Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-9nwgx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-17T13:48:05.794Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ideology, affect, and socialization in language shift and revitalization: The experiences of adults learning Gaelic in the Western Isles of Scotland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2010

EMILY McEWAN-FUJITA
EMILY McEWAN-FUJITA*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh, 3302 Wesley W. Posvar Hall, 230 S. Bouquet Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The intertwined role of language ideologies and affect in language shift and revitalization can be understood by taking a language socialization perspective on local micro-level interaction between adult Gaelic learners and fluent Gaelic-English bilinguals. Seven adults living in the Western Isles were interviewed about their efforts to learn and speak Scottish Gaelic, a minority language spoken by 1–2% of Scotland’s population. Their negative affective stances in describing their interactions with local Gaelic-English bilinguals indicate that they were being socialized into an ideology of local Gaelic-English sociolinguistic boundaries: an “etiquette of accommodation” to English speakers and wariness about public Gaelic speaking. This socialized combination of ideology and negative affect reduces opportunities for Gaelic speaking, hindering both Gaelic learners’ efforts to become fluent speakers and their potential contribution to language revitalization. In contrast, however, the interviewees described “sociolinguistic mentors” who socialized them into a more inclusive vision of Gaelic speaking laden with positive affect.1

Keywords

Language socializationL2 language learningaffective stancelanguage shiftlanguage revitalizationScottish GaelicScotland
Type
Research Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , February 2010 , pp. 27 - 64
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Azkue, Jokin, & Perales, Josu (2005). The teaching of Basque to adults. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 174:73–83.Google Scholar
Besnier, Niko (1990). Language and affect. Annual Review of Anthropology 19:419–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blom, Jan-Petter, & Gumperz, John J. (1972). Social meaning in linguistic structure: Code-switching in Norway. In Gumperz, John & Hymes, Dell (eds.), Directions in sociolinguistics: The ethnography of communication, 407–34. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar
Bonner, Donna M. (2001). Garifuna children’s language shame: Ethnic stereotypes, national affiliation, and transnational immigration as factors in language choice in southern Belize. Language in Society 30:81–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burnett, Kathryn A. (1997). Negotiating home: Categorisation and representation of identity among indigenous and incoming people of Uist, in the Outer Hebrides. Ph.D. dissertation, Glasgow Caledonian University.Google Scholar
Cavanaugh, Jillian R. (2004). Remembering and forgetting: Ideologies of language loss in a northern Italian town. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 14:24–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cavanaugh, Jillian R (2009). Living memory: The social aesthetics of language in a northern Italian town. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coleman, Jack David Bo (1975). Language shift in a bilingual Hebridean crofting community. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Dauenhauer, Nora Marks, & Dauenhauer, Richard (1995). Oral literature embodied and disembodied. In Quasthoff, Uta M. (ed.), Aspects of oral communication, 91–111. Berlin: de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dauenhauer, Nora Marks, & Dauenhauer, Richard (1998). Technical, emotional, and ideological issues in reversing language shift: Examples from southeast Alaska. In Grenoble, Lenore A. & Whaley, Lindsey J (eds.), Endangered languages: Current issues and future prospects, 57–116. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dorian, Nancy C. (1980). Language shift in community and individual: The phenomenon of the laggard semi-speaker. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 25:85–94.Google Scholar
Dorian, Nancy C (1981). Language death: The life cycle of a Scottish Gaelic dialect. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ducey, Paul (1956). Cultural continuity and population change on the Isle of Skye. Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University.Google Scholar
