Despite being a small part of the lesson “Identity & Intercultural Communication”, the two terms “ascribed identity” and “avowed identity” really impressed me. The reason why I was filled with awe is they help to both define and reinforce the vague concepts that I once had not known their names.
When I was about 14-15 years old, the questions of “Who I am?”, “Why was I born?”, or in other words, “What I can contribute to the world?” kept getting on my nerves. Even though receiving the identity card, I hardly found the ID data enough. “How about unwritten pieces of information that I do know about me, and others think about me? There must be something beyond that,” I thought. That was my very foggiest notion of personal identity.
As time goes by, I have lived with so many ridiculous contradictions. The person portrayed by the others is totally different from the one that I depict myself, which are called “ascribed identity” (given characteristics) and “avowed identity” (chosen characteristics) respectively. To some extent, they are all parts that constitute the whole me, but if separated, they are just like scattered pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. Thanks to the lesson, now I have got the name of the abstract ideas that had haunted me for a long time.
It is commonly believed that I am a reserved bookworm, who is always emotionless and somewhat silly when it comes to real life issues (because spending much time on academic arena must eat up almost all of my time, so perfectly logical for those so-called observers!) However, only those who do not know much about me deem that, and the ones far closer often consider me as a reliable, thoughtful and quick-witted child. That is how even “ascribed identity” itself contains inner discrepancies.
Similarly, deep within me is lying a paradox. I run a tight ship, yet sometimes I cannot be really tidy. Furthermore, I have healthy diet while I at times spend the whole night watching my favorite cartoon. Fortunately, those weird activities are not conducted on a regular basis, and I should be more mature in a not-too-distant future.
Additionally, the two-way interaction between chosen and given characteristics is also an interesting feature for further analysis. For me, whether one factor has impact on the other or not depends much on our will power. Take one the son of my mother’s friend as an example. He used to be considered too intelligent that he spent very little time on studying. Consequently, he seems to be arrogant and even ends up failing to get a high school diploma, which seems to be an awful shame of his family. Now everyone looks down on him due to his negative personality. This instance illustrates how ascribed identity affects avowed identity and vice versa.
By contrast, I never allow detrimental ascribed identity to shape who I am. As mentioned above, there are so many weaknesses of mine in some certain individuals’ eyes, but I am not affected by those preconceptions. Some may think that I am a geek due to the fact that I waste much time on studying, but in fact, I just keep silent and do whatever I desire, namely writing lyrics, preparing teaching material and so on. The downbeat image of myself has to be ignored and replaced by the brilliant vision ahead. Plus, I also take the set of positive given characteristics into careful consideration and try my best to deserve such honor from the others. That is how I prove the unfair prejudice about me to be wrong and live up to the lofty expectations my beloveds set up on me.
In short, ascribed identity and avowed identity are the key components making up the well-rounded portrait of everyone, which are not entirely bad or good. That every single human being be sensible enough to disregard criticism or flawed assumption and hold on to unshakable belief given by those who respect us is a strategy to make the most use of our ascribed identity. And at the same time, we are supposed to be so confident that we have a legitimate set of chosen characteristics in order to unlock our full potentials.
brillbro 