This volume deals with the interplay between personal identity and language, with a special focus on interactions involving political correctness, ideological positioning and minority groups. Differently from many studies adopting only either an abstract observational perspective or a militant one, this volume aims at describing identity construction as an interactional practice, in order to offer a comprehensive and varied picture of how communicative practices may either facilitate or hinder effective interaction. Processes of community building, (collective) identity construction, and ingroup/outgroup strategies are discussed by scholars of different disciplines (philosophy of language, linguistics and sociology) through the analysis of both linguistic and multimodal resources in online and offline interactions.

Emanuela Campisi is lecturer in Philosophy and Theory of Language at the Department of Humanities of the University of Catania.Her main interests concern the pragmatic aspects of spontaneous interaction, investigated both theoretically – with the method of philosophy of language – and with applied research. Ester Di Silvestro is a Postdoctoral Researcher and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Catania. She holds a PhD in Sciences of Interpretation from the University of Catania. She is interested in Discursive News Values Analysis, and in the textual and visual analysis of gender representations. Marco Venuti is Lecturer in English Linguistics ad the Department of Humanities, University of Catania, where he coordinates research on Digital Humanities. His interests include the combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches to the study and interpretation of Discourse, especially in the media and political domains.