Suchergebnisse

This article looks at the historicisation of the native speaker and ideologies of authenticity and anonymity in Europe's language revitalisation movements. It focuses specifically on the case of Irish in the Republic of Ireland and examines how the native speaker ideology and the opposing ideological constructs of authenticity and anonymity filter down to the belief systems and are discursively produced by social actors on the ground. For this I draw on data from ongoing fieldwork in the Republic of Ireland, drawing on interviews with a group of Irish language enthusiasts located outside the officially designated Irish-speaking Gaeltacht.

This article analyses and attempts to explain conflicting views about the value associated with Galician in contemporary Galicia. It does so by tracing the possible source of these conflicting values historically, from the effects of language contact with Spanish since the fourteenth
century, right through to attempts made to revive Galician in the late nineteenth century to the current sociolinguistic situation in the context of the twenty-first century. It explores the reasons why the number of Galician speakers continues to decline despite the seemingly more favourable
attitudes towards the language amongst the Galician population.

Abstract
In this article we use Moscovici's (1976) notion of active minorities as a framework to explain the linguistic practices and motivations behind linguistic change amongst new speakers of Galician. Revitalization policies since the 1980s brought about changes in the symbolic and economic value of Galician on the linguistic market. However, this has not been significant enough to change the rules of social mobility and Spanish has continued to be the language of prestige. Despite this, neofalantes 'new speakers of Galician' have opted for linguistic change and engage in the process of majority language displacement. We argue that this displacement can at least in part be explained by a move away from functionalist models of language contact and shift and towards an understanding of these processes from a language conflict perspective. This allows us to explain the practices of neofalantes as not simply deviations from the sociolinguistic "status quo" but as reactions to it and as proponents of social change. To explore the behavioural styles and practices of neofalantes as an active minority, we analyse the discourses which emerge from discussion groups involving twelve new speakers of Galician about their sociolinguistic practices.

Drawing on the framework of authenticity and anonymity, this article explores the Irish State's mobilisation of these opposing yet interrelated language ideologies in efforts to regiment the use of Irish both within the traditionally Irish-speaking Gaeltacht areas and nationwide. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in western Ireland, we examine how non-traditional Irish speakers' understanding of the Gaeltacht and its native speakers as a resource for immersion in the authentic language shapes expectations of how native Irish speakers within these areas not only speak, but also live and act. This discussion highlights the interconnections between linguistic ideology, social action, and political economy.

Within the field of anthropology, there is a comprehensive linguistic sub-discipline which deals with issues from semiotics and linguistics to identity and intangible cultural heritage. This special volume of AJEC emerged from our desire to explore that sub-discipline in a European context. From our perspective, it appears that many anthropologists in and of Europe engage with a variety of questions within the sub-discipline. However, these anthropologists are not necessarily located in anthropology departments. Furthermore, their expertise is not necessarily profiled in anthropological journals. This is in sharp contrast with the U.S.A. where the significance of language in the field of anthropology is more clearly defined and profiled.

Abstract
While traditional Irish-speaking communities continue to decline, the number of second-language speakers outside of the Gaeltacht has increased. Of the more than one and half million speakers of Irish just over 66,000 now live in one of the officially designated Gaeltacht areas. While "new speakers" can be seen to play an important role in the future of the language, this role is sometimes undermined by discourses which idealise the notion of the traditional Gaeltacht speaker. Such discourses can be used to deny them "authenticity" as "real" or "legitimate" speakers, sometimes leading to struggles over language ownership. Concerns about linguistic purity are often voiced in both academic and public discourse, with the more hybridized forms of Irish developed amongst "new speakers" often criticised. This article looks at the extent to which such discourses are being internalised by new speakers of Irish and whether or not they are constructing an identity as a distinct social and linguistic group based on what it means to be an Irish speaker in the twenty first century.

The Quest for Survival after Franco. Moderate Francoism and the Slow Journey to the Polls, 19641977, Cristina Palomares (2004) Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 271 pp., ISBN 1-84519-123-8 (pbk), 17.95


Configuring Community: Theories, Narratives and Practices of
Community Identities in Contemporary Spain, Parvati Nair (2004) London: Modern Languages Research Association, 196 pp., ISBN 1 904350 14 3 (pbk), 35.00


Financial Developments in National and International Markets, Philip Arestis, Jesus Ferreiro and Felipe Serrano (eds.)
(2006) Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hants: Palgrave Macmillan, 244 pp., ISBN 13:978-1-4039-9629-9 (hbk), 58


Gendering Spanish Democracy, Monica Threlfall, Christine Cousins and Celia Valiente (2005) London: Routledge, 239 pp., ISBN 0-415 34794-7 (hbk), 80

This article responds to the recent special issue of Scottish Affairs on 'Gàidhealtachd Futures' and in particular the article by Iain MacKinnon proposing that ancestry, ethnicity and indigeneity should become the principal elements in contemporary Gaelic identity. The editors of the special issue do not give an analytically meaningful presentation of the term Gàidhealtachd and MacKinnon fails to give a complete or balanced account of previous research on the question of Gaelic identity. There is considerable uncertainty about how the term Gael is understood today; many Gaelic speakers are reluctant to accept this label for themselves. MacKinnon's arguments concerning the role of ancestry in defining Gaelic identity are highly problematic in both analytical and political terms. His proposals concerning ethnicity and indigeneity are unsustainable, particularly in light of relevant legal standards, and amount to a strategic, ethical and legal dead end for the Gaelic revitalisation movement.

This article considers a range of weaknesses and deficiencies in the article 'Moving Beyond Asocial Minority-Language Policy' by Conchúr Ó Giollagáin and Iain Caimbeul and the underlying research study on which it was based. The authors' presentation of previous research was inadequate and the framing of their survey results was sensationalistic, risking the demoralisation of Gaelic speakers and the weakening of social or political support for the language. The authors fail to justify and properly define the key terms used in their analysis, including 'vernacular community' and 'Gaelic group', so that there is a pervasive lack of clarity to their discussion, with serious implications for their key policy proposal. We also identify shortcomings in the geographic framing of their study; which areas were included and which were not. We then challenge the social classification they use in their analysis, and their rigid distinction between Gaelic speakers in their study area and all those living elsewhere. We then demonstrate how the authors' presentation of current Gaelic policy is incomplete, misleading and biased, and we critique their proposals for fundamental changes to the current policy structure, including the creation of a new Gaelic community trust. We argue that strengthening existing policy structures and exploiting such structures much more energetically and effectively offers a better approach to strengthening the language, both in the areas studied and elsewhere in the country.