John Walsh

Bio: John Walsh is an academic researcher from National University of Ireland, Galway. The author has contributed to research in topics: Irish & Sociolinguistics. The author has an hindex of 10, co-authored 28 publications receiving 386 citations. Previous affiliations of John Walsh include National University of Ireland.

New speakers of Irish: shifting boundaries across time and space

Abstract: This article was written during Bernadette O’Rourke’s research leave as part of an Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) Fellowship for the project “New Speakers of Minority Languages and their role in Linguistic Revitalization” (Grant number AH/J00345X/1). The authors would like to acknowledge financial support for additional transcriptions from the Community Knowledge Initiative, National University of Ireland, Galway.

An overcoat wrapped around an invisible man? Language legislation and language revitalisation in Ireland and Scotland

Abstract: New legislation in Ireland and Scotland is expected to stimulate a significant increase in the provision of public services in Irish and Gaelic in coming years. This article considers the implications of these enactments for language revitalisation, by examining the measures which public bodies are expected to implement in order to increase their bilingual service provision. Drawing on Strubell’s ‹Catherine Wheel’ language planning framework, it identifies weaknesses in the measures and suggests way of overcoming them. It is argued that, for this legislation to have a significant linguistic impact, careful strategies are needed to equip speakers of Irish and Gaelic to use their languages in relation to public services, given the dominance of English in these domains. In particular, strategies are needed to recruit and deploy bilingual staff in an effective manner. Without careful planning, there is a risk that these enactments will not bring about meaningful changes in language practice and may become largely symbolic rather than functional.

Language policy and language governance: a case-study of Irish language legislation

Abstract: In this paper, it is argued that the existing conceptual framework of ‘language policy’ should be expanded to include perspectives from the emerging field of ‘language governance’, as the latter pays attention to the multi-faceted internal and external contexts in which institutions and organisations seek to develop language policy. The paper begins by reviewing contributions from the field of governance and assesses how these can expand the scope of language policy, particularly when conducting case-studies of individual organisations. It then sketches the current demographic and macro-policy context of the Irish language. The paper concludes with a case-study of statutory language schemes ratified under the Official Languages Act 2003, legislation which promotes the use of the Irish language for official purposes. The discussion reveals conflicting language beliefs between the legislation itself and the language schemes of individual organisations, in this case public bodies. Therefore, the expansion of the conceptual framework to include governance facilitates a broader analysis of tensions around language policy both within and between different levels of public administration.

New Speakers and Language in the Media: Audience Design in Breton and Irish Broadcast Media

Abstract: Focusing on Breton and Irish, this chapter analyses traditional and post-traditional linguistic variation on minority language broadcast media. The chapter assesses the manner in which minority language radio in Brittany and Ireland negotiates the linguistic and ideological environments in which they operate. The potential audience in both polities includes both traditional and post-traditional users of the relevant minority languages. In turn, the ideological stances on linguistic variation amongst these language users, and potential users, are multifarious. The ways the minority language broadcast media negotiate their linguistic and ideological climate is considered within the audience design framework.

Fios na mban. The role of women in death and burial customs in Erris in post-famine Ireland: evidence from the archive of the Irish Folklore Commission

Abstract: This thesis examines the role and contributions of women to mortuary ritual in Erris in the postFamine era. The written evidence for the project is based on the oral testaments of both women and men mainly but not exclusively in Irish and recorded by various collectors on behalf of the Irish Folklore Commission (1935-1970) (now the National Folklore Collection). A secondary aim of the project is to bring into the public domain this rich vein of material, much of it hitherto unpublished and written in the Irish language, the first language of many of the narrators. One of the central arguments of the thesis is that women derived their authority and agency from their close association with the realms of the supernatural and the spirit world, central to which was the Cailleach or Female Divine. Through illustrative narratives from the archives of the Irish Folklore Commission pertaining to Erris, the thesis examines the basis of this female power and the ways in which women could access it for benign and malign intent. Having established this premise, it continues to exand on aspects of women’s role and contribution to death and burial customs in Erris, where they were perceived as ritual specialists in washing, waking and lamenting the dead. Through an examination of narratives, it examines the sense of caritas and sacredness embodied in the rituals of washing and cleansing of the body in readiness for its journey into the spirit world. The project examines the protocols and etiquette surrounding wake attendance and hospitality, through which the community expressed its respect for the deceased while offering comfort and support to the bereaved. It also explores the variety of uses to which the caoineadh lament could be mobilised to provide not just a cathartic expression of loss, but to code gendered rhetorics of loss and anger, resistence and subversiveness within the mourning formalities. A further theme explores how the close associations between women and otherworld forces fulfilled tacit or unexpressed social and psychological roles within the community, providing individuals with valuable support and comfort in times of distress and misfortune. It also examines ways in which women strove to exercise autonomy in death even where they could not do so in life. Finally, it examines contestations between mná chaointepaid criers and members of an increasingly powerful clergy in a bid for control over the rites of passage from this world unto the next. The thesis concludes with an exploration of the various areas of contestation between the vernacular and the official for control over the communal and traditional customs of waking and burying the dead. These included the clergy’s requirements for monetary remuneration for spiritual services, an area that brought them into conflict with paid criers and with other members of the community. The project concludes that the increasing power of the Catholic Church, coupled with social and religious events throughout this period, marked the inevitable demise of the caoineadh, and with it women’s autonomy and agency within mortuary ritual in vernacular traditional culture in Erris.

Language Policy and Social Reproduction: Ireland 1893–1993

Abstract: Another potential problem with this collection is that only a very sketchy description of the theoretical framework is given in the introductory chapter. The studies that follow would be somewhat easier to read if more explanation and examples were given in this first chapter, and if each case study were explicitly interpreted in the light of this framework. In many ways this is a problem with presenting a collection of papers from a conference; the readings are not drawn together explicitly to support a coherent set of arguments. To some extent the studies are still “raw,” having only gone through early stages of analysis, and they do not contribute easily to a synthesized whole. The reader is left very much to draw his or her own conclusions. In view of the above comments, this book is likely to be of most use to those conducting research in child language acquisition, especially cross-linguistic comparisons or extensive work on European languages other than English. As the case studies are of monolingual children, the relevance to research in bilingual language acquisition is limited to contributing a description of monolingual acquisition in languages that may be one of the languages spoken by a bilingual subject; this is not of course to say that this sort of \\vork is not very important for bilingual studies. The book is unlikely to feature as a general textbook, and is unlikely to be of use to professionals such as speech and language therapists, unless they have clients who actually use one of the languages described. It is very much to be hoped that future work from these projects will develop and synthesize the results reported so far. This book represents a promising beginning to this process.

Attitudes to Endangered Languages: Identities and Policies

Abstract: Language attitudes and ideologies are of key importance in assessing the chances of success of revitalisation efforts for endangered languages. However, few book-length studies relate attitudes to language policies, or address the changing attitudes of non-speakers and the motivations of members of language movements. Through a combination of ethnographic research and quantitative surveys, this book presents an in-depth study of revitalisation efforts for indigenous languages in three small islands round the British Isles. The author identifies and confronts key issues commonly faced by practitioners and researchers working in small language communities with little institutional support. This book explores the complex relationship of ideologies, identity and language-related beliefs and practices, and examines the implications of these factors for language revitalisation measures.