Exercise 4

• Nationalism has experienced a rebirth in an especially virulent form in Serbia and Croatia, in Northern Ireland and in a variety of places where there is a widespread belief that it is one’s participation in a nation that provides the primary sense of identity and belonging (Stieg, 2002: 137).

Individually

• Summarize each article:

--what is the article about?

--what is the main theme of each article?

In Groups

• Some of the authors in these exercise view language as inextricably linked with identity. Focusing on two of these authors, explain how this is so for each of them. Do they mean different things when they discuss identity and language, or do you see their arguments as fundamentally similar? Explain.

Question 2

A language can assume a symbolic significance in what Clark Blaise refers to as individual’s “moral landscape”. Consider the ways in which language functions as symbol in the three readings.

Question 3

• Using the readings by Blaise and Silberstein to inform your understanding of the importance of language to a people’s culture and identity, explain the phenomenon of Quebec nationalism discussed by Michael Ignatieff. Are there workable alternatives to the solutions proposed by the nationalists? What considerations would be involved in working out such alternatives?

Question 4

Silberstein explains that the television commercial for “I am an American” elicited a wide scope of “readings.” What were these readings and what accounted for the broad responses?