ON THE ISSUE OF EXPRESSING BELONGINGNESS AND EXCLUSION IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

It has been universally recognized that social belongingness,
often referred to as a sense of having positive relations with
others centered on gaining acceptance, attention and support from
members of a group is a fundamental human need, a powerful
and extremely pervasive motivation (Baumeister R.F., Leary
M.R., 1995: 497). An extensive body of literature exists on the
problem of social connectedness in groups and fitting socially
with others. The author most frequently quoted is Abraham
Maslow, an American psychologist best known for his Hierarchy
of needs (Maslow A.H., 1943).
The purpose of the present study is to examine linguistic means
of expressing the notions of belongingness and exclusion in the
English language. The most common and obvious means of
representing the idea of belonging are the noun belongingness
and the verbs to belong and to fit in. The examples from the
British national Corpus (BNC), the Corpus of Contemporary
American English (COCA) and modern fiction undoubtedly
prove that belongingness is one of major human needs. The verbs
to belong and to fit in regularly occur with verbs of wish and
desire: The book is about acceptance and wanting to fit in
(COCA). People strive to belong, to fit in; they perceive
belongingness as something to improve their psychological wellbeing, raise their self-esteem and confidence and make them feel
happy. This noun is often to be found in the context with such
‘positive’ notions as love, friendship, good group spirit etc. The
list of most frequent collocations registered by the Corpuses
includes prove/experience/promote/encourage/strengthen
belongingness.
In social psychology, belongingness is considered to be an
intrinsic motivation to affiliate with others and be socially
accepted. The need to belong causes people to present themselves
in a particular way in order to fit in with the rest of the group.
However, it is not enough just to look like the members of the
group; it takes more effort – and it usually pays: To fit in, he cut
his hair and learned the local dialect (BNC). E. Sapir claimed
that language is a great force of socialization, probably the
greatest that exists; “He talks like us” is equivalent to saying “He
is one of us” (Sapir, 1929: 207).
Inability to fit in often results in social exclusion – a situation in
which a person does not feel part of the group he wants to belong
to. This can lead to very grave consequences: from anxiety,
frustration and depression to aggression, violence and despair.
Children are sensitive to exclusion; the memory of being rejected
has long-time effects on them: Not belonging to the magic circle
– mother, brother and late father – I felt excluded (BNC). Being
excluded for different reasons leads people to think of themselves
as outsiders or interlopers.
In psychology, alienation is the condition of being separated from
or marginalized from other individuals or some larger segments
of society. Outsiders are often looked at with suspicion by the
locals who think they can cause all kinds of trouble: ‘…but he
must be aware that the villagers suspect him of doing something
terrible to Alison, if only because he’s an outsider (McDermid,
2013: 268).
The present article is aimed at studying linguistic means of
expressing belongingness and exclusion in the English language.
The frequent use of the verbs to belong, to fit in, to exclude etc.
and the nouns belongingness, exclusion, outsider, interloper etc.
in various contexts testify that many people’s psychological
problems stem from the failure to meet their belongingness needs.

Keywords: social belongingness, social exclusion, alienation