Establishing new norms of language use: the circulation of linguistic ideology in three new Irish-language communities

Abstract

Ideology can be understood as a guide to action, and therefore, language ideology can be viewed as a link between language ability on the one hand, and language use on the other. In this respect, language ideology plays a central role in the success of language revitalization movements. In an effort to understand how new language ideologies are advanced in language revitalization movements at the micro level, research was conducted on the circulation of language ideology in three new Irish-language communities in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. I use these three communities as specific examples of a general policy problem in revitalizing lesser-used languages: how does one establish new norms for the use of a threatened language in a given site or domain and how does one defend these new norms against the counter-ideology of an encroaching or dominant language?