Language and Community: Identity, Discourse, and Social Structures

This essay delves into the complex relationship between language and community, examining how language shapes individual identities and social structures. The paper explores various linguistic frameworks, including discourse communities, speech communities, and disciplinary communities, to illustrate the multifaceted ways language functions within social contexts. It discusses the interplay between language, context, and identity, highlighting the significance of shared vocabulary, genres, and communication patterns in fostering community cohesion. The essay also touches upon intercultural communication challenges, emphasizing how cultural differences can lead to misinterpretations. Furthermore, it analyzes language as a social sign system and explores the role of language genres in defining individual identities within communities. Overall, the essay provides a comprehensive analysis of the dynamic interrelation between language and the communities it serves, offering insights into how language facilitates social interaction and shapes cultural understanding.

Running head: Langauge and Community
Language and Community
Author Name(s)
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Author Note

Langauge and Community 1
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to analyze how language relates to the community by looking at the roles
it plays in the individual identities and the community in general. Identity discourse interacts
with other disciplines that inform the linguistics on the interrelationships that sit between an
individual, language, and the social structures. Some of these disciplines are the makeups of
social bonds, sense of identity in the group, loyalty, solidarity, and detachments among others.
For instance, in intercultural communication, there could be the best intention of each individual
participant, but cultural differences in the discursive settings may cause participants to
misinterpret each other’s intentions. Also, when someone successfully adapts to a discourse
identity mix-up to fit in a community, one may start feeling as though they are disconnected
from their own identity. Thus, this paper will be looking at this interrelation between the
language and the community.
Keywords: Identity, Genre, Community, Language

Langauge and Community 2
Language and Community
An analysis of the interrelation between the language and the community is deep-rooted
in the linguistic frameworks of social context and the identities discoursal construction. These
are the frameworks such as discourse community, speech community, social networks,
disciplinary community, language as a social sign system, language functioning in context,
language genre or language etc. This paper will be explaining the relation of language and
community by looking at some of these frameworks.
Language, context, and Identity
A relationship between language and community can be analyzed by looking at the
interaction between the person’s identity, the language of that person, and the
context(Alshammari, 2018). In a simplified explanation, members of a community, find their
identity in that community, in the way they understand and use that community's vocabulary of
the language. This explanation first points to a simple relation between an individual, their
community, and its language. The work of (M. A. K. Halliday & Hasan, 1985) narrows this
relationship by analyzing the functional foundation of language, its relationship with linguistic
contexts, and the society in which it occurs. In other words, people understand each other due to
the relationship that largely depends on the understanding of the diverse linguistic backgrounds
that everyone is in. In this manner, the languages afford to develop various mechanisms of
managing social relationships hence bringing different people together as a community.
The work (M. A. K. Halliday & Hasan, 1985) sees language as structured signs that
create a meaning, and this meaning its only understood by the community that is using it.
Therefore, language serves a communicative purpose which is very specific to the participants of
that culture. Similar to the language pattern, the community has its speaking pattern the same

Langauge and Community 3
way it has other patterns in social behaviors like kinships, religion, or celebrations. By looking at
this perspective, it is possible to see language has context-based structure constituting of the
setting which is the community, its users who are the people or social groups who add texts,
topics, vocabulary, e.tc. The language also has the purpose which signifies the social identity as
the use of appropriate language demonstrates the discourse conventions. In this agreement,
(Holliday, Hyde, & Kullman, 2010) states that understanding others people's cultural constructs
and the way they interact with their identities available in the context forms the basis of
intercultural communication.
Discourse community
One influential explanation of a discourse community was given by (Swales, 1990). The
explanation was grounded on the conception of the analysis of English academic texts.
According to (Swales, 1990), there are six features that define a discourse community. These are
established common goals, mechanisms that the members use for intercommunication,
mechanisms of participatory for providing information and feedbacks, shared lexis, shared
genres, and the members’ threshold level with an appropriate degree of applicable contents and
discoursal expertise. Thus, for the purpose of identity, emphasis on lexis and genres is considered
as the fundamentals that empower a discourse community’s participants to focus on their goals,
affiliation normalization, and efficacy of communications among themselves.
Comunity of Practice
Another explanation is provided by (Wenger, 2008) by looking at the community of
practice (COFP) as another term within discourse community that incorporates the structure of
social identities via language. Regarding the notion of COFP, the term refers more to the various
values and practices that unite communities or detach them from each other.

