# Me, myself and I

- Author: Joichi Ito
- Date: 2003-11-24T10:53:47Z


I was reading danah boyd's paper, "Faceted Id/entity: Managing Representation in a Digital World" again and in it she says: danah boydAdam Smith (1976/1790) separates identity into the object versus acting self, while Mead (1934) refers to me versus I.This reminded me of something that I've always wondered if anyone had studied academically.

In Japan, we have many pronouns for "I". I personally use several of them. I use ore when I want to be casual and assertive. I use boku when I am casual and humble. I use watakushi when I am formal and assertive, and I use watashi when I am formal but less assertive. There are others. Each one has a different set of memories and social situations where I assert myself. It's a different "I" even though the "me" may be different. My theory is that Japanese can more easily navigate and deal with the multi-faceted identity that danah talks about in her paper because we have so many names for ourselves. Does this make sense?

Are there other languages that have a plethora of "I" pronouns? Does anyone know of any academic work in this area?





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#### Categories

Identity, Japanese Culture