Emic and essentialist perspectives on Gaelic heritage: New speakers, language policy, and cultural identity in Nova Scotia and Scotland

Abstract

The concept of the ‘new speaker’ has gained currency in the sociolinguistics of minority languages in the past decade, referring to individuals who have acquired an additional language outside of the home and who make frequent use of it in the course of their daily lives. Policymakers and language advocates in both Scotland and Canada make frequent reference to the role that new speakers may play in the future of the Gaelic language on both sides of the Atlantic, and Gaelic language teaching of various kinds has been prioritised by policymakers as a mechanism for revitalising the language. This article examines reflexes of this policy in the two countries, juxtaposing the ongoing fragility of Gaelic communities with new speaker discourses around heritage, identity, and language learning motivations. In particular, I consider Nova Scotian new speakers’ sense of identity as ‘Gaels’, an ethnonym largely avoided or problematised by Scottish new speakers. (Ethnolinguistic identity, heritage, language revitalisation, new speakers)*

Scottish Gaelic revitalisation: Progress and aspiration

“…For example, a recent $2 million investment was announced to open the first Gaelic medium school outwith Scotland in Mabou, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. This chapter was especially welcomed as the Gaelic community in Nova Scotia has been understudied in Gaelic academia so far (see also Dunmore, 2020).…”

Transatlantic Context for Gaelic Language Revitalisation

“…In my research, the 'Xian' ethnolinguistic community referenced by the term 'Gael(s)' is not one with which Scottish new speakers tend to associate, or with which they would wish to integrate as part of their ideal or 'rooted' L2 selves (cf. MacIntyre et al 2017;Dunmore 2019Dunmore , 2021.…”

Promoting minority language use to foster revitalisation: Insights from new speakers of West Frisian

“…There was an implicit understanding that 'successful intergenerational transmission should produce age-appropriate carbon-copy speakers modelled on earlier generations of the minority language community' (Hornsby, 2022: 4). This was linked to an iconic conception of minority languages and those who traditionally used them (Dunmore, 2021). Consequently, little attention was paid to the acquisition of minority languages later on in life, outside the home, and by those who were not part of these traditional communities.…”