Use Of Welsh Research Articles

The Policy of Preserving National Linguistic Identity on the Example of the Welsh

Introduction. The article examines the British policy pursued in the 16th – first half of the 20th centuries in relation to the autochthonous languages of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The author characterizes the language policy of Great Britain in this period as a policy of linguistic nationalism of the English language and discrimination against the national languages of other peoples. The article also discusses the main legal acts aimed at expanding the use of the Welsh language and consolidating the status of the Welsh language as the national language of Wales.Materials and methods. To achieve this goal, the article used the method of the structural-functional approach, as well as modern principles of scientific knowledge of complex social phenomena and processes, based on a combination of macro- and microsociological research. The materials of the article were the works of scientists on the stated issues.Results of the study. It is concluded that the Welsh language has managed to maintain its independence to a greater extent than other autochthonous languages of the peoples of Great Britain, and in modern conditions there is a tendency to increase the number of people using the Welsh language in everyday life. The main findings of this article were the demonstration of specific discriminatory measures applied by the UK in relation to the Welsh language, including the ban on the use of Welsh as the language of legislation, the language of judicial proceedings and restrictions on teaching in Welsh.Discussion and conclusion. The study identifies the reasons and constitutional and legal factors for the transition from a policy of language discrimination to a policy of dialogue of cultures, as well as the influence of public figures advocating the preservation and expansion of the use of the Welsh language on the language policy of Great Britain. The constitutional significance of the Welsh Language Regulations 2011 is stated, and for the first time in the Russian-language doctrine the content of this law is analyzed.

Review Article: Welsh in the Contemporary Work–Place

Y Gymraeg a Gweithlu'r Gymru Gyfoes is an edited volume of contributions with the aim of reflecting on various aspects of using Welsh in the workplace, stemming from a conference on the same theme in 2017 funded by the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol. An important sphere of life and one which is essential to effective language planning, a critical discussion of the use of Welsh in the workplace is timely. It includes discussions on various aspects of language planning and policy for the workplace, from Welsh medium provision in higher education to adult second language acquisition. Overall themes structure the review and individual chapters are reviewed within these themes.

Welsh–English bilingual adolescents’ performance on verbal analogy and verbal classification tasks: the role of language exposure and use on vocabulary knowledge

ABSTRACT Numerous studies suggest that bilinguals demonstrate smaller vocabularies than monolinguals, and that bilinguals’ breadth of vocabulary knowledge – both expressive and receptive – is linked to input frequencies in each language [e.g. Hoff, E., S. Welsh, S. Place, and K. Ribot. 2014. “Properties of Dual Language Input That Shape Bilingual Development and Properties of Environments That Shape Dual Language Input.” In Input and Experience in Bilingual Development, edited by T. Grüter, and J. Paradis, Vol. 13, 119–140. Amserdam: John Benjamins]. However, relatively little is known about the quality of bilinguals’ knowledge of the words they do know (e.g. their understanding of how words relate to each other semantically) and how input frequencies influence that knowledge. Using the Cognitive Abilities Tasks – 4 (CAT-4), this study explored the potential links between three types of input sources – home language exposure, self-reported rates of language use in general, and language use with friends – and bilinguals’ performance on two types of vocabulary tests in both Welsh and English: verbal analogy and verbal categorisation. Results revealed similar performance across-the-board in relation to their knowledge of English vocabulary, regardless of their exposure to and use of Welsh and/or English in general and with friends, but their knowledge of the links between words in Welsh was related to home language exposure and rates of language use. The implications and application of these results in practice are discussed.

Picking the crucial language technologies and how Wikipedia can help: the Welsh experience

When you're making plans to get people using your language as much and as often as possible, there's a list of things related to Wikipedia which can really help. I'll share our experience with the Welsh language.
 Supporting the Welsh-language Wikipedia community forms Work Package 15 of 27 in the Welsh Government's Welsh Language Technology Action Plan https://gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2018-12/welsh-language-technology-and-digital-media-action-plan.pdf. We like supporting Welsh language Wikipedia editing workshops, video workshops and other channels that encourage people to create and publish Welsh-language video, audio, graphic and text content because we're on a mission to try to help double daily use of Welsh by 2050.
 I'll share developments we're funding in speech, translation and conversational AI. The partners we're giving grants to publish what they develop under open licence. So we can share what we've funded with many companies. We think Microsoft might have used some to make their new synthetic voices in Welsh.
 We're excited by the potential Wikidata offers. We'll look at its potential in populating Welsh maps this year. We've already used Wikipedia search data as a way of prioritising the training of a Welsh virtual assistant.
 Welsh may not be spending as much as Icelandic and Estonian do on language technologies, but we'd like to share what we're learning as a smaller language about the important areas to focus on and how Wikipedia can help.

Defiance within the decline? Revisiting new Welsh speakers’ language journeys

ABSTRACT The Welsh Government’s Welsh language strategy, Cymraeg: A million Welsh speakers [Welsh Government. 2017a. Cymraeg 2050: A Million Welsh Speakers. Cardiff: Welsh Government], aims to increase the numbers of Welsh speakers to one million by 2050. The creation of new Welsh speakers and immersion education form an integral part of the Welsh Government’s language revitalisation strategy and this study revisits new Welsh speakers from the Rhymney Valley, South Wales in 2016/2017 a decade on from the 2006 research study [Hodges, R. 2009. “Welsh Language Use Among Young People in the Rhymney Valley.” Contemporary Wales 22: 16–35. http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/uwp/cowa/2009/00000022/00000001/art00004]. This longitudinal research provides further insights into their continuing language journeys, and indicates there has been a sustained reduction in this group’s use of Welsh by 2016/2017 due to factors relating to fluency, confidence and a lack of opportunities to use Welsh. However, the results indicate that new speakers play an important role in influencing family language transmission and in increasing language awareness within the workplace. This paper calls for further longitudinal research on new Welsh speakers’ language journeys so that this group may be appropriately supported as they make a crucial contribution to language revitalisation in Wales.

The auditory-verbal hallucinations of Welsh-English bilingual people.

ObjectivesPsychological models of voice‐hearing propose that auditory‐verbal hallucinations occur when inner speech is attributed to a source external to the self. Approximately half of the world's population is multilingual, and the extent to which they use a second language for inner speech depends on their experience and competency in it. Bilingualism therefore provides a natural window into the processes operating in auditory‐verbal hallucinations, but no systematic study of voice‐hearing in bilinguals has hitherto been conducted.DesignA mixed‐methods observational study of psychiatric service users who hear voices and who are Welsh–English bilingual.MethodsThirty‐seven participants were interviewed about their history and use of Welsh and English and divided into three groups: those who learnt Welsh first (L1 Welsh), those who learnt English first (L1 English), and those who learnt the two languages simultaneously. Detailed phenomenological data were collected using The Mental Health Research Institute Unusual Perceptions Schedule.ResultsBoth qualitative and quantitative data indicated very considerable variation in the extent to which voices were in Welsh, English, or both, with some voice‐hearers reporting that the predominant language of their voices had changed with time. There were modest but statistically significant associations between the predominant language of voices and age of language acquisition (late Welsh learners did not hear voices in Welsh), frequency of language use (more frequent use of Welsh was associated with more Welsh voices), and subjective language proficiency (proficiency in English was associated with a tendency to hear English voices).ConclusionsAlthough this was a small study, it was the first of its kind. There is a need for more research on the implications of bilingualism for psychosis in particular and mental illness more generally. The results are broadly consistent with the hypothesis that hallucinated voices are misattributed inner speech.Practitioner points Assessments of people with mental health difficulties should routinely inquire whether they are multilingual and, if so, which language they prefer to use.People with mental health difficulties may have difficulty expressing complex issues and emotions in a second language, despite apparent fluency.When working with bilingual people who hear voices, mental health professionals should consider the language used by the voices when conducting assessments and proposing formulations.

‘Defnyddiwch y Gymraeg’1: community sport as a vehicle for encouraging the use of the Welsh language

Despite cultural and statutory changes, including significant investment in Welsh medium education, latest census data show a drop in the percentage of Welsh speakers. Moreover there is a concern that many of those who are able to speak Welsh are not using it – the language is not ‘alive’. The Welsh Language Commissioner has identified sport as a space where Welsh can be used, encouraged and promoted. The aim of this study was to investigate whether community sport clubs can provide a space to encourage the use of Welsh. Using qualitative methods we found that strategies to promote Welsh in sports clubs are potentially divisive. The dominant and ‘operational’ language of many community sport clubs is English. Increasing the use of Welsh in these clubs risks excluding non-Welsh speakers, but ignoring the language denies Welsh speakers the opportunity to participate in Welsh.

The Cambridge History of Welsh Literature, ed. Geraint Evans and Helen Fulton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019, xxix, 825 pp., 8 maps

According to the two editors, it has been a long time since the entire history of Welsh literature was treated in one volume, so the new effort by Geraint Evans and Helen Fulton must be certainly welcomed. But for a little housekeeping, so to speak, they only refer to the volume Hanes Llenyddiaeth Gymraeg hyd 1900, published by Thomas Parry in 1953, translated into English in 1955. A simple search in any online catalog, however, unearths other valuable studies, such as Bobi Jones’s The Dragon’s Pen: A Brief History of Welsh Literature (1986), Mathias Roland’s Anglo-Welsh Literature: An Illustrated History (1986), The Oxford Companion to the Literature of Wales, ed. Meic Stephens (1986), and Dafydd Johnston, The Literature of Wales (1994), none of which are included in the final cumulative bibliography. Of course, this does not mean at all that new efforts in that regard could be dismissed, on the contrary. In fact, as Evans and Fulton correctly emphasize, both with respect to the use of English and the use of Welsh, the time has come to approach the entire corpus of literary texts as produced in Wales from the early Middle Ages until today in a holistic fashion, although this work was here divvied up among a larger number of scholars responsible for individual literary-historical periods. It would have been helpful, however, if the editors had reviewed critically the previous efforts to write a literary history of Wales in order to highlight better the new approaches and methodologies, which