Speaker’s Expression of ‘Self’:Discourse of Physically Disabled Student in Academic Setting

The way we perceive and present ourselves is the foundation of our social construction; an individual or group relationship. A particular discourse stems from the social or cultural background, power or social status and can be the best means to open an avenue to peep into individual’s sense of self and identity. To be healthy in itself becomes identity when one compares oneself with unhealthy ones; grounding on this assumption, this paper critically examines the discourse of physically disabled student aiming to discuss the realization of his identity and impression of self as expressed through words. I applied Goffman’s model as a comprehensive approach to analyze the data to understand the role of health in identity formation. While identity and self will be used largely as synonyms, the attempt is made to analyze the respondent’s perception of his self and identity as a social construction. The findings examined within the context of ideological and cultural background and interpreted in the light of Althusser’s (1971) ideological framework. The paper concludes by stating that identity is the product of social relationships implicitly formed in the ideological background and is a source of motivation and expectations to transform one into social being capable of expressive control.