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Abstract: This text is the result of reflections that originated in the discussions of a study group composed of undergraduate and postgraduate students in a language lab at a public university in the interior of the state of Paraná, in the south of Brazil. This study specifically addresses some considerations about the connections that can be established between written language and identity based on the work of and Bauman (2005). In order to do so I utilise data derived from study group discussions in order to reflect on aspects of identity that derive from beliefs that overlook the aspect of performativity inherent in writing. I conclude that writing and identity are not pre-formulated, they are both in a constant process of construction and the integrationist approach is an important element in the effort to better understand this complexity and broaden the view of the interrelationship between writing and identity. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Recent accounts of institutional and social facts share at least three theses. (1) Performativity: a shared attitude of certain type towards an institutional fact may contribute to the truth of a sentence describing the fact. (2) Reflexivity: if a sentence describing an institutional fact is true, the relevant attitude is present. (3) Qualified realism: institutional terms refer to entities and properties that exist. The problem discussed in this paper is the following: can new facts and things of this type emerge in a group without at least some of its members having some false beliefs about those facts? Thesis (2) states that a sentence p describing an institutional fact can be true only if the members of the relevant group have the relevant attitude at time t (typically, they at least believe that p is true). But if they do not already hold the required attitude before t, how can they correctly form it at time t? They may form the belief for false reasons: they may, for example, form the belief that p has always been true. And then, according to the Performativity Thesis (1), p may become true. But it seems that they need some false beliefs in order to begun the process of creating the institutional fact. The idea that the emergence of new social/institutional facts requires false beliefs is disturbing. But, perhaps, the attitude needed in Thesis (1) should not be analysed as a factual belief. In the last part of the article the notion of recognition is offered as an alternative. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]