlds. A person who is from Cuba or the Dominican Republic, for example, can be both black and Latino, able to identify with and be identified as Black as well as Hispanic. Likewise, a white person who speaks French and English can be counted as a member of the Francophone and the Anglophone cultures in Canada. The person who is multilingual wears language as a mask when they are in different social settings, just as they would wear different clothes to work than to a party. Language is not just about cultural affiliation, though. A person can use different linguistic masks when they speak among their colleagues at work versus their childhood friends, using professional jargon as a mask in some settings and crass slang in others. Someone who is from an economically disadvantaged background may learn quickly that in order to achieve upward social mobility, it is crucial to wear the linguistic mask of the upper classes by speaking with the tone and terminology used in upper class circles. Therefore, language can be tied with ethnicity, but it can also be linked with issues like gender, socioeconomic class, and age.
In a pluralistic, heterogeneous society comprised of multiple immigrant communities, language also raises questions about how people construct their own identities. When a person moves to the United States, their ability to assimilate and become acculturated depends largely on their ability to master English. Thus, they need to wear an English-speaking mask in order to acquire cultural capital. Some people can maintain multiple identities in a multicultural environment, speaking their mother tongue at home and English when among members of the dominant culture. However, research shows that many immigrants end up choosing one mask over the other rather than donning different masks like a social chameleon. For example, Noels, Pon and Clement surveyed 179 Chinese university students and found that the most “commonly endorsed identity” was not bilingual but either/or their first or second language (246). This research contradicts studies that show that many immigrants in the United States develop “transnational identities,” in which they live “dual lives” because of the multiple linguistic masks they wear when shifting from home or immigrant community to school, work, or the dominant Anglo community (Rumbaut 43). Because many communities in the United States remain isolated and self-sufficient, it is often possible to see people wearing one mask rather than having transnational or bicultural identities. In fact, the difference between monocultural and transcultural identities is a theme Smith explores in Twilight, as tension brews between the different communities of Los Angeles.
Language can be used as a barrier to keep others out, and to keep members of the community loyal to their tribe. For example, I have met people who actually do not want outsiders to learn too much of their language because that would mean penetrating their inner circle and diluting the integrity of their culture. The unwillingness to share one’s language with outsiders is also linked to a fear of homogenization, of having English speaking people or any outsider for that matter encroach upon unique cultures whose possible last remaining tie to tradition, history, and identity is language. In some cases, language is not used as a mask to scare others away but outsiders nevertheless fear people whose linguistic masks differ from their own. In the United States, monolingual English speakers sometimes resent speakers of Spanish not because Spanish speakers are unwilling to share their language but because English speakers are unwilling to learn Spanish. The unwillingness to learn Spanish, though, comes from a prejudicial belief that English is a superior and dominant language that defines American identity, and that speaking Spanish would be like wearing a zombie mask to a masquerade ball. In fact, America can become a universal and inclusive costume party in which individuals can wear different linguistic masks in order to add character and color to the whole.
Language can be used to unite or divide. As English becomes the dominant language of the global economy, the question of who “owns” English also becomes part of the discourse on linguistic masks (Norton 1). The concept of “owning” English highlights the “nexus of language and identity,” in which people who are not white/European speak English and thus can include themselves as part of the Anglo dominant culture without being white or European (Bauman 1). Just as whiteness is sometimes presumed to “own” the dominant culture, with all other groups as being “other,” English is sometimes presented as being the default international language to which all other tongues are secondary. The metaphor of masks shows how people already use language differently in different scenarios regardless of ethnicity or culture, such as the different ways of speaking to elders versus children. Building on this use of linguistic masks, it is foreseeable that people can embrace transnational and transcultural identities, having a collection of linguistic masks that they can share with others in the global community.




Works Cited

Bauman, Richard. “Language, Identity, Performance.” Pragmatics, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2000, pp. 1-5.
Black, Rebecca. “Language, Culture, and Identity in Online Fanfiction.” E-Learning and Digital Media, Vol. 3, No. 2, 2006, pp. 170-184.
Noels, K.A., Pon, G. & Clement, R. (1996). Language, identity, and adjustment. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 15(3): 246-264.
Norton, Bonny. “Language, Identity, and the Ownership of English.” TESOL Quarterly, Vol. 31, No. 3, 1997.
Rumbaut, Ruben G. “Severed or Sustained Attachments? Language, Identity, and Imagined Communities in the Post-Immigrant Generation.” In The Changing Face of Home: The Transnational Lives of the Second Generation, pp. 43-95, Peggy Levitt, Mary C. Waters, eds., Russell Sage Foundation, 2002.
Smith, Anna Deavere. Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992. New York: Random House.