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Communicating Identity in Intercultural Communication 419

1.2. Social categorization
Besides the so far presented complexity and changeability of social identity, the
meaning of the ‘other’ forms the second central aspect for the constitution of the
‘self’. As the initially formulated definition of social identity by Tajfel and
others and the discussions above have made clear, this part of individual identity
is derived from simultaneous membership in specific groups and demarcation
from other groups: the development of a person’s identity must be understood as
“interdependent and inter-subjective” (Keupp et al. 2002: 138). We develop our
identity not in a vacuum, but rather in and through the constant comparison of
the self with other individuals and groups: “Only by comparing ourselves with
others can we build up our affiliations and our non-alignments” (Duszak 2002:
1). Turner (1982: 17) therefore brings the concept of social identity together
with a further central concept of identity research, social categorization:

Social identification can refer to the process of locating oneself, or another person,
within a system of social categorizations or, as a noun, to any social categorization
used by a person to define him- or herself and others. […] The sum total of the social
identification used by a person to define him- or herself will be described as his or her
social identity. Social categorizations define a person by systematically including
them within some, and excluding them from other related categories. They state at
the same time what a person is and is not.
Identity can thus only be grasped in a social context. Anyone who wants to do
research on the social identities of individuals must therefore of necessity also
take into account the relationships of these individuals to other persons and
groups (Keupp et al. 2002: 67, Oerter and Dreher 1995: 361, Strauss 1969: 44),
for from an “anthropological perspective identity is a relationship and not, as
everyday language supposes, an individual characteristic” (Goussiaux cited in
Keupp et al. 2002: 95). Identity and alterity are inseparably bound to one an-
other, and hence Goussiaux formulates the question of identity not as ‘Who am
I?’, but rather as “[W]ho am I in relationship to the others, who are the others in
relationship to me?” Tajfel & Forgas (1981: 124) express this relationship with
the intuitive formula: “We are what we are because they are not what we are.”
This fundamental aspect of relationships of social identity is constantly being
emphasized in identity and categorization research. Since creating affinity with
or respectively demarcation from others is often achieved using linguistic
means, it is especially linguistic studies that have been dedicated to these pro-
cesses (recently, e.g., Duszak 2002, Hausendorf and Kesselheim 2002, An-
droutsopoulos and Georgakopoulou 2003). Already in 1959, Anselm Strauss as-
serted: “Central to any discussion of identity is language” (1969: 15). Articles
with titles like: “We, They and Identity” (Sebba and Wootton 1998), “Us and
Others” (Duszak 2002), and “Us and Them” (Zhou 2002) point to the fact that
without the ‘they’ no ‘we’ can exist.