Bangor University DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Narratives of Belonging: Experiences of Learning and Using Welsh of Adult “New Speakers” in North West Wales Tilley, Eileen Award date: 2020 Awarding institution: Bangor University Link to publication General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 01. Oct. 2021 Narratives of Belonging: Experiences of Learning and Using Welsh of Adult “New Speakers” in North West Wales Eileen Tilley 2019 A thesis submitted in fulfilments of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Sociology and Social Policy School of History, Philosophy and Social Sciences College of Arts, Humanities and Business Bangor University Abstract Recent changes in approaches to second language learning have meant that learning is increasingly seen as a social, rather than an individual activity, which involves negotiating membership of a new language community as well as technical mastery of the language. At the same time, the use of language as a boundary between different social and national groups means that aspiring “new speakers” may face challenges to their legitimacy. This may be the case when minority language speakers seek acceptance by a majority language community, but contestation may also be experienced when the membership sought is of a minority language group whose language is under threat. Relatively few studies, and very few using a social identity approach, have been carried out in Wales, where the social context may be particularly difficult for new speakers given historical contestations between the minority and majority languages, especially since many aspiring new speakers speak the majority language. Most existing studies have investigated the barriers faced by “Welsh learners” but not the continuing negotiation of identities as previous learners seek to become new speakers of Welsh, or how the trajectories undergone may vary according to initial social position and setting. The present study, carried out in North West Wales between 2015 and 2019, takes a biographical narrative approach with the aim of tracing how Welsh speaking identities are negotiated through time and in different social spaces. A purposive sample of 24 current and previous learners, several of whom also kept language diaries, were interviewed over 2015 and 2016. The data was analysed using a narrative ethnography approach (Gubrium and Holstein 2009) to map out how identities were negotiated in the various dimensions within which the narrative is framed – prior dispositions, life course orientations, close relationships, the Welsh class, wider community, and workplace. Trajectories were seen to be shaped by interaction between these different dimensions, with cultural capital, life course orientation, and social setting exercising a strong influence on participant experiences and on the speaker position negotiated. Interactions in the Welsh class were sometimes seen to be impacted by the external social context, rather than always being carried out in a i protected “safe space”. Participants had choices regarding how to position themselves on encountering challenges to their legitimacy, which were particularly overt in “high stakes” situations such as civic participation or working through the medium of Welsh. As an alternative to typologies which categorise speakers according to the level of competence achieved, for example “non speaker” or “semi speaker”, a more complex six-part typology has been devised using Weber’s construction of “ideal types”, with the aim of differentiating between and fully describing the varying “speaker trajectories” experienced by participants. Finally, the implications of the findings for Welsh for Adults provision and Welsh language policy are discussed. It is argued that language policy needs to be re- conceptualised to factor in new speakers at unofficial as well as official, micro as well as macro levels. ii Table of Contents Abstract ...................................................................................................................... i List of Figures and Tables .................................................................................... viii Figures ............................................................................................................... viii Tables ................................................................................................................ viii Acknowledgements ................................................................................................. ix Introduction .............................................................................................................. 1 The Thesis Structure ........................................................................................... 3 1. What Welsh Speaking Future? ............................................................................ 5 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 5 Relationships between Social Groups, “Ethnicity”, Language, and the Nation .... 7 The Decline of Traditional Collective Identifications and the Rise of “Free Floating Identities” ............................................................................................... 9 Social and Epistemological Context of Language Revitalisation ...................... 12 “New Speakers” and Language Revitalisation .................................................. 15 Contestations over Language, Identity and Nationhood in Wales..................... 16 Language Decline and Revitalisation in Wales .................................................. 18 Language Policy and “New Speakers” of Welsh ............................................... 23 The “unofficial language policy” underlying Welsh for Adults Provision ............ 27 The Need for Re-Conceptualisation ................................................................... 33 2. From “Second Language Learners” to “New Speakers” ................................ 35 Can “Welsh Learners” Become “Welsh Speakers”? .......................................... 35 Second Language Learning Theory – Chomskyan Determinism ....................... 36 The Possibility of Change; Individual Differences .............................................. 37 Socio-psychological Perspectives ...................................................................... 37 Constructivist Perspectives; Sociocultural and Language Socialisation Theories ........................................................................................................................... 39 Symbolic Interactionist and Poststructuralist Perspectives ................................ 41 Negotiating Social and Linguistic Identity .......................................................... 42 Empirical Examples of Identity Approaches to Second Language Learning ...... 44 Negotiating New Linguistic Identities in Minority Language Contexts ................ 45 From “Second Language Learners” to “New Speakers” .................................. 45 Defining “The New Speaker”............................................................................ 46 iii New Speaker Trajectories – the Concept of “Muda” .......................................... 47 The Contribution of Symbolic Interactionist Perspectives and Poststructuralist – Summary ........................................................................................................... 49 Empirical Studies of Adults Learning Welsh ..................................................... 49 The Importance of Research Orientation ........................................................... 50 Early Ethnographic Studies; Bounded Identities ................................................ 51 Introducing the Possibility of Change ................................................................. 53 Individual Differences or Social Context? .......................................................... 54 From Individual Differences to Social Practice .................................................. 57 The Effect of Research Method on Findings ...................................................... 58 State of the Art and Limitations of Existing Studies .......................................... 60 Identifying “What Makes a Difference” – the Need to Consider Micro and Macro Dimensions ........................................................................................................ 61 Negotiating Linguistic Identities in Space and Time; the Need for Narrative Research ........................................................................................................... 62 Language Diaries – the Life “As Lived” Rather Than “As Narrated”................... 65 Conclusion ........................................................................................................