The Identity Question

It seems that every time I move to a new place there is a moment when culture shock taps me on the shoulder, catching me by surprise. Somehow, I keep assuming that, as a result of traveling so much and encountering so much "other," that I will reach a point where I am no longer affected. Last year in Romania, the question of identity consumed me. Perhaps because it was a transitional year between graduate school and the ever-looming "life" to follow or perhaps because it is normal to reconsider who you are and where you are going now and then, I felt as if the questions had an inescapable grip on me and demanded some serious brooding if not concrete answering:

Who am I? Am I like these ones or those ones? Where am I? Where am I going? What in the world am I doing? Do I want to be doing it? Do I like doing it? Who are these people with whom I've surrounded myself? Why? Why? Why? Why?

Ah, yes! These are the contemplative questions that reach me during culture shock and that beg me to stop and mull them over a bit in the new year... Estonia is no different.


My attitude towards travel and learning about language and culture (personally, not as a language teacher -- although that is undoubtedly affected) has really changed since my first explorations. I can remember the enthusiasm I had about learning about Slovakia, Slovak culture, and studying the language (este rozpravam po slovensky bez velkych problemov!). My first taste of being in a new place and exploring a tiny village and its life as well as my own place within it was fascinating and my attitude towards engaging it was incredibly intense and directed. Since living and traveling in a few other places, my dedicated spirit towards learning less-commonly spoken languages has waned. It's a question of time and it's a true question of investment. I would like to learn all things Estonian, including the fascinating language, but I am not exactly sure if the return on the investment is worth it. Beyond this short epoch of my life, does speaking and knowing Estonian make sense? Not that I shouldn't aim towards understanding and participating in the host culture, but, here in Tartu, I can do that pretty fully with English. It's a tough question. One that raises guilt in my consciousness. After all, I am a language teacher. Should I enjoy learning language just for the sake of doing so? Isn't it crass of me to try to quantify an outcome?

Hmmmm... I have been taking an Estonian class and have made some progress. I have tried to make Estonian friends, but this isn't easy in a culture that is largely quiet and a bit reticent until you are a known quantity. My circle of friends is more international than Estonian, but I excuse this with understanding that many Estonians have many more social obligations than I do at this moment and knowing that, together with these other international explorers, we can act as co-motivators in discovering and learning about this really interesting "Nordic Baltic country."

As proof of shifting identity, I offer pictures from our office Christmas party here in Tartu. The theme of this year's party was sailing, and I went in costume with two other women from my office (pictured above and also below with a sailor we also picked up from the office!). We wore Estonian national costumes and went as "Ranna-piiga," or the young women who await sailors when they come back to port. Somehow symbolic of my acceptance at work and in this place, I felt at home dressed up in this traditional garb for the evening. Perhaps if the wool skirt fits...?


I gave a presentation this week on culture, identity, and language teaching that got me thinking about shifting identities of language learners (and aimless wanderers like me). The literature seems to offer some real pearls of wisdom relating to this topic. I realize it is probably nerdy to use in-text quotations in a personal blog, but I guess I can embrace this geekiness as part of who I am!

“We cannot fully understand one culture in absence of contact with other cultures” (Savignon and Sysoyev, 2002: 510)

“The intentional acquisition of a new linguistic identity can result in a huge shift of the language learner’s understanding and interpretation of the world around him” (Marx, 2002: 264).

Identity is a project and a projection of self in constant fluctuation (van Lier, 2004).

“Cultural contact implies that we perceive aspects, behaviors, values, and so on that are different than our own cultural background and thus provoke a rethinking of existing cultural categories” (Finkbeiner and Koplin, 2002: 4).

The notion presupposes that when language learners speak, they are not only exchanging information with the target language speakers but they are constantly organizing and reorganizing a sense of who they are and how they relate to the social world. Thus an investment in the target language is also an investment in a learner’s own social identity, an identity which is constantly changing across time and space (Norton Peirce, 1995: 17-18).

Finkbeiner, C., & Koplin, C. (2002). A cooperative approach for facilitating intercultural
education. Reading Online, 6. Available online:
http://www.readingonline.org/newliteracies/lit_index.asp?HREF=finkbeiner/index.

Marx, N. (2002). Never quite a ‘native speaker’: Accent and identity in the L2 – and the L1.
The Canadian Modern Language Review, 59, 264-281.

Norton Peirce, B. (1995). Social identity, investment, and language learning. TESOL
Quarterly, 29, 9-31.

Savignon, S. J., & Sysoyev, P. V. (2002). Sociocultural strategies for a dialogue of cultures.
The Modern Language Journal, 86, 508-524.

van Lier, L. (2004). The ecology and semiotics of language learning. A sociocultural perspective. Boston: Kluwer.