The functionality of personal pronouns in constructions of communities

Abstract

Within recent research in identity it is a common view that communities and identities connected to these are not given by nature, but are constructed socially between human beings through acts and speech. By way of certain linguistic choices, a variety of communities with different identities are constructed or reproduced. Specific lexical and functional items are used for this purpose, consciously and unconsciously. One of them is the personal pronoun. The aim of the paper is to illustrate how personal pronouns contribute to the construction of communities and attached identities. By way of example, the paper provides a qualitative analysis of data extracts taken from a Danish magazine with the aim of illustrating how this pronoun in interaction with other text elements and the context constructs communities and identities with a particular purpose.