LANGUAGE AND IDENTITY IN THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA

This essay began as a talk I gave at the Graduate School of Interpretation and Translation, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, in November: 1998, The argument focuses on three points. First. there is an unavoidable link between language and the structures of personal identity. Second, the potential richness of American cultural identity-with its stress on individualism-must also be understood La be severely limited from the point of view of linguistic identity This negative example is contrasted with the more promising case of the multi-linguistic culture of Canada And. third, the multi-cultural heritage of a truly transnational world will depend on the proliferation of multi-lingual individuals Because my original audience was a group of students training to become professional translators and interpreters-a group of individuals who are ordinarily not expected to exert their individual identities in their professional capacities. but to work as agents for others-my aim was to make them consider the extraordinary potentials they do possess as multi-lingual actors in their own right, and the important roles they consequently play on the stage of world culture.