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Sociolinguistic Variation and Regional Minority Language Bilingualism: an Investigation of Welsh-English Bilinguals in North

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Sociolinguistic Variation and Regional Minority Language Bilingualism: an Investigation of Welsh-English Bilinguals in North Sociolinguistic variation and regional minority language bilingualism: an investigation of Welsh-English bilinguals in North Wales A thesis submitted to The University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities 2013 Jonathan Morris School of Arts, Languages and Cultures Contents List of Figures ................................................................................................................... 8 List of Tables .................................................................................................................. 11 Abstract ........................................................................................................................... 16 Declaration ...................................................................................................................... 17 Copyright Statement ....................................................................................................... 17 Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................... 19 The Author ...................................................................................................................... 22 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 23 1.1 Research context............................................................................................... 25 1.1.1 Welsh-English bilingualism ...................................................................... 25 1.1.2 Bilingualism, Second Language Acquisition, & Variationist Sociolinguistics ....................................................................................................... 26 1.2 Research aims and questions ............................................................................ 29 1.3 Variables ........................................................................................................... 30 1.4 Organisation of the Study ................................................................................. 33 2 Welsh and Welsh English ....................................................................................... 35 2.1 Socio-historical background ............................................................................. 36 2.1.1 Early developments ................................................................................... 36 2.1.2 Top-down Anglicisation ........................................................................... 38 2.1.3 The Westward retreat of Welsh ................................................................ 40 2.1.4 The twentieth century................................................................................ 43 2.1.5 English and Welsh in present-day Wales .................................................. 46 2 2.1.6 Summary ................................................................................................... 51 2.2 The phonology of Welsh and Welsh English ................................................... 52 2.2.1 Dialect areas .............................................................................................. 52 2.2.2 Vowels ...................................................................................................... 56 2.2.3 Consonants ................................................................................................ 60 2.2.4 Prosody ...................................................................................................... 65 2.2.5 Summary ................................................................................................... 66 3 Towards a theoretical framework for Welsh-English bilingualism ........................ 69 3.1 The bilingual speaker ....................................................................................... 71 3.1.1 Definitions ................................................................................................. 71 3.1.2 Typology ................................................................................................... 72 3.2 Individual bilingualism ..................................................................................... 76 3.2.1 The acquisition of two languages .............................................................. 76 3.2.2 Phonological transfer ................................................................................ 81 3.3 Societal bilingualism and language contact ..................................................... 84 3.3.1 Contact-induced change ............................................................................ 85 3.3.2 Linguistic obsolescence ............................................................................ 91 3.3.3 Linguistic substrate ................................................................................... 94 3.4 Language variation ........................................................................................... 96 3.4.1 Language variation and multilingualism ................................................... 98 3.4.2 Language variation and multi-ethnicity .................................................. 101 3.5 Summary ........................................................................................................ 104 4 Methodology ......................................................................................................... 107 4.1 Overview of the methodology ........................................................................ 107 4.2 Independent Variables .................................................................................... 109 4.2.1 North Wales ............................................................................................ 109 4.2.2 Sex ........................................................................................................... 116 3 4.2.3 Home Language ...................................................................................... 117 4.2.4 Style ........................................................................................................ 118 4.3 Control variables ............................................................................................ 119 4.3.1 Age .......................................................................................................... 119 4.3.2 Socio-economic background ................................................................... 119 4.4 Data collection and analysis ........................................................................... 120 4.4.1 The participants ....................................................................................... 121 4.4.2 The interview .......................................................................................... 125 4.4.3 Wordlist ................................................................................................... 128 4.4.4 Questionnaire .......................................................................................... 128 4.4.5 Data analysis ........................................................................................... 129 4.5 Summary ........................................................................................................ 129 5 Language attitudes and use of Welsh .................................................................... 130 5.1 Introduction .................................................................................................... 130 5.2 Methodology and statistical tests ................................................................... 133 5.2.1 The questionnaire .................................................................................... 133 5.2.2 Quantifying language use ........................................................................ 135 5.2.3 Statistical tests of internal reliability and correlation .............................. 136 5.3 Results ............................................................................................................ 138 5.3.1 Correlations between the different ‘themes’ of the questionnaire .......... 139 5.3.2 Attitudes towards Welsh ......................................................................... 140 5.3.3 Self-reported ability ................................................................................ 150 5.3.4 Language use........................................................................................... 154 5.4 Discussion ...................................................................................................... 161 5.5 Summary ........................................................................................................ 163 6 Degree of velarisation in the production of alveolar laterals ................................ 165 6.1 Introduction .................................................................................................... 165 4 6.2 /l/ ..................................................................................................................... 168 6.2.1 Clear and dark /l/ ..................................................................................... 168 6.2.2 Measuring /l/ acoustically ....................................................................... 169 6.2.3 /l/ in previous studies of bilingualism ..................................................... 171 6.2.4 /l/ in the Welsh and English of North Wales........................................... 173 6.2.5 /l/-vocalization and
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