Language & Intercultural Communication
Editor: Dr John Corbett (University of Glasgow)
Associate Editor: Robert Crawshaw (Lancaster University)
Reviews and Criticism Editor: Dr Fiona J. Doloughan (University of Surrey)
Editorial Board: Gavin Jack (University of Stirling)
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Volume: 3 Number: 1 Page: 6–19
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Languages, Identities, Agencies: Intercultural Lessons from Harry Potter
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Alison Phipps
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Matters of language use and identity have dominated cultural and literary theory in recent years. This paper brings these perspectives together in a critical reading of recent modern language and intercultural
communication literatures. One approach views languages as powerful and complex goods, and identity formation as inherently unstable. It sees identity formation through languages largely in terms of human
agency. To this view is counterposed an alternative argument in favour of languages as agents in themselves, as bearers of power and as imposers of scars. These alternative readings thus legitimise the
dual idea of languages and linguists as agents that mark and are marked. Study abroad, accordingly, is not neutral but could lead to an identity formation of either kind (agentic or victim). In order for
identity formation to be agentic in character, power has to be acknowledged, struggled with and claimed. Language learners, as intercultural agents, exercise their human properties and power in order to
engage with unstable and destabilising sets of experiences.
© Multilingual Matters 2003
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