Table Of ContentFamily Language Policy
DOI: 10.1057/9781137521811.0001
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DOI: 10.1057/9781137521811.0001
Family Language
Policy: Maintaining
an Endangered
Language in the Home
Cassie Smith-Christmas
University of the Highlands and Islands/University of
Edinburgh, UK
DOI: 10.1057/9781137521811.0001
© Cassie Smith-Christmas 2016
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2016 978-1-137-52180-4
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
publication may be made without written permission.
No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted
save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence
permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency,
Saff ron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.
Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
Th e author has asserted her right to be identifi ed as the author of this work
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2016 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fift h Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN: 978-1-137-52181-1 PDF
ISBN: 978-1-349-70564-1
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
www.palgrave.com/pivot
DOI: 10.1057/9781137521811
For Nana and her family
DOI: 10.1057/9781137521811.0001
Contents
List of Conversation Examples viii
Preface ix
Personal Acknowledgements x
Key to Transcript Conventions Used xii
1 What Is Family Language Policy? 1
OPOL origins and the importance of input 2
FLP from a language shift perspective 6
The role of language policyy in an evolving
paradigm 9
Scottish Gaelic 13
Summary 18
2 Methodology 20
Beginning an eight-year ethnography 21
Recording, transcribing, and analysing
spontaneous speech: the 2009 corpus 24
Recording, transcribing, and analysing
spontaneous speech: the 2014 corpus 29
3 A Diachronic View of FLP 33
A quantitative view of language use
over time 34
First generation 36
Second generation 42
Third generation 49
Summary 56
vi DOI: 10.1057/9781137521811.0001
Contents vii
4 Building and Dismantling an FLP at the
Micro-Level 58
A ‘stand your ground’ approach to language choice 59
Encouraging the use of Gaelic in child-centred contexts 66
How the FLP is dismantled 72
Attempting to reverse language shift 81
Summary 87
5 Authority, Solidarity, and Language 89
Aonghas’ authoritative stance 90
Authority structures and linguistic practices within
the family 94
The wider community and the authority/solidarity
dichotomy 100
Authority and solidarity within the school 102
Summary 107
6 Conclusion 109
References 118
Index 131
DOI: 10.1057/9781137521811.0001
List of Conversation Examples
4.1 Lolly 59
4.2 Mainly Music 60
4.3 Photography course 63
4.4 Mo-bo bike 64
4.5 Counting 66
4.6 I like Beurla (from Smith-Christmas, 2014a) 68
4.7 Bonting 70
4.8 Reading the paper 70
4.9 Dual-lingualism between Seumas and Nana 75
4.10 Beach 76
4.11 Did you see me? 77
4.12 Over the sea something something 79
4.13 Why are you talking Gaelic 83
4.14 You just correct me 84
4.15 New ’puter 86
5.1 Jammies 90
5.2 Keep away (from Smith-Christmas, 2014a) 91
5.3 You normally speak English 97
5.4 On the free breaks I don’t 102
5.5 Cause I’m not a school 102
5.6 I don’t want you to read it in Gaelic 104
5.7 Mum doesn’t let me 105
viii DOI: 10.1057/9781137521811.0002
Preface
The moment the bus turned the corner on its final leg of
the long journey from Glasgow to Skye, I began to wave
at a woman on a bench near the bus stop. It felt like such
a natural reaction on seeing her, but I don’t know why – I
had never seen her in my life and there were a few other
women that matched the age of the woman I was coming
to meet – but I just waved anyway, and the woman started
waving back. I was wearing my red jacket, as I said I would
in my e-mail, so she must have known it was me, and
when I stepped off the bus, she wrapped me in her arms
and said, ‘Welcome Cassie.’ And thus began my friendship
with the Campbell family. Little did Nana – the woman
waiting for me at the bus stop – know that by answering
my letter to the editor in theWest Highland Free Press look-
ing for three generations of a Gaelic-speaking family that
she would be landed with a linguist indefinitely (as my
original plan was to stay ten days!). And neither could I
have known how much my own life was about to change by
meeting Nana and her family. But I think at that moment
I did have a glimpse of how lucky I was to find Nana and
that feeling of luck and gratitude has continued. As these
pages will show, Nana and her family have shown me the
upmost generosity in letting me into their home to, as they
sometimes joke, ‘spy’ on their language practices. I am so
very grateful to them and am honoured to tell their story,
of how they are trying to keep their endangered language
alive, and how sadly, despite their best efforts, it remains
an uphill struggle.
DOI: 10.1057/9781137521811.0003 ix
