Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 1190

Part of General Paper Session (Other abstracts in this session)

“They’re putting it in English for the tourists, they’re just making it easier.”

Authors: Atkinson, David Jonathan; Kelly-Holmes, Helen
Submitted by: Atkinson, David Jonathan (University of Limerick, Ireland)

While language ideological debates have been explored in many media and public discourse contexts this paper’s focus is language ideological debates that took place in an educational context. The participants were home and international students at an Irish university. All took part in focus groups with the theme of multiculturalism and multilingualism.

Drawing on previous work on issues of evaluation and ownership of Irish and Catalan (e.g. Kelly-Holmes and Atkinson 2007), we set out to research how our respondents construct notions of multilingualism and multiculturalism as these relate to contemporary Ireland and Spain. The results are of interest from the point of view of the value and roles assigned to autochthonous and allochthonous varieties, whether dominant or minoritised. Issues which arise include the extent to which participants position given varieties as having any claim to anonymity or authenticity. It is clear that some participants perceive Irish and/or Catalan (at least some of the time) as tokens of a type of indexicality potentially incompatible with the promotion of multiculturalism and multilingualism. However, languages perceived as allochthonous to their societies are often assigned a slightly different type of authenticity from that of a speech variety which derives its value from being “deeply rooted in social and geographic territory “ (Woolard 2008). Respondents’ comments often suggest that such languages are indeed seen as “the genuine expression of … a community” but in the context of multilingualism and multiculturalism they appear to derive their legitimacy from their role in validating Ireland or Spain as incipiently or increasingly multicultural, as indicators of a certain highly valued ‘hybridity’.

Building on work by previous work researchers such as Laihonen (2008), we combine aspects of language ideological analysis and conversation analysis in order to explore the ways in which aspects of value and ideology are negotiated and contested among our respondents. We are particularly interested in how participants in the interactions iconise and erase given language varieties and position them on various semiotic tiers (Milani 2010).

References:

Kelly-Holmes H. and D. Atkinson. 2007. “’When Hector met Tom Cruise’: Attitudes to Irish in a radio satire.” In Sally Johnson and Astrid Ensslin (eds.) Language in the Media (pp. 173-187). London and New York: Continuum. ISBB: 9781441129673.

Irvine, Judith T. and Susan Gal. 2000. Language ideology and linguistic differentiation. In Paul V. Kroskrity (ed.) Regimes of Language: Ideologies, Polities, and Identities. Santa Fe, New Mexico: School of American Research Press. 35–83.

Milani, Tommaso M. 2010. “What’s in a name? Language ideology and social differentiation in a Swedish print-mediated debate”. Journal of Sociolinguistics 14/1, 2010: 116–142.

Laihonen, Petteri. 2008. “Language ideologies in interviews: A conversation analysis approach”. Journal of Sociolinguistics 12/5, 2008: 668–693

Woolard, K.A. 2008 “Language and Identity Choice in Catalonia: The Interplay of Contrasting Ideologies of Linguistic Authority.” Kirsten Süselbeck, Ulrike Mühlschlegel, Peter Masson, eds. Lengua, nación e identidad. La regulación del plurilingüismo en España y América Latina. Frankfurt am Main: Vervuert/Madrid: Iberoamericana, 303-323.

Sociolinguistics Symposium 19

Programme: accepted abstracts

“They’re putting it in English for the tourists, they’re just making it easier.”