Saliev Shakhzodkhon 201801086

How does your own native language enable or encumber expression of your identity?

There is widely held perception that mother language may express person’s identity and cultural
background. The question arises as to how our own native language describes our identity. This essay
intends to explore the ways language shows person’s identity and culture in following three body
paragraphs.

First, the way how language delivers information about identity and culture is through writings.
In every language there are writers that compose poems, novels, and books. By looking at the structure
of their stories and deriving meanings, people can recognize writer’s identity as well as culture. For
example, romantic novels in my country shows how it was hard to get married and describes obstacles
that are present in community, culture, and religion. These kinds of writings also show culture
conversational taboos and restrictions in the particular topic. Despite this, writing shares knowledge of
culture and opinions about cross culture communication.

Second, the thing that represents culture and identity in native language is song. My native
language Tajik was popular with song genre called “Shashmaqom”. It was popular due to wide usage of
musical instruments like doira, rubob, dutor, setor, nay and so on. Especially this equipment clearly
shows the cultural background of my nation. The rhythm that starts slowly and rises in important points
clearly represents our identity and preference in music.

Third, the other factor that expresses our identity is verbal communication. Verbal
communication is the best way to illustrate your identity to person with the same language. However, in
international level it could work as worst way to present your identity and culture. Obviously, language
difference creates a barrier because the way of speaking is different. For example, people from Germany
tend to speak loudly and little aggressively that exactly frightens someone from South Korea, where
people intend to speak politely as much as possible. This example shows that we should be aware while
speaking to a foreigner and try to speak politely to be friendly.

In conclusion, our native language is partially our culture and identity in terms of preference,
knowledge, taboo topics and partially history. However, it may create misconduct in direct verbal
conversation and it is recommended to use body language in the conversations instead.