Language Matters: Communication, Culture, and Identity

Language matters greatly in almost every aspect of human behaviour and experience. Neurally and culturally humans are powerfully equipped to acquire language and use it for a variety of cognitive and social purposes. While the stress of this volume is more on the social purpose of language use, its cognitive development will also be discussed. This book comprises 20 chapters which are an extension of the interflow of ideas at the 8th International Conference on Language and Social Psychology held in Hong Kong, 2003. Most of the chapters herein are selected from the 110 Conference presentations that have been screened by reviewers. Key issues are explored in four areas: I) Communication, II) Cultural Processes, III) Social Identity, and IV) Communicating Culture and Identity in Natural Social Settings. This volume covers a diverse set of topics. Many real-life illustrations of the interaction of culture, identity and communication could be found. They include gender and intergenerational communication; language and ethnic identity; social identity within a multigenerational community of women; language, tourism and globalization; and communicating in mentoring programs and family conflicts.