Nurturing Voices

Exploring Language, Identity and Culture in Childhood Narratives

Abstract

Childhood is not only a universal experience but a culturally and linguistically constructed reality that varies significantly across different societies. This paper explores how language and culture shape the children's identities, worldviews and social roles. Language acquisition is shown to be a critical process through which children not only learn to communicate but also come to understand themselves and their place within society. The role of the mother tongue, early language exposure and multilingualism in shaping self-identity and social belonging are examined quite in depth. Cultural transmission is explored through folktales, songs, rhymes and storytelling practices that pass on the community values and norms. These narrative forms serve both as educational tools and as mediums of identity formation particularly in oral cultures. This paper also analyses literary and oral texts from the Indian and Western traditions that depict childhood, emphasising how these texts reflect cultural attitudes toward age, gender and social class. In multilingual and diasporic settings, children often face quite complex challenges related to identity, belonging and language loss. The tensions between home and institutional languages, cultural dissonance and the pressures of assimilation are explored to highlight the fragmented nature of childhood in such contexts. The concluding section calls for the reclamation of the linguistic and cultural heritage through child-centred literature and educational approaches that validate the diverse identities.