Positions and stances in the hierarchization of Breton speakerhood

ABSTRACT

Discourses which seek to position different speakers/users of Breton through the use of labels such as ‘traditional’, ‘new’, ‘learner’, ‘néo-bretonnant’, ‘brittophone’, etc. draw on persistent essentialist ideologies of language and create, in the process, contested elites and counter-elites in Breton-speaking networks. These discourses can be counter-productive towards projects which aim at producing multilingual citizens in Brittany at the present time. This article examines how stances of different speakers towards other speakers of Breton can involve jostling for positions of power within the Breton-speaking community and how attempts at creating elites and counter-elites seem to be a defining feature of contemporary revitalisation efforts in Brittany. This characterisation may, however, miss a ‘third space’ which some social actors may seek to engage with. These discourses are examined in this article through a critical sociolinguistic exploration of how (elite) multilingualism is constructed, maintained and contested by different actors in the Breton language community.

KEYWORDS:

• Breton
• elites
• counterelites
• new speakers
• discourse

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Michael Hornsby http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6075-5929

Notes

1. These figures need to be qualified on two counts – first of all, the numbers/percentages are approximate, since the French State has never conducted any census or survey on the language of its citizens (consistent with its own language policy based on French monolingualism) and secondly, the proportion of speakers was undoubtedly even higher in earlier periods, but of course, but we have no written evidence of this.

2. This increase, modest as it is, has been attributed to the increased uptake in Breton immersion and bilingual education in Brittany in the past few decades.