The community as a language planning crossroads: macro and micro language planning in communities in Wales

Abstract

This paper teases out the meeting points between macro and micro language planning in Wales and how this impacts upon community language use in real terms. The paper draws upon data gathered from an evaluation of the Welsh Government's strategy towards the maintenance and promotion of the Welsh language on a community level in Wales. Conducting this research provides an insight into how the community acts as a language planning crossroads where a plethora of factors contribute to language use within this sphere. Key findings report that many opportunities exist to use the Welsh language at macro and micro language planning levels within the communities, including opportunities provided via Welsh Government programmes. However, gaps in community provision exist and linguistic community interaction often occurred within daily, micro activities such as shopping and accessing services rather than within formally organised community activities at a macro level. Furthermore, evidence of existing complex language norms and ideologies play a part in the negotiation of language use within these communities. Such findings are key in informing the Welsh Government's most recent Welsh Language draft strategy which outlines their vision to create 'one million Welsh speakers by 2050' (Welsh Government, 2017, p.1).

Defiance within the decline? Revisiting new Welsh speakers’ language journeys

“…Indeed, Hodges and Prys (2019, 1) emphasise the importance of the community beyond the education sector as a 'language planning crossroads' that brings the different influences of linguistic behaviour together. Hodges and Prys (2019) also point to the importance of studying micro-level community linguistic interactions which could provide further insight into new speakers' linguistic daily practices beyond education. Research into new speakers however, can also influence language policies on a macrolevel (e.g.…”

Migration, Demography, and Minority Language Learning: A Case of Wales

“…Despite a slight increase recorded a decade later (20.8%), the 2011 Census indicated that only 19% of the population declared having skills in the language. Several factors are claimed to have influenced such results, including the methodology employed (Hodges & Prys, 2019). At the time of writing of this article, the results of the 2021 Census are not available.…”

“…After decades of slow legitimation and institutionalisation of Welsh driven for the most part by language activism (May, 2000, pp. 105-111), the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure was passed in 2011, giving the Welsh language an official status in Wales (Hodges & Prys, 2019).…”

“…The integration of migrants, be it social, economic, or linguistic, is a long-term process "wherein immigrant newcomers and the communities in which they settle -both the individuals and institutions -mutually adapt to one another" (Alba & Nee, 2003, p. 23). Encouraging non-Welsh speakers to enrol in Welsh for Adults courses or organising Welsh-medium community activities (Hodges & Prys, 2019) will not yield sufficient results without changing the attitudes and practices of fluent speakers on a larger scale. Campaigns aimed at fluent/native speakers increasing awareness of the need to use Welsh with learners in spontaneous social situations would benefit not only migrants learning Welsh but all learners of Welsh.…”

Micro Language Planning for Sustainable Early English Language Education: A Case Study on Chinese Educators' Agency

“…Despite this notion having contributed to a large volume of earlier language policy and planning (LPP) studies, it was challenged by Kaplan and Baldauf [2], who claimed that LP could occur on other societal levels, e.g., the meso-and micro-level. Since then, there has been an increasing amount of research investigating micro-level contexts, such as family [3,4], speech communities [5,6], and educational settings [7,8], as the sites for LP [see 9 for a review]. Nevertheless, as Liddicoat [10] highlighted, although local actors assume agency in creating micro language policies, the consideration of their agency in the LPP research comes fairly recently and remains scarce in number.…”