The Interaction of Language Policy, Minority Languages and New Media A Study of the Facebook Translations Application Aoife Lenihan PhD Dissertation University of Limerick Supervisor: Dr Helen Kelly-Holmes School of Languages, Literature, Culture and Communication Submitted to the University of Limerick, November 2013 ii ABSTRACT The site of this research is new media, primarily the WWW. Language policy has traditionally been seen as the work of governments and their institutions and not related to domains such as Web 2.0. The primary research question of this thesis is to consider: what impact do new media have on language policy, in particular with regard to minority languages? It focuses on both the ‘top-down’ language policy and the increasingly ‘bottom-up’ language practices in new media. It is situated within the field of ‘new media sociolinguistics’ and aspires to move the focus of this area from the issue of linguistic diversity to the issue of language policy. What differentiates it from previous work is its attempt to link practice on the WWW with language policy. The method of investigation is virtual ethnography, which involves looking at computer- mediated communication (CMC) in online networks and communities, analysing the language content and observing the online interactions at the level of the users. It is used here to observe and investigate the de facto language policies on Facebook. It was the potential use of the community driven Facebook Translations app as a mechanism of language policy by ‘bottom-up’ interests, which first drew the researcher’s attention. In terms of language policy, Facebook, the Irish language community and their members act in both a ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ sense depending on the context of the situation, and thus the current research demonstrates that the assumed dichotomy of ‘bottom-up’ forces opposed to ‘top-down’ forces is not always in evidence. It conceptualises language policy as a process, ongoing and fluid, developed discursively and via the practices of commercial entities and language speakers. Furthermore, it finds that language ideologies play a primary role in language policy processes. Finally, it considers if the future of language policy in the current convergence culture era (Jenkins, 2006) will be driven by non-official language policy actors. iii DECLARATION Material from this dissertation has been previously published in two edited volumes: Lenihan, A. (2011) ‘“Join our community of translators” – language ideologies and Facebook’ in Thurlow, C. and Mroczek, K., eds., Digital Discourse: Language in the New Media, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 48-64. Lenihan, A. (Forthcoming, 2013) ‘Investigating language policy in social media: translation practices on Facebook’ in Seargeant, P. and Tagg, C., eds., The Language of Social Media: Community and Identity on the Internet, London: Palgrave Macmillan. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I sincerely thank my supervisor Dr Helen Kelly-Holmes who I have worked with since my undergraduate studies and whose guidance and support, academic and financial, have shaped this PhD dissertation, my research journey and career. I wish to acknowledge the support of the Irish Social Sciences Platform (ISSP) funded under the Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions, administered by the Higher Education Authority (HEA) and co-funded under the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), which provided a doctoral scholarship for my research. I also wish to thank the ISSP and its principal investigator in the University of Limerick, Prof. Angela Chambers, for supporting my attendance at research training and conferences. I thank the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences and the School of Languages, Literature, Culture and Communication, University of Limerick for supporting my attendance at professional conferences. I was involved in the Northern Multilingualism Project funded by the Academy of Finland (2008-11) and I must thank its members for their support, academic and financial, throughout my PhD research. Finally, special thanks to my family, my mum, dad and Gary who supported me in every way throughout my studies and research. Thanks for the tea that got me through it, the time and space to complete it and the support during challenging times. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................ iii DECLARATION ...................................................................................................... iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ......................................................................................... v LIST OF TABLES ..................................................................................................... xii LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................... xii ABBREVIATIONS ................................................................................................... xv GLOSSARY.............................................................................................................. xvi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Research Questions ................................................................................. 2 1.2 Overview of Chapters ............................................................................. 3 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW – LANGUAGE POLICY AND LANGUAGE IDEOLOGY ................................................................................................................. 5 2.1 Language Policy .................................................................................... 5 2.1.1 Language Policy/Language Planning ............................................ 6 2.1.2 Language Policy Models .............................................................. 7 2.1.3 Language Management ................................................................. 9 2.1.4 Phases of Language Policy Research .......................................... 11 2.1.5 Conceptualising Language Policy ............................................... 12 2.1.6 Levels of Language Policy .......................................................... 14 2.1.7 Unplanned Language Policy and Planning ................................. 15 2.1.8 Bottom-Up Language Policy ....................................................... 16 2.1.9 Expanded Definition of Language Policy ................................... 17 2.1.10 Individuals and Language Policy ................................................ 20 2.1.11 The Social in Language Policy .................................................... 22 2.1.12 Language Policy and the Irish Language .................................... 24 2.1.12.1 Language Policy Provisions ................................................... 25 2.1.12.1.1 The Irish Language Dialects .............................................. 27 2.1.12.1.2 Considering Dialect ........................................................... 28 2.1.12.2 Irish Language Legislation ..................................................... 30 2.1.12.3 Corpus Planning and Translation Provisions.......................... 33 2.1.13 Language Policy and Translation ................................................ 36 2.1.13.1 Translation Studies and Translation ....................................... 36 2.1.13.2 Crowd-Sourced Translation .................................................... 39 2.1.14 Language Policy and Technological Globalisation ..................... 41 2.1.15 Language Policy and Business .................................................... 42 2.1.16 Language Policy Studies and Media ........................................... 44 2.1.16.1 The Irish Language Traditional Mediascape ......................... 46 2.1.17 Language Policy and New Media ............................................... 50 2.1.17.1 The Irish Language and ICT .................................................. 54 2.1.17.2 Irish Language New Mediascape ........................................... 55 2.1.17.3 Irish Language and New Media: Related Studies .................. 58 2.2 Language Ideologies ............................................................................. 61 2.2.1 Language Ideologies: Development of Field .............................. 61 2.2.2 Defining Language Ideologies .................................................... 64 vi 2.2.2.1 Language Attitudes ................................................................ 66 2.2.3 Terminology ................................................................................ 70 2.2.4 Examining Language Ideologies ................................................. 71 2.2.5 Language Ideological Debates .................................................... 73 2.2.6 Researching Language Ideological Debates ................................ 75 2.2.7 Metalanguage .............................................................................. 76 2.2.8 Language Ideologies and Translation .......................................... 79 2.2.9 Language Ideologies and Media Studies ..................................... 80 2.2.10 The Move to Language Ideologies and New Media ................... 84 2.3 Language Policy and Language Ideology ............................................. 86 2.3.1 Relationship between Ideology, Practices and Policy ................. 86 2.3.2 Language Policy and Language Ideology Studies .....................