Identity has become one of the most widely used terms today, appearing in many different contexts. Anything and everything has an identity, and identity crises have become almost equally pervasive. Yet "identity" is extremely versatile, meaning different things to different people and in different scientific disciplines. To many its meaning seems self-evident, since its various uses share common features, so often the term is used without a definition of what, exactly, is meant by it. This provokes the core question: What exactly is identity?

In thisVery Short IntroductionFlorian Coulmas provides a survey of the many faces of the concept of identity, and discusses its significance and varied meanings in the fields of philosophy, sociology, and psychology, as well as politics and law. Tracing our concern with identity to its deep roots in Europe's intellectual history, individualism, and the felt need to draw borderlines, Coulmas identifies the most important features used to mark off individual and collective identities, and demonstrates why they are deemed important. He concludes with a glimpse at the many ways in which literature has engaged with problems of identity throughout history.

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身份已成为当今最广泛使用的术语之一，出现在许多不同的背景下。任何事物都有一个身份，而身份危机也几乎同样普遍存在。然而，"身份 "是非常多变的，对不同的人和不同的科学学科有不同的意义。对许多人来说，它的意义似乎是不言而喻的，因为它的各种用途有共同的特点，所以在使用这个术语时，往往没有对它的确切含义作出定义。这就引发了一个核心问题。身份究竟是什么？

在这篇《非常简短的介绍》中，弗洛里安-库尔马斯（Florian Coulmas）对身份概念的多种面貌进行了调查，并讨论了其在哲学、社会学和心理学以及政治和法律领域的意义和不同含义。追溯我们对身份的关注，它深深扎根于欧洲的思想史、个人主义和划定边界的感觉，库尔马斯确定了用于标记个人和集体身份的最重要特征，并证明了它们被认为是重要的原因。他最后瞥见了文学在整个历史上参与身份问题的多种方式。

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