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This book represents the first collection specifically devoted to New Speaker Studies, focusing on language ideologies and practices of speakers in a variety of minority language communities. Over thirteen chapters, it uses the new speaker lens to investigate not only linguistic issues, such as language variation and change, phonetics, morphosyntax, language acquisition, code-switching, but also sociolinguistic issues, such as legitimacy, integration, and motivation in language learning and use. Besides covering a range of languages - Basque, Breton, Galician, Giernesiei, Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Welsh - and their different sociolinguistic situations, the chapters also encompass a series of interactional settings: institutional settings, media and the home domain, as well as different contexts for becoming a new speaker of a minority language, such as by migration or through education. This collection represents an output by a lively network of researchers: it will appeal to postgraduate students, researchers and academics working in the field of sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, language policy and those working within minority language communities.
List of contents
Chapter. 1. New Speakers, Familiar Concepts?; Noel.P. Ó Murchadha, Cassie Smith-Christmas, Michael Hornsby and Máiréad Moriarty.- Chapter 2. New Gaelic Speakers, New Gaels? Ideologies and ethnolinguistic continuity in contemporary Scotland; Stuart Dunmore.- Chapter 3.'We're not fully Welsh': Hierarchies of belonging and 'new' speakers of Welsh; Charlotte Selleck.- Chapter 4. 'We don't say it like that': Language ownership and (de)legitimising the new speaker; Julia Sallabank and Yan Marquis.- Chapter 5. Identities and new speakers of minority languages: A focus on Galician; Bernadette O'Rourke and Fernando Ramallo.- Chapter 6. Double new speakers? Language ideologies of immigrant students in Galicia; Nicola Bermingham.- Chapter 7. Land, language and migration: World War II evacuees as new speakers of Scottish Gaelic; Cassie Smith-Christmas.- Chapter 8. The ideological construction of boundaries between speakers and their varieties; Tadhg Ó hIfearnáin.- Chapter 9. New Basques and Code-switching: Purist Tendencies, Social Pressures; Hanna Lantto.- Chapter 10. New speakers and language in the media: Audience design in Breton and Irish broadcast media; Stefan Moal, Noel.P. Ó Murchadha and John Walsh.- Chapter 11. Linguistic innovation among Glasgow Gaelic new speakers; Claire Nance.- Chapter 12. Verbal lenition among young speakers of Breton: Acquisition and maintenance; Holly J. Kennard.- Chapter 13. New speakers, potential new speakers, and their experiences and abilities in Scottish Gaelic; Nicola Carty.- Chapter 14. New speakers and linguistic practices: Contexts, definitions and issues; David Atkinson.- Chapter 15. Reflections on New Speaker Research and Future Trajectories; Cassie Smith-Christmas and Noel.P. Ó Murchadha.
About the author
Cassie Smith-Christmas
is a Research Fellow at the University of Limerick, Ireland. Her research interests involve the sociolinguistics of minority languages and she is the author of
Family Language Policy: Maintaining an Endangered Language in the Home
(Palgrave, 2016).
Noel.P. Ó Murchadha
is Assistant Professor in Language Education at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. His research interests lie in the sociolinguistics of minority languages, particularly perceptions of linguistic variation in ‘small’ languages.
Michael Hornsby
is Professor at Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland, and head of its Centre for Celtic Studies. He is the author of
Revitalizing Minority Languages: New speakers of Breton, Yiddish and Lemko
(Palgrave, 2015).
Máiréad Moriarty
is a lecturer in Sociolinguistics and New Media at the University of Limerick, Ireland. Her research interests lie in multilingualism and the place for minority languages in domains of popular culture. She is the author of
Globalising Language Policy: An Irish Language Perspective
(Palgrave, 2015).
Summary
Focuses on language ideologies and practices in a range of minority languages and communities
Covers a range of languages and different sociolinguistic situations
Represents the first collection of its kind devoted to New Speaker Studies
Additional text
“The book is obviously written for researchers and graduate students, but the issues discussed throughout may also be of interest to a wider readership, particularly language activists and language teachers. … Overall, this book makes an important contribution to the literature. … Most of the issues treated in this collection will be familiar to scholars of language contact and shift, but the chapters provide a new perspective on many of them.” (Colin J. Flynn, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, December 26, 2019)
“It is the first book on new speakers that explores the practical implications of new speaker theory on populations, and incorporates quantitative studies into a largely qualitative field. … most of the more prevalent voices in new speaker theory are present in the book, this volume is sure to become key reading for all those with an interest in this emerging field, particularly in relation to minority languages.” (Deirdre A. Dunlevy, Language Policy, Vol. 18, 2019)
Report
"The book is obviously written for researchers and graduate students, but the issues discussed throughout may also be of interest to a wider readership, particularly language activists and language teachers. ... Overall, this book makes an important contribution to the literature. ... Most of the issues treated in this collection will be familiar to scholars of language contact and shift, but the chapters provide a new perspective on many of them." (Colin J. Flynn, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, December 26, 2019)
"It is the first book on new speakers that explores the practical implications of new speaker theory on populations, and incorporates quantitative studies into a largely qualitative field. ... most of the more prevalent voices in new speaker theory are present in the book, this volume is sure to become key reading for all those with an interest in this emerging field, particularly in relation to minority languages." (Deirdre A. Dunlevy, Language Policy, Vol. 18, 2019)
