Language as a public good and national identity: Scotland's competing heritage languages

Chhim, Chris; Bélanger, Éric

doi:10.1111/nana.12347

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 36 publications

(34 reference statements)

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“…I put forward this argument in an attempt to understand the nature of inconsistencies we found between parental attitudes and actual practices. In this way, it becomes obvious that our finding provides support for Chhim and Bélanger's (2017) premise stating that with the absence of proficiency in a given language, people can still have opinion about its status as well as enjoy a sense of belonging to it. Furthermore, their study discovered that people's perception and belief toward Welsh and Irish in particular are not constrained with their ability and motivation to learn it.…”

Section: Attitudes On the Use Of Javanese As Home Languagesupporting

confidence: 73%

Javanese Language as an Ethnic Identity Marker Among Multilingual Families in Indonesia

Zen

2021

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The rise of a pan-Indonesian national identity and the global significance of English have weakened heritage languages in Indonesia’s various ethnolinguistic communities. Focusing on the case of Javanese, the largest ethnic group, this study examines the role of the HL as an ethnic marker and its interplay with factors such as ethnic self-identification, proficiency, and usage frequency. The data were collected via parental surveys of 183 primary school children in East Java. The findings indicate that the Javanese language is still highly valued as ethnic marker and that Javanese people view its maintenance as central to their identity construction. However, inconsistencies are identified between attitudes and practices, with use of Javanese as a home language decreasing, and children’s production showing extensive influence from Indonesian. Taken together, positive attitudes regarding the Javanese as identity marker and the apparent ethnolinguistic vitality of Javanese is not necessarily translated into intergenerational transmission.

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Section: Attitudes On the Use Of Javanese As Home Languagesupporting

confidence: 73%

Javanese Language as an Ethnic Identity Marker Among Multilingual Families in Indonesia

Zen

2021

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“…The present study thus shows the broader attitudinal effects of exposure to Gaelic road and public signage to be more complex than rhetoric advocating the increased national visibility of Gaelic on signage assumes (Bòrd na Gàidhlig, 2007Gàidhlig, , 2012MacIlleathain, 2011;Chhim & Bélanger, 2017: see Section 1).The sociolinguistic context of Gaelic in Scotland may contribute to such findings. As we noted earlier, Scottish Gaelic is spoken by only 1.1% of the Scottish population, with the most densely Gaelic-speaking areas existing in the Highlands and Islands, in the North-West of the country.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 62%

Seeing is believing? Public exposure to Gaelic and language attitudes

O'Hanlon¹,

Paterson²

2019

Scottish Affairs

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In language planning for minority languages, policy often aims to positively influence attitudes towards the language by increasing its salience in key areas of public life such as broadcasting and signage. This is true for Gaelic in Scotland, where recent national initiatives have included the establishing of a Gaelic language television channel in 2008, and the launch, in the same year, of a bilingual brand identity for ScotRail (Rèile na h-Alba), resulting in Gaelic-English signage at railway stations across Scotland. However, there is a lack of empirical evidence on the effects of such an increase in national visibility of Gaelic on public attitudes towards the language. The present paper explores this using a national survey of public attitudes conducted in Scotland in 2012. Exposure to Gaelic broadcasting was found to be positively associated with attitudes towards the status of the Gaelic language (as a language spoken in Scotland, and as an important element of cultural heritage), and with attitudes towards the greater use of Gaelic (in public services and in the future). However, exposure to Gaelic signage was often negatively associated with such broader attitudes to the language and culture. The implications of the results for Gaelic language planning, and for future academic studies of language attitudes in Scotland, are explored.The authors acknowledge the support of the funders of the research – the ESRC (Grant number ES/J003352/1), the Scottish Government, Bòrd na Gàidhlig, and Soillse.

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“…Several recent surveys of the Scottish population have found that a large proportion of Scotsfar larger than the 1.1 % who speak the language, or indeed the rather larger proportion with a recent family history of Gaelic speakingsee Gaelic as an important element in Scottish culture, heritage or identity (West and Graham 2011;Paterson and O'Hanlon et al 2013;Paterson and O'Hanlon 2015;Chhim and Éric 2017). Results vary substantially, of course, according to the precise question asked.…”

Section: Gaelic As a National Languagementioning

confidence: 99%

The nature of minority languages: insights from Scotland

McLeod

2019

Multilingua

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The Gaelic language in Scotland presents a useful case study for the conceptualisation of minority languages. A key issue has been the extent to which Gaelic is understood as belonging to a discrete minority within Scotland and a bounded territory in the northwest of the country, or as a national language of significance to all of Scotland. Using the most obvious, demographic criterion, Gaelic is an extremely minoritised language, now spoken by barely 1.1 % of Scotland's population, and not spoken by a majority for at least five hundred years. Yet Gaelic was formerly the principal language of the Scottish kingdom, until processes of minoritisation began in the twelfth century. The concept of Gaelic as Scotland’s ‘true’ national language has been retained and refined, but co-exists with other interpretations that see Gaelic as belonging only to the territory that retained Gaelic after language shift occurred elsewhere. In recent decades, revitalisation initiatives (loosely connected with growing awareness of Scottish cultural distinctiveness and moves towards self-government) have promoted Gaelic as a language of national significance, an important resource for all Scots. Contemporary government policies advance this understanding even as speaker numbers continue to decline and many Scots view Gaelic as distant or irrelevant.

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Language as a public good and national identity: Scotland's competing heritage languages

Cited by 7 publications

References 36 publications

Javanese Language as an Ethnic Identity Marker Among Multilingual Families in Indonesia

Javanese Language as an Ethnic Identity Marker Among Multilingual Families in Indonesia

Seeing is believing? Public exposure to Gaelic and language attitudes

The nature of minority languages: insights from Scotland

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