Langauge and Community 4
The COFP involves individuals who are brought together by a common area of expertise
ideas or resources (Bamford & Bondi, 2011). Also, it relies on the purposes of the language to
work against conformity or works accurately to demonstrate the interplay relationship and
identity. The work of (Malinowski, 1966) explains this concept using an example of a
cooperative work. The author states that co-operative work involves people coming together to
execute a small task. The accomplishment of the task relies on their talks and coordinate
movements which stimulate them.
Speech community
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines speech communities as socially dissimilar
groups that develop a dialect or varieties of languages that deviate from a national language in
pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. The SpCom originates from the general foundations of
sociolinguistics which are the historical linguistics, dialectology, philosophy of language, early
structuralism, and anthropology. However, there is much disagreement among researchers on the
some facets of a SpCom such as the boundaries, membership, and group homogeneity vs group
heterogeneity (Patrick, 2001). Additionally, there is uncertainty whether a SpCom is a largely
social or more of a linguistic unit.
The multitude of conceptualizations and re-evaluations done on SpCom highlights much
divergence and disparity among scholars, which also contributes to some extent in the concept’s
ambiguity and deficiency. Nevertheless, authors have been considering SpCom a basic essential
factor of language and considered it as a socially-grounded component in the analysis of
linguistic (Patrick, 2001). In (Bernstein, 2000), the author brings the notion of cultural
reproduction-production where the author states that language must bring to the light the
processes of interaction and the possibility for a change. The work of (Bernstein, 2000) tries to

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explain the concept of recontextualisation by analyzing how practices of pedagogic
communication when directly or indirectly regulate aspects of change and cultural reproduction.
Disciplinary Community
According to (Li, 2009), identities are about boundaries which makes someone different
from others. Similarly, academic disciplines have disciplinary territories in their social-historical
contexts which helps to filter some people through inclusion and exclusion(Li, 2009). And
according to (Hyland, 2015), this interdisciplinary diversity are the outcomes of the homogeneity
of the disciplinary communities and their practices. In his discussion, Hyland finds that
disciplinary communities are like academic tribes with their particular norms, bodies of
knowledge, nomenclature, conventions, language, and styles of inquiry which constitutes
cultures.
A socialization with disciplinary communities involves acquiring the specific discourse
competence that allows individual to fit and participate in the new community. This concept is
well articulated by (Maton, 2007) that the main explanation for the shifting power between
scientific and humanistic cultures was the humanist's intellectuals ‘speak different languages,’
and the nature of science being portrayed as specific to language than the speakers. This
explanation was also held by Saussure in (Harris & Taylor, 2005) that a language is not for its
speakers in its continuous journey of evolution, but for its stability in a structured system. That
is, the speaker is less important than the context. These are some of the disciplines sanctioned
rhetorical conventions which are the results of shared values norms and beliefs which and
individuals would have to comply with each disciplines language in order to gain and retain the
membership.
Language as a social sign system

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In linguistic analysis, language is seen as a pattern of signs, and it may differ from one
community to the other. The concept of language as a social sign of system was explained by
Saussure using an analogy of the chess game (Saussure, 1959). Saussure explains that, as the
way each piece in chess has its semiotic value depending on the position it is placed, the game
has laws that govern it, and these principles do not change. Whoever wants to play the game
must understand its current state but does not need to understand its history. In any language, the
pattern of signs constitutes principles of its synchronic linguistic approach.
In explaining the Saussure’s conception, (Culler, 1986) states that studying language as a
system requires one to identify the essential feature, the elements that make up the language.
Members of a community have the understanding of this systems because through time they have
adapted to the predetermined structure of that language. For instance, the structure of every
“natural” language is the result of a sequence of sedimented social acts in which communication
took place. A speech community is a `complex and adaptive language of sign system that through
time it has been created and structured as a set of sound patterns for the coordination of
activities. A new member to such a community would be need to adapt to these patterns and
emulate them.
Language functioning in the context
Language is usually regarded as a symbolic system and it relies on a set of rules which
any speaker who needs to use it must master in to give a coherent speech. The concept of
linguistic analysis complex syntactic structure is an approach that emanates from an
intrapsychological viewpoint and language is seen as a system functioning from inside
someone’s brain, and then its application is seen in social purposes. As an interpsychological,

Langauge and Community 7
language is seen as fashioned by social purpose where the context and social frameworks
become part if of the system (Jakobson, 1990).
According to (Holliday et al., 2010) when members of a language community oriented to
a particular language structure and conceptualize their context-sensitive language usage, they do
so by using terms that are only recognized or have meaning in that community. For instance,
legal experts would have a different way of saying their things from experts from other fields.
Different contexts use different expressions and different types of vocabularies that suit their
context. This concept is explained by (Jakobson, 1990) that “every language encompasses
several concurrent patterns, each characterized by different functions.”
Membership in such communities would require someone to understand their
expositions, procedures, protocols, explanations etc. Members in the community are recognized
in the way they construe their identities and authorities in choosing to align or not to alight with
other partners by the choice of their words (Whorf, 1940). In addition, members can also adjust
their language style depending on the participants. For example, a conversation between a
student and a teacher would be different between a teacher and other teachers.
Language Genre or language-ready brain
Language genre determines someone identity in a community in that an individual’s
membership will be determined by the competence in the usage of the community’s recognized
genres and the way a person complies the community’s e norms. Therefore, competence with
community genre is important in a person’s initiation to any other discourse community as one
may need to be competent with language abstraction.
In (Swales, 1990) the work has encouraged people to analyze genres according to the
communities which use them. The work also demonstrates that genres schemas developed

Langauge and Community 8
through shared experiences to construct specific contexts. Swales demonstrates how members of
academic communities utilize genres regularities for developing relationships, create and dispute
ideas and accomplish things. In other words, genres are community assets which help the users
when creating and reading texts giving them an assurance that they understand the context. They
enable the new situation to form connections with wider practices and norms. Also, it is not
members who rationally choose that the norms are practical, but the constant exposure to the
discourse enables them to align with the norms for the interest of the group. The work of (M. A.
Halliday, 1978) explains this concept by demonstrating how a child learns to speak. The work
states that people interprets learning to speak as the someone’s mastery of a behavior potential.
Aligning with (Swales, 1990) interpretations, both authors agree that learning requires
interactions which is a community’s asset that they transmit from one generation to the other.
Language as a complex adaptive system
The notion of complex adaptive system signifies a community which is made up of
language users who collectively solves the problems of their developing communication system
and even go ahead to come up with novel blending of meanings(Lee, Mikesell, Joaquin, Mates,
& Schumann, 2009). As language solves a community’s fundamental social function, the process
in which users interact along with domain-general perceptive processes influences the
knowledge and structure of a language. Recent studies in cognitive science have demonstrated
that there is a pattern use affect language acquisition, use, and changes (Shweder & LeVine,
1984). The processes are also not independent of each other, but they are facets of the similar
(CAS).
Therefore, language as a CAS follows some key features. The CAS comprises of multiple
speakers (agents) of a speech community who interact with each other. The systems are

Langauge and Community 9
adaptive, the agents’ behaviors are based on their past and present interactions together as they
change to future behaviors. Also, the speakers’ behaviors are caused by the competing factors
that can range from perceptive restraints to social incentives. In addition, the language structure
emerges from the interconnected patterns of user’s social collaboration, cognitive ability, and
experience.
Conclusion
The aim of this essay was to analyze how language relates to the community by looking
at the roles it plays in the individual identities and the community in general. In this attempt the
paper went through the various linguistic frameworks of social context and the identities
discoursal construction. Those that were discussed were the discourse community which simply
denotes a group of people sharing similar views, principles, beliefs etc. The speech community
was also discussed. The others that were discussed were disciplinary community, language as a
social sign system, language was also discussed as serving a communicative purpose also
discusses as a complex adaptive system.

Langauge and Community 10
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