Speaking a language

Fanon writes about how speaking a language means above all to assume a culture. It is true that language interpellates the speaker into certain modes of thought. But it is not a complete adoption of any one particular culture. Speaking a language also involves a self-reflexive process of negotiation between several cultures, an intersecting of different language-consciousnesses, and a continuous testing of boundaries i.e. what does a word, like “suck”, signify etc. Stephen’s walk across the city highlights the merging of cultures and consciousnesses – “he passed the sloblands of Fairview…think of the cloistral silver-veined prose of Newman…the dark humor of Guido Cavalcanti…went by Baird’s stonecutting works…the spirit of Ibsen…the songs by Ben Jonson…the spectral words of Aristotle or Aquinas…the dainty songs of the Elizabethans”. I guess the point is that when one speaks of language, there always seem to be some kind of essentializing quality of language; as though speaking English equals to English culture and speaking Gaelic equals to Irish culture [as Davin asks Stephen, “Are you Irish at all? … Why don’t you learn Irish?”]. In fact, speaking a language also points to a multitude of worlds, between past and present, between different cultures and ideological belief-systems, intersecting and co-existing in consciousness.

(it's a very Bakhtin approach which i wonder if it makes any sense in relation to Fanon, or the issue of speaking a colonial language)