Underlying Language Use: Gaelic Language Ideologies and Attitudes

This chapter considers the role that participants’ ideological and attitudinal stances play in determining their current language practices. Language practices among former-GME students – both the overall extent and nature of interviewees’ Gaelic use – were demonstrated in the previous chapter to be rather limited among the majority of participants, with past socialisation experiences emerging as a key consideration in interviewee accounts, questionnaire responses, and statistical correlations. Building on that understanding, this chapter presents an analysis of interviewees’ language ideologies with a view to understanding how interviewees’ beliefs and linguistic identities may also influence their language practices. Ideologies are particularly examined in respect of appropriate Gaelic use, the wider Gaelic community, and the perceived relevance of Gaelic for cultural identities. A quantitative perspective is then brought to bear on these considerations using online attitudinal survey data.

Linguistic Practice, Gaelic Use and Language Socialisation: Findings from Qualitative and Quantitative Analyses

Considering the overarching question of Gaelic language use, this chapter draws attention firstly to the varying degrees to which interview participants claim to use the Gaelic language in the present day. Three discernible categories or extents of use are apparent in interviewees’ accounts with respect to their present-day linguistic practices. The discussion subsequently considers two particular types of Gaelic use that are frequently reported within the interview corpus, relating to code-switching and use of Gaelic as a ‘secret’ language. As will be demonstrated, there exists a consistent relationship between higher levels of Gaelic ability and use in the present day, as there is between high levels of Gaelic use and past socialisation in the language at home and school. Triangulation of the qualitative and quantitative datasets thus produces a clear picture of limited ongoing Gaelic use among the majority of 130 Gaelic-medium educated adults who participated in the study, particularly in respect of the key domains of home and community.

Gaelic Scotland: Bilingual Life in the Twenty-First Century?

This opening chapter contextualises the key themes of the book within the sociological and historical setting of Gaelic in Scotland, introducing the central issue of language revitalisation. Building on this key theme, the chapter then discusses the role assigned to bilingual immersion education in current initiatives to maintain and renew minority languages. It then outlines the overall structure of the book, with a view to situating the wider study against this conceptual backdrop. Gaelic has been spoken in Scotland for over 1500 years, and was used over a major part of northern Britain in the medieval period, yet the language has now been in a state of decline for almost a millennium. This chapter considers policymakers’ response to this contextual backdrop in order to introduce the key themes of the monograph.

Exploring Outcomes of Gaelic-Medium Education: Research Design and Analysis

This chapter outlines the immediate context and parameters of the study that informs the book, including the research design adopted to establish validity and investigate the key social and linguistic questions identified in previous chapters. It firstly provides a succinct overview of GME in Scotland, outlining the system’s growth and identifying the expectations of parents and practitioners in its earliest years, before situating the present research within the wider experience of GME in Scotland. It subsequently summarises the overall design of the research, which employs both quantitative and qualitative methods. Semi-structured interviews and an online questionnaire are employed to examine language use and attitudes and facilitate data triangulation of research results. The chapter then outlines and describes the pool of participants among whom the research is conducted. Lastly, it describes the various methods used to contact this group, and to analyse the quantitative and qualitative datasets. The chapter will discuss how the dual qualitative analytic focus on discourse content and form contributes to the validity of the analysis, by delving below the surface semantics of speech acts to consider speakers’ pragmatic meanings holistically.

Language, Culture and Identities: Theoretical Perspectives

Various perspectives have been brought to bear on the interrelationship of language, culture and identity within sociolinguistics, the sociology of language, social psychology and linguistic anthropology. This chapter is structured into five overarching sections, setting out a wider theoretical framework surrounding the nexus of language and social life. The chapter seeks firstly to define a conceptual framework for examining the interplay of language and sociocultural identity, before addressing the symbolic value of languages, essentialist conceptions of identity and the relationship between language and nationalism. It then introduces the concept of language ideologies and reviews theoretical understandings of how speakers’ culturally constituted beliefs and feelings about language can be seen to impact upon their use of different linguistic varieties. The chapter subsequently considers language socialisation, and focuses on how bilingual (immersion) education may interact with considerations of language and identity, ideologies and socialisation in diverse settings internationally. The framework established will thus conceptualise how these matters can help to frame the key themes and objectives of the book.

Bilingual Life After School? Linguistic Practice and Ideologies in Action

This final chapter draws together the principal research findings presented in the book, providing a synthesis of key conclusions in respect of the overarching research questions initially outlined in chapter 1. The discussion presented will relate these findings to previously formulated theories of language revitalisation, and the possible role of education in language revitalisation (as addressed in chapters 2–3). The chapter firstly offers a summary of participants’ present-day Gaelic use, before drawing together findings from the qualitative and quantitative analyses of informants’ ideologies and attitudes. Such speaker perceptions are discussed in relation to Gaelic language use, sociocultural identities, and attitudes to GME as an education system generally. Finally, this chapter draws together the principal conclusions of the book’s principal empirical chapters, with a view to assessing how participants’ beliefs, attitudes and ideologies concerning Gaelic impact on language practices, and on likely future prospects for the maintenance of Gaelic in Scotland. A number of recommendations for activists and policymakers attempting to revitalise minority languages internationally are then presented.