Echeverria, Begoña (2003). Language ideologies and practices in (en)gendering the Basque nation. Language in Society 323:383–413.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eckert, Penelope (1983). The paradox of national language movements. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 4:289–300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Englebretson, Robert (2007). Stancetaking in discourse: An introduction. In Englebretson, Robert (ed.), Stancetaking in discourse: Subjectivity, evaluation, interaction, 1–25. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fishman, Joshua A. (1991). Reversing language shift: Theoretical and empirical foundations of assistance to threatened languages. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gal, Susan (1978). Peasant men can’t get wives: Language change and sex roles in a bilingual community. Language in Society 7:1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gal, Susan (1979). Language shift: Social determinants of linguistic change in bilingual Austria. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Gal, Susan (1989). Language and political economy. Annual Review of Anthropology 18:345–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Galloway, John M.K. (1995). The role of employment in Gaelic language maintenance and development. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Heller, Monica (2006). Linguistic minorities and modernity: A sociolinguistic ethnography. 2nd ed.London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Hill, Jane H. (1985). The grammar of consciousness and the consciousness of grammar. American Ethnologist 12:725–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobs, N. (1976). Learning Welsh 3. Planet 34:14–15.Google Scholar
Jaffe, Alexandra M. (1999). Ideologies in action: Language politics on Corsica. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jedrej, Charles, & Nuttall, Mark (1996). White settlers: The impact of rural repopulation in Scotland. Luxembourg: Harwood Academic.Google Scholar
Kabel, Lars (2000). Irish language enthusiasts and native speakers: An uneasy relationship. In McCoy, Gordon & Scott, Maolcholaim (eds.), Aithne na nGael/Gaelic identities, 133–38. Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, Queen’s University Belfast and Ultach Trust/Iontaobhas Ultach.Google Scholar
Kulick, Don (1992). Language shift and cultural reproduction: Socialization, self, and syncretism in a Papua New Guinean village. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kuter, Lois (1989). Breton vs. French: Language and the opposition of political, economic, social and cultural values. In Dorian, Nancy C. (ed.), Investigating obsolescence: Studies in language contraction and death, 75–89. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lutz, Catherine, & Abu-Lughod, Lila (eds.) (1990). Language and the politics of emotion. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lutz, Catherine, & Abu-Lughod, Lila, & White, Geoffrey M. (1986). The anthropology of emotions. Annual Review of Anthropology 15:405–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacArthur, John M.M.; Macaulay, Fred; MacDonald, Catriona; Macdonald, Martin; MacKay, Donald J.; MacLeod, Finlay; MacQuarrie, Duncan; & Spencer, Cailean (1982). Cor na Gàidhlig. Language, community and development: The Gaelic situation. Inverness: Highlands and Islands Development Board.Google Scholar
Macaulay, Donald (1982). Borrow, calque and switch: The law of the English frontier. In Anderson, John (ed.), Language form and linguistic variation: Papers dedicated to Angus Macintosh, 203–37. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacCaluim, Alasdair (2002). Periphery of the periphery? Adult learners of Scottish Gaelic and reversal of language shift. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Edinburgh.Google Scholar
MacCaluim, Alasdair (2007). Reversing language shift: The social identity and role of Scottish Gaelic learners. Belfast: Cló Ollscoil na Banríona.Google Scholar
Macdonald, Sharon (1997). Reimagining culture: Histories, identities and the Gaelic renaissance. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar
MacKinnon, Kenneth (1977). Language, education and social processes in a Gaelic community. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Maclean, Calum I. (1956–1957). Hebridean traditions. Gwerin 1:21–33.Google Scholar
McDonald, Maryon (1989). “We are not French!”: Language, culture, and identity in Brittany. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
McEwan-Fujita, Emily (2003). Gaelic in Scotland, Scotland in Europe: Minority language revitalization in the age of neoliberalism. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago.Google Scholar
McEwan-Fujita, Emily (forthcoming). The ‘ideology of literate speakerhood’ in interactions between adult Gaelic learners and first-language Gaelic speakers in Scotland. Scottish Gaelic Studies 26.Google Scholar
McIntosh, Janet (2009). Stance and distance: Social boundaries, self-lamination, and metalinguistic anxiety in white Kenyan narratives about the African occult. In Jaffe, Alexandra (ed.), Stance: Sociolinguistic perspectives, 72–91. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mertz, Elizabeth (1982). “No burden to carry”: Cape Breton pragmatics and metapragmatics (Nova Scotia). Ph.D. dissertation, Duke University.Google Scholar
