Helen Kelly-Holmes

Sociolinguistics from the Periphery: Small Languages in New Circumstances

In Saariselkä, a centre for Lapland tourism in northern Finland, a longstanding hotel has branded its new conference facilities and accommodation block with the Northern Sámi word Gielas, which refers to the geographical location of the resort. This is the first time that a Sámi word has been used in this tourist context to brand a hotel. On the island of Corsica, vendors sell plain black and white T-shirts adorned only with the Corsican language name of a local brand, Bianc’è Neru (‘black and white’). The Corsican language brand is presented in an unexplained, minimalist way, in the style of a global brand such as Hollister or Ralph Lauren. Meanwhile, in Ireland, a thriving web-based enterprise markets T-shirts printed with Irish language slogans such as ‘Luke, is mise d’athair’, a direct translation of ‘Luke, I am your father’, the catchphrase of Darth Vader from Star Wars, the global media phenomenon. And, finally, to round up our anecdotes, we come to Wales, where a brand of organic, artisan potato crisps uses Welsh-language-branded sea salt, Halen Môn, to complete a distinctive and exclusive brand identity. These four small-scale, local branding activities exemplify the kinds of shifts that brought us to the writing of this book. To the four of us, working in different sociolinguistic contexts, phenomena such as these seemed increasingly to represent a growing and more widespread trend, a new moment for what we call ‘small languages’. That is, while the commercial use of these languages is not a new phenomenon, the particulars of their use in these examples – ranging from playful appropriation of mainstream and even global iconography (Irish) to discreet normalisation (Corsican) to indexing high-end or luxury products by recontextualising ‘old’ and traditional places and values (Sámi, Welsh) – are novel, reflecting both new sociolinguistic developments and an increasingly reflexive stance towards language and culture. Further, it seemed to us that this new moment might represent not just an interesting trend in the use of small languages in peripheral spaces but one that was also illustrative of much broader sociolinguistic shifts whose significance may extend beyond these immediate contexts and indeed beyond the field of minority language sociolinguistics.

Rethinking the macro–micro relationship: some insights from the marketing domain

Abstract A common concern, and indeed a major driver, of new, multilayered approaches to studying linguistic diversity seems to be a desire to problematize and reframe the notion of a macro–micro hierarchy. In this article, I argue that examining interactions in nontraditional domains, in this case the domain of marketing, can offer valuable insights into the nature of macro–micro relationships. The article begins by describing a number of such relationships and interactions that occur in the marketing domain before going on to focus in detail on one advertising campaign by a global brand (Carlsberg) and its interaction with national and global macro–micro relationships in terms of linguistic diversity in the Irish context.

Minority Language Advertising: A Profile of Two Irish-language Newspapers

This paper investigates the Irish-language adscape through an analysis of the profile of two Irish-language newspapers, Foinse, published in the Republic of Ireland, and Lá, published in Northern Ireland. The advertising in both papers is analysed in terms of products and services advertised, advertisers represented and language used. Our results indicate that Irish-language advertising in these papers tends to be confined to traditional domains, and to be used by advertisers who are complying with language planning directives. Beyond this, advertising in Irish is used to identify with certain communities, and its use by private sector advertisers, in a context in which there is a weak communicative motivation for doing so, tends to be mainly symbolic. Our small study shows that the respective advertising profiles of these newspapers do little to challenge common sense assumptions about the language, its role and its status in the respective sociolinguistic environments of both publications.

Theorising the market in sociolinguistics

More than forty years since it first appeared, it is interesting to speculate about how Labovs (1972) department store study would be reviewed, received, and perhaps framed in a sociolinguistics journal today. Reading his paper from a contemporary perspective, the three department stores used in the study come across as sites primarily selected for finding and observing socially distinguishable groups interacting in three differently stratified shops. This is, I would argue, in contrast to the current approach which might place the commodification of accent at the heart of the analysis. In this chapter, I would like to explore what has happened in the intervening forty-plus year period, both in sociolinguistics and in society, to transform the market from one of a number of domains of everyday interaction to an overriding concern in contemporary sociolinguistic studies. The chapter starts with a brief overview of the treatment of the market in early sociolinguistic research, using Labovs study as an illustration to show how markets were treated in much the same way as other domains where sociolinguistic data could be gathered. I then go on to argue that two main developments challenged this treatment of market domains. The first was Bourdieus (1991) conceptualisation of the linguistic market, in which he advocated on the one hand a recognition of the economic foundations of all linguistic exchanges, whilst on the other arguing for the treatment of economic exchanges as just another type of exchange. The second was the development of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), particularly the British School, led by Norman Fairclough (e.g.1995; 2001), a key objective of which was the unmasking of the pervasiveness of market discourses across society. This period in sociolinguistics can be seen as one in which the domain of the market was put under a critical spotlight, largely in response to increasing marketisation of society and neoliberalism in the global political economy. Having reviewed these two developments, the chapter moves on to the current period, in which the market is no longer restricted to a particular domain, but potentially impacts on all aspects of language in society.

Language: A Challenging Resource in a Museum of Sami Culture

Abstract Choices made around using language in museums can either reinforce or challenge existing common sense language regimes and cultural hegemonies. The issues around linguistic choices are particularly pronounced for a museum of indigenous culture in a multilingual minority language community. Using the case of the Siida, the National Museum of the Finnish Sámi, located in Inari, in Finnish Sámiland, we explore some of the issues involved in using language in the museum. Based on a linguistic landscape analysis, we identify three main functions of language in the museum: managing and controlling visitors; narrating and explaining content and being displayed as content/exhibit. We discuss these functions in the context of the Siida Museum and also explore the associated challenges and opportunities. Our analysis shows how the language choices made by museums in relation to all three functions can present an opportunity to challenge existing language hegemonies and inequalities.

Exploring Language Attitudes and Ideologies in University Students' Discussion of Irish in a Context of Increasing Language Diversity.

ABSTRACT The apparent gap between positive attitudes and low levels of everyday usage of the language is often cited as one of the greatest challenges facing Irish language revitalisation. In a context of increasing linguistic and cultural diversity in the Republic of Ireland, this article reports on a research project which set out to explore the attitudes of groups of Irish undergraduate students towards the languages which they come into contact with in their daily lives, in particular, the Irish language, using a focus group method. Four themes in particular emerge in the students’ discussion of Irish as they encounter it in their everyday lives: ‘functionality’, ‘a hidden agenda’, ‘exclusivity’, and ‘heightened culture’. The metapragmatic comments of the respondents indicate deep ambivalence towards use of the Irish language, as well as complex language-ideological positions. The linguistic authority [Woolard, 2008. Language and identity choice in Catalonia: The interplay of contrasting ideologies of linguistic authority. In K. Süselbeck, U. Mühlschlegel, & P. Masson (Eds.), Lengua, nación e identidad. La regulación del plurilingüismo en España y América Latina (pp. 303–323). Frankfurt am Main: Vervuert/Iberoamericana] of Irish as both an anonymous and authentic variety is contrasted negatively with that of allochthonous languages in Ireland, such as Polish. Our study suggests that a fuller understanding of this apparent paradox may be facilitated by qualitative approaches, which explore attitudes in depth.

The Dangers of Normativity — the Case of Minority Language Media

Minority language media are often a focal site for particular normative logics and practices of minoritized language communities. Being highly regulated and ordered, ideologically invested in terms of prestige, visibility and voice, and central for minority language practices, innovations and markets, minority media are at the heart of normativity (cf. Jaffe, 2007; Moriarty, 2009; Kelly-Holmes et al., 2009; Pietikainen, 2008). Normativity is an intrinsic feature of every multilingual situation; it can be seen as an attempt to bring order to the potential disorder of multilingualism and heteroglossia and sometimes also as an attempt to delineate linguistic practices from each other in an attempt to demarcate languages and ‘purify’ them, as part of a modernizing project. But how does this normativity impact on speakers and on languages? In this chapter,1 we want to explore whether and how normativity can be both dangerous and protective for languages and speakers, using the case of minority language media, and drawing on our own long-standing work in Sami and Irish language media.

Innocence Lost: Texts, Economics and Relocating German-Irish relations

The notion of ‘die grüne Insel’, literally, the ‘green island’ has been the dominant textual and graphic motif accompanying German-Irish relations and perceptions in the second half of the twentieth century. Much of this particularly German notion of die grüne Insel is in fact a textual construction, which in turn has, it could be argued, led German people to travel to Ireland in order to have their textual preconceptions fulfilled. The origins of this construct can be traced, in particular, to Heinrich Böll’s ‘Irisches Tagebuch’, his ‘Irish Diary’, the prototypical

'THERE IS A CORNER THAT IS FOREVER MUNICH': ADVERTISING AND ANGLO-GERMAN RELATIONS

“If I should die, think only this of me: That there’s some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England. There shall be In that rich earth a richer dust concealed: A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, Gave once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, A body of England’s breathing English air, Washed by the rivers, blest by the suns of home” “The Soldier”1 is not only one of the poems of the “Great War”; it is also a key reference point for British identity.2 One of few poems that can claim to be recognisable by a large number of the population, and one that sends nostalgic shivers down the collective national spine on the annual remembrance day. Testimony to this was its co-option into an advertisement for the last Rugby World Cup in an attempt to stir up pride in the English national team. Thus, its citation conjures up metaphors of struggle and victory particularly, it could be argued, against the Germans. At a time when economic victory has, for the

Perspectives on Language Sustainability in a Performance Era: Discourses, Policies, and Practices in a Digital and Social Media Campaign to Revitalise Irish

Abstract The poststructuralist turn has been widely acknowledged in contemporary applied and sociolinguistics (Rampton 2006, Blommaert 2010). While for many this paradigmatic shift has been a welcome challenge to segregationalist approaches (Mühlhäusler 1996, Makoni and Pennycook 2007) and deficit discourses in relation to multilingualism (Jacquemet 2005, Jaffe 2007), it is not an unproblematic concept for minority language media and language sustainability. For those committed to activism and engagement with policy makers, the current paradigmatic shift, which has been described in terms of a performance era for minority language media (Pietikäinen and Kelly-Holmes 2011), presents particular challenges which have the potential to undermine gains made in previous eras in relation to media rights for minority language speakers. Using the example of a recent multi-media campaign to revitalise Irish, the Bród Club, this paper explores the opportunities and problems presented by the contemporary performance era for minority language media.