LANGUAGE IDENTITY AND DISCRIMINATION IN A MULTICULTURAL SOCIETY

Abstract

Language, as an identifying marker in a multicultural society, also constitutes a discriminatory factor in the same society. In order to prove that fact, a vast literature on the subject matter, coupled with direct observation and personal experience, resulted to a knowledge hereby interpreted in the light of the theory of constructivism. Language is an indispensable tool for communication amongst people anywhere on the face of the earth. In a society characterized by the multitude of languages spoken, language becomes an important criterion for identification of the members. How someone speaks goes a long way to provide information about their origin, ethnic group, social class, gender, etc. Though many languages coexist in such a society, there is often a dominant language which everybody speaks or ought to speak. This paper holds to the position that those who cannot speak that particular language or those who speak it with a strange accent, with a different intonation for instance, are the people at risk of facing linguistic discrimination (glottophobia). The recommendation supports the means to control or remedy glottophobia in a multicultural environment. Though it is a genuine feeling for anyone to desire his or her language to be spoken flawlessly even by strangers, we arrived at a conclusion that language discrimination is nothing but a killer.