Mertz, Elizabeth (1989). Sociolinguistic creativity: Cape Breton Gaelic’s linguistic “tip”. In Dorian, Nancy C. (ed.), Investigating obsolescence: Studies in language contraction and death, 103–16. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Messing, Jacqueline (2007). Multiple ideologies and competing discourses: Language shift in Tlaxcala, Mexico. Language in Society 36:555–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moore, Robert E. (1999). Endangered. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 9:65–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newcombe, Lynda Pritchard (2007). Social context and fluency in L2 learners: The case of Wales. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Newton, Michael (2005). “This could have been mine”: Scottish Gaelic learners in North America. e-Keltoi: Journal of Interdisciplinary Celtic Studies 1:1–37. Electronic resource: http://www4.uwm.edu/celtic/ekeltoi/volumes/vol1/1_1/newton_1_1.pdfGoogle Scholar
Nonaka, Angela (2004). Sign languages – the forgotten endangered languages: Lessons on the importance of remembering. Language in Society 33:737–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ochs, Elinor (1990). Indexicality and socialization. In Stigler, James W., Shweder, Richard A. & Herdt, Gilbert (eds.), Cultural psychology, 287–308. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ochs, Elinor (1996). Linguistic resources for socializing humanity. In Gumperz, John J. & Levinson, Stephen C. (eds.), Rethinking linguistic relativity, 407–37. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ochs, Elinor, & Schieffelin, Bambi B. (1989). Language has a heart. Text 9:7–25.Google Scholar
Parman, Susan (1990). Scottish crofters: A historical ethnography of a Celtic village. Fort Worth: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A. (2007). Sequence organization in interaction: A primer in conversation analysis I. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schieffelin, Bambi; Woolard, Kathryn A.; & Kroskrity, Paul (eds.) (1998). Language ideologies: Practice and theory. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silverstein, Michael (1976). Shifters, linguistic categories, and cultural description. In Basso, Keith H. & Selby, Henry A. (eds.), Meaning in anthropology, 11–55. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press for School of American Research.Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael (1979). Language structure and linguistic ideology. In Clyne, Paul R., Hanks, William F. & Hofbauer, Carol L. (eds.), The elements: A parasession on linguistic units and levels, 193–247. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael (1987). Monoglot “standard” in America. Chicago: Center for Psychosocial Studies.Google Scholar
Street, R.L. & Giles, Howard (1982). Speech accommodation theory: A social cognitive approach to language and speech behavior. In Roloff, M. & Berger, C.R. (eds.), Social cognition and communication, 193–226. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Stubbs, Michael (1986). A matter of prolonged fieldwork: Notes towards a modal grammar of English. Applied Linguistics 7:1–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomson, Derick S. (1994). Gaelic (general survey). In Thomson, Derick S. (ed.), The companion to Gaelic Scotland, 89–91. Glasgow: Gairm.Google Scholar
Trosset, Carol S. (1986). The social identity of Welsh learners. Language in Society 15:165–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tsitsipis, Lukas D. (1981). Language change and language death in Albanian speech communities in Greece: A sociolinguistic study. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison.Google Scholar
Tsitsipis, Lukas D (1998). A linguistic anthropology of praxis and language shift: Arvanítika (Albanian) and Greek in contact. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watson, Moray (2009). Personal communication. E-mail, 3 August.Google Scholar
Wilce, James M. (2009). Language and emotion. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Withers, Charles (1984). Gaelic in Scotland 1698–1981: The geographical history of a Language. Edinburgh: John Donald.Google Scholar
Wolff, Hans (1959). Intelligibility and inter-ethnic attitudes. Anthropological Linguistics 1:34–41.Google Scholar
Woolard, Kathryn A. (1989). Double talk: Bilingualism and the politics of ethnicity in Catalonia. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woolard, Kathryn A (1992). Language ideology: Issues and approaches. Pragmatics 2:235–249.Google Scholar
Woolard, Kathryn A, & Schieffelin, Bambi B. (1994). Language ideology. Annual Review of Anthropology 23:55–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar