AWARENESS OF IDENTITY FUNCTION OF LANGUAGE - A KEY ELEMENT IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CRITICAL COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE IN THE FIRST LANGUAGE TEACHING

Abstract

Identity junction of language does not relate only to the symbolic dimension of literary language, seen as the essential representative of national awareness. According to modern sociolinguistics, the notion of the identity junction refers also to different language variants or discourses spoken by (sub)cultural groups to which an individual belongs. While in the post­ modern era an individual is expected to switch between different identities, the article discusses why a plurality of individual discourses, and the complexity of his identity should be considered in the first language teaching. The paper argues that linguistic cultural awareness is a key component of critical communicative competence and that the awareness about communicative and identity function of language should be developed closely related to each other. However, regardless of the findings that various discourses carry an identity value in communication, literary language still plays a special role in first-language teaching. This raises the question of how the teacher could help pupils to gain the sensitivity for situations requiring the use of literary language and how to become competent speakers of this discourse. It seems that both problems could also be reduced with the findings on the identity junction of different language discourses and genres or on the complexity of the identity of each individual.