Exploring language attitudes and ideologies in university students’ discussion of Irish in a context of increasing language diversity

ABSTRACT

The apparent gap between positive attitudes and low levels of everyday usage of the language is often cited as one of the greatest challenges facing Irish language revitalisation. In a context of increasing linguistic and cultural diversity in the Republic of Ireland, this article reports on a research project which set out to explore the attitudes of groups of Irish undergraduate students towards the languages which they come into contact with in their daily lives, in particular, the Irish language, using a focus group method. Four themes in particular emerge in the students’ discussion of Irish as they encounter it in their everyday lives: ‘functionality’, ‘a hidden agenda’, ‘exclusivity’, and ‘heightened culture’. The metapragmatic comments of the respondents indicate deep ambivalence towards use of the Irish language, as well as complex language-ideological positions. The linguistic authority [Woolard, 2008. Language and identity choice in Catalonia: The interplay of contrasting ideologies of linguistic authority. In K. Süselbeck, U. Mühlschlegel, & P. Masson (Eds.), Lengua, nación e identidad. La regulación del plurilingüismo en España y América Latina (pp. 303–323). Frankfurt am Main: Vervuert/Iberoamericana] of Irish as both an anonymous and authentic variety is contrasted negatively with that of allochthonous languages in Ireland, such as Polish. Our study suggests that a fuller understanding of this apparent paradox may be facilitated by qualitative approaches, which explore attitudes in depth.

En este artículo informamos sobre un proyecto de investigación en el que nos propusimos explorar las actitudes de grupos de universitarios irlandeses hacia los idiomas con los cuales tienen contacto en sus vidas cotidianas, sobre todo el irlandés. Nuestro proyecto se centraba en examinar el fenómeno, observado con frecuencia, de que la investigación parece revelar de manera repetida un contraste en Irlanda entre, por un lado, actitudes altamente positivas hacia el idioma irlandés y, a la vez, niveles bajos de uso del mismo idioma, sobre todo una vez que los estudiantes hayan terminado la educación secundaria, en la cual el irlandés es una asignatura obligatoria. Nuestro estudio indica que es bien posible que los métodos cualitativos, los cuales permiten la exploración más profunda de las actitudes, faciliten una comprensión más completa de esta paradoja aparente. Los comentarios metapragmáticos de los participantes en nuestro estudio señalan una fuerte ambivalencia hacia el uso de la lengua irlandesa, además de una interacción compleja entre las posturas de ideología lingüística de nuestros participantes y las maneras en que el idioma irlandés se tematiza en los medios de comunicación. Argumentamos que las clases de ambivalencia que hemos identificado se pueden teorizar de manera útil en términos de los conceptos de ‘autóctono/alóctono’ y autenticidad/anonimidad’.

KEYWORDS:

• Irish language attitudes
• authenticity/anonymity
• autochthonous/allochthonous languages

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

David Atkinson is Senior Lecturer in Spanish at the University of Limerick, Ireland. His main research interests are: the sociolinguistics of minoritised languages in Spain, in particular Catalan; Irish in Ireland, with particular reference to the media; critical discourse analysis of the language of politics. He has published on these areas in a wide variety of international journals.

Helen Kelly-Holmes is Professor of Applied Languages and Director for the Centre for Applied Language Studies at the University of Limerick, Ireland. Her research concerns marketing and media discourses, economic aspects of multilingualism, and language and globalisation, and she has published extensively on these areas. Helen is Co-Editor in Chief of Language Policy and also co-edits Palgrave's Language and Globalization series. She is Adjunct Professor in Discourse Studies at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland.

Notes

1. All names have been changed.

2. The word ‘craic’ is frequently used in Ireland to refer to the idea of having fun, particularly in the context of conversation and socialising.

3. ‘Shebeen’ is a term for an illicit, unlicensed, bar or club, derived from the Irish word síbín, meaning ‘illicit whiskey'. In Ireland today, it has connotations of an aspect of a traditional, ‘authentic’ culture which is being or has been lost in contemporary Ireland.

4. Connemara (Conamara in Irish) is an area in the west of Ireland, which is often considered to conserve many aspects of ‘traditional’ culture; it is also where one of the Gaeltacht (traditionally Irish-speaking) areas is located.

Additional information

Funding

This article is produced within the Peripheral Multilingualism Project, funded by the Finnish Academy, PI Professor Sari Pietikäinen.