Copyright by Tatiana Borisovna Segura 2008 - The University of ...

used to dealing with children who are first language learners. And children, who are still
actively acquiring their L1, find themselves in a situation rather similar to the situation of
second language learners and, therefore, express more sympathy and understanding
towards foreigners than adult native speakers do. As for physical attractiveness of an
interlocutor, it gives language learners a false sense of security; in other words, they feel
that physically attractive people are more trustworthy.
Gender identity and ethnic identity: differences and similarities
If any type of identity is fluid and context-embedded, ethnic identity is even more
so. Ethnic identity is extremely unstable over time and across situations (Dijk; Stephan
and Stephan; Payne). Situational changes in ethnic identity are associated with group
solidarity, social distance and status. Van Dijk argues that concepts like “race” and
“ethnicity” belong to the domain of group-membership rather than the individual domain
(23-24). In connection with the flexibility of one’s ethnic identity, May notes that even
though ethnic identity is flexible, its negotiation is still bounded by the existing
categories: “negotiation is a key element here to the ongoing construction of ethnicity,
but there are also limits to it. Individual and collective choices are circumscribed by the
ethnic categories available at any given time and place” (40).
Payne, in his turn, observes that, with respect to instability and variability, race
and ethnicity are very different from gender. For example, a person who is a female in the
United States is still a female in Brazil and South Africa. Yet, a person who is considered
“black” in the United States may be treated as “colored” in South Africa and even
“white” in Brazil. In other words, “race, unlike gender, cannot be defined biologically
with objective measures and innate characteristics” (33). What makes gender and ethnic
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