scholarly journals “New speakers” of Gaelic: perceptions of linguistic authenticity and appropriateness

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wilson McLeod ◽  
Bernadette O’Rourke
Keyword(s):  
Language Production ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Medium Education ◽  
New Speakers ◽  
Traditional Communities

AbstractThis article considers the experiences and views of “new speakers” of Gaelic, focusing on how they characterise their language production and its relationship to the language of traditional speakers. In contrast to some other European minority languages, a significant population of new Gaelic speakers in Scotland has emerged only recently, particularly with the development of Gaelic-medium education since 1985, provision that increasingly serves children who do not acquire Gaelic in the home. Given the ongoing decline of Gaelic in traditional “heartland” areas, it is apparent that new speakers of Gaelic emerging from urban Scotland will become increasingly important in coming years. This study of 35 new speakers in the cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow builds on emerging research on new speakers of minority languages across other European contexts (see O’Rourke et al. 2015) where traditional communities of speakers are being eroded as a consequence of increased urbanisation and economic modernisation. This article considers issues involving legitimacy, authority and authenticity amongst new speakers of Gaelic and the extent to which new speakers are producing their own set of contexts of language use and their own standards of performance or conversely, if they continue to reproduce ideals of localism, tradition and linguistic purity. Participants expressed contrasting views on these topics, some of them endeavouring to accommodate what they perceived as native speakers’ perceptions and preferences, others expressing a rather more oppositional viewpoint, rejecting practices or assumptions that they view as impeding the modernisation and normalisation of the language.

Linguistic mudes: how to become a new speaker in Catalonia

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 (231) ◽  
pp. 167-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joan Pujolar ◽  
Maite Puigdevall
Keyword(s):  
Secondary School ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Social Performance ◽  
Substantial Part ◽  
New Family ◽  
New Speakers ◽  
The University ◽  
Processual Time

Abstract New speakers of Catalan have come to represent, from a demolinguistic perspective, a substantial part of the community of speakers. Of those who presently speak Catalan as an “habitual language”, 41.6 percent are native speakers of Spanish. In this article, we shall follow up the various ways in which native Castilian speakers incorporate Catalan into their lives. This happens, as we will show, in specific biographical junctures that we call mudes, a Catalan term referring to (often reversible) variations in social performance. Our analysis is based on a qualitative study that included 24 interviews and 15 focus groups covering a total of 105 people of different sexes and linguistic, educational, social and residential backgrounds. We shall give a general overview of these mudes as we typified them: when subjects entered primary school, secondary school, the university, the job market, when creating a new family and when they had children (if they did). The study of linguistic mudes provides, in our view, a new and productive perspective on how people develop their linguistic repertoire, their attachment to specific languages and the significance of these aspects for social identity. It facilitates a processual, time-sensitive analysis that allows to contextualise and critique ethnonationalist discourses that have often saturated our understanding of language use.

The dynamics of Hawaiian speakerhood in the family

2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 (255) ◽  
pp. 45-72
Author(s):  
Christina Higgins
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Native Hawaiian ◽  
Language Revitalization ◽  
Interview Data ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Hawaiian Language ◽  
Home Life ◽  
The Family ◽  
New Speakers ◽  
Linguistic Practices

Abstract While the majority of studies on new speakers focuses on language use in educational and community contexts, the family is becoming an increasingly relevant site since new speakers are now incorporating their languages into their home life. This article reports on how people of Native Hawaiian ancestry express their speakerhood with regard to their use of ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, or the Hawaiian language, in the context of the family. It explores Hawaiians’ stances towards different ways of speaking Hawaiian with regard to authenticity, an issue which has been found to be central among new speakers of minority languages in other contexts. Drawing on interview data with six Hawaiians, this article investigates Hawaiian speakerhood by focusing on how the participants view linguistic authority and translanguaging in family settings. The article offers insights into the range of linguistic practices and sociolinguistic authenticities in families that may enhance continued language revitalization efforts.

scholarly journals FinUgRevita: Developing Language Technology Tools for Udmurt and Mansi

2015 ◽  
pp. 108
Author(s):  
Veronika Vincze ◽  
Ágoston Nagy ◽  
Csilla Horváth ◽  
Norbert Szilágyi ◽  
István Kozmács ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Language Production ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Written Language ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Digital Space ◽  
Digital World ◽  
Language Technology ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Digital Language

Nowadays, digital language use such as reading and writing e-mails, chats, messages, weblogs and comments on websites and social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter has increased the amount of written language production for most of the users. Thus, it is primarily important for speakers of minority languages to have the possibility of using their own languages in the digital world too. The FinUgRevita project aims at providing computational language tools for endangered indigenous Finno-Ugric languages in Russia, assisting the speakers of these languages in using the indigenous languages in the digital space. Currently, we are working on two Finno-Ugric minority languages, namely, Udmurt and Mansi. In the project, we have been developing electronic dictionaries for both languages, besides, we have been creating corpora with a substantial number of texts collected, among other sources like literature, newspaper articles and social media. We have been also implementing morphological analyzers for both languages, exploiting the lexical entries of our dictionaries. We believe that the results achieved by the FinUgRevita project will contribute to the revitalization of Udmurt and Mansi and the tools to be developed will help these languages establish their existence in the digital space as well.

scholarly journals “HOW CAN WE EVEN TALK ABOUT ACCENTS WHEN IT COMES TO PRESERVING A LANGUAGE?”: ATTITUDES TOWARDS PARTIAL LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (49) ◽  
pp. 11-29
Author(s):  
Vlada V. Baranova ◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Language Attitudes ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Linguistic Competence ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
Language Knowledge ◽  
New Speakers

The paper focuses on discussions of partial linguistic competence and on sources of language knowledge among both Kalmyk language activists and the community of native speakers. Recent revivalist initiatives lead to the emergence of “new speakers” of minority languages whose language command is widely discussed within the community. The native speakers of a minority language may create some barriers for new speakers and evaluate their way of speaking as an inauthentic, “wrong” code. The paper deals with different sources of competence in Kalmyk: projects for teaching and learning Kalmyk, attempts to popularize it and the ethnic culture, and online communities for mothers who make the conscious decision to adopt native language practices with their children. These new sources of non-traditional knowledge are compared with other modes of language acquisition. The paper aims to analyze attitudes to a language by “new speakers”. From this point of view, the Kalmyk-speaking community displays ambiguous attitudes: there are negative attitudes toward the accents of new speakers, as well as toward the linguistic competence of the younger generation in a family. That said, there exist strongly positive evaluations of different activist initiatives, including treating the instances of mixed language as a kind of humor. The data shows that there is no strong demarcation between language acquisition in the family and other ways of learning Kalmyk.

The “new” and “traditional” speaker dichotomy: bridging the gap

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 (231) ◽  
pp. 107-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Hornsby
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Language Revitalization ◽  
Symbolic Violence ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Language Community ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Power Differentials ◽  
New Speakers ◽  
Grammatical Structures

Abstract This article analyzes the tensions and dynamics which exist between “new” speakers and other speakers, such as traditional or native speakers of minority languages (MLs), in an attempt to discover just how much of a barrier to communication are the (perceived) differences which are purported to exist between them. The dynamics between “new” and native speakers seem to be complex and nuanced, and “(in)authenticity” can be indexed through accent, the lexicon and grammatical structures, both by local users and more widely by researchers and other interested third parties, reflecting a wide range of ideo-logical stances. Using a critical sociolinguistic framework, these differences are examined from the perspective of the power differentials among and between various ML speakers/users in two situations of language endangerment, Breton and Yiddish. The reproduction of “symbolic violence”, as described by Bourdieu (1991), which results from such differentials can hinder language revitalization projects and can run counter to the interests of the language community in question. Both settings appear to share a commonality of experience that is wider than just the two language communities under scrutiny here and possible ways of reconciling such differences are examined toward the end of the article.

Language Revitalisation in Gaelic Scotland

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Dunmore
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Basque Country ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Policy Interventions ◽  
School Based ◽  
Immersion Education ◽  
Medium Education ◽  
Language Revitalisation ◽  
First Time

Situated within the interrelated disciplines of applied sociolinguistics and the sociology of language, this book explores the language use and attitudinal perceptions of a sample of 130 adults who received Gaelic-medium education (GME) at primary school, during the first years of that system’s availability in Scotland. The school is viewed by policymakers as a crucial site for language revitalisation in such diverse contexts as Hawai’i, New Zealand and the Basque Country – as well as throughout the Celtic-speaking world. In Scotland, GME is seen as a key area of language development, regarded by policymakers as a strategic priority for revitalising Gaelic, and maintaining its use by future generations of speakers. Yet theorists have stressed that school-based policy interventions are inadequate for realising this objective in isolation, and that without sufficient support in the home and community, children are unlikely to develop strong identities or supportive ideologies in the language of their classroom instruction. For the first time, this book provides an in-depth assessment of language use, ideologies and attitudes among adults who received an immersion education in a minority language, and considers subsequent prospects for language revitalisation in contemporary society. Based on detailed analyses using mixed methods, the book offers empirically grounded suggestions for individuals and policymakers seeking to revitalise languages internationally. 

Language Use and Sustainable Development: Opportunities and Challenges for Policy-Makers and Educators in Northeast Vietnamese Areas

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 122-130
Author(s):  
Ha Ngan Ngo ◽  
Maya Khemlani David
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Language Shift ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
The Status ◽  
Wedding Songs

Vietnam represents a country with 54 ethnic groups; however, the majority (88%) of the population are of Vietnamese heritage. Some of the other ethnic groups such as Tay, Thai, Muong, Hoa, Khmer, and Nung have a population of around 1 million each, while the Brau, Roman, and Odu consist only of a hundred people each. Living in northern Vietnam, close to the Chinese border (see Figure 1), the Tay people speak a language of the    Central    Tai language group called Though, T'o, Tai Tho, Ngan, Phen, Thu Lao, or Pa Di. Tay remains one of 10 ethnic languages used by 1 million speakers (Buoi, 2003). The Tày ethnic group has a rich culture of wedding songs, poems, dance, and music and celebrate various festivals. Wet rice cultivation, canal digging and grain threshing on wooden racks are part of the Tày traditions. Their villages situated near the foothills often bear the names of nearby mountains, rivers, or fields. This study discusses the status and role of the Tày language in Northeast Vietnam. It discusses factors, which have affected the habitual use of the Tay language, the connection between language shift and development and provides a model for the sustainability and promotion of minority languages. It remains fundamentally imperative to strengthen and to foster positive attitudes of the community towards the Tày language. Tày’s young people must be enlightened to the reality their Tày non-usage could render their mother tongue defunct, which means their history stands to be lost.

English language schooling, linguistic realities, and the native speaker of English in Hong Kong

Multilingua ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jette G. Hansen Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Educational Background ◽  
Government School ◽  
The Impact ◽  
At Home

AbstractThe study employs a case study approach to examine the impact of educational backgrounds on nine Hong Kong tertiary students’ English and Cantonese language practices and identifications as native speakers of English and Cantonese. The study employed both survey and interview data to probe the participants’ English and Cantonese language use at home, school, and with peers/friends. Leung, Harris, and Rampton’s (1997, The idealized native speaker, reified ethnicities, and classroom realities.TESOL Quarterly 31(3). 543–560) framework of language affiliation, language expertise, and inheritance was used to examine the construction of a native language identity in a multilingual setting. The study found that educational background – and particularly international school experience in contrast to local government school education – had an impact on the participants’ English language usage at home and with peers, and also affected their language expertise in Cantonese. English language use at school also impacted their identifications as native speakers of both Cantonese and English, with Cantonese being viewed largely as native language based on inheritance while English was being defined as native based on their language expertise, affiliation and use, particularly in contrast to their expertise in, affiliation with, and use of Cantonese.

scholarly journals Functional MRI of Native and Non-native Speech Sound Production in Sequential German-English Bilinguals

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miriam Treutler ◽  
Peter Sörös
Keyword(s):  
Language Production ◽  
Sound Production ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Inferior Frontal Gyrus ◽  
Speech Sound ◽  
Non Invasive ◽  
English Vowels ◽  
Primary Sensorimotor Cortex ◽  
Native Speech ◽  
Bilingualism And Multilingualism

Bilingualism and multilingualism are highly prevalent. Non-invasive brain imaging has been used to study the neural correlates of native and non-native speech and language production, mainly on the lexical and syntactic level. Here, we acquired continuous fast event-related FMRI during visually cued overt production of exclusively German and English vowels and syllables. We analyzed data from 13 university students, native speakers of German and sequential English bilinguals. The production of non-native English sounds was associated with increased activity of the left primary sensorimotor cortex, bilateral cerebellar hemispheres (lobule VI), left inferior frontal gyrus, and left anterior insula compared to native German sounds. The contrast German > English sounds was not statistically significant. Our results emphasize that the production of non-native speech requires additional neural resources already on a basic phonological level in sequential bilinguals.

scholarly journals Linguistic identity among new speakers of Basque

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 (231) ◽  
pp. 85-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ane Ortega ◽  
Jacqueline Urla ◽  
Estibaliz Amorrortu ◽  
Jone Goirigolzarri ◽  
Belen Uranga
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Focus Groups ◽  
Language Policy ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Linguistic Identity ◽  
The Future ◽  
New Speakers ◽  
High Degree ◽  
Family Transmission

Abstract The increase in Basque speakers in the last 30 years has been due in large part to ‘new speakers’ or euskaldunberri, a term that will be used here to refer to those who have learned the language by means other than family transmission. While very significant in numbers, to date this group has not been the object of much study. Little is known about their attitudes and motivations, how they perceive themselves as Basque speakers, or their language use and transmission patterns. Acquiring answers to these questions is of strategic importance for developing an effective evidence-based language policy for the future. This article presents the results of a qualitative study of new speakers. Drawing on data from focus groups and interviews, the central goal of the article is to examine how new speakers of differing profiles perceive and locate themselves with respect to the popularly used labels for “new” and “native” Basque speakers and the ideologies of authenticity and legitimacy that seem to shape these perceptions. The analysis shows that learning the language alone, even to a high degree of competence, does not guarantee a view of themselves as true and genuine speakers of Basque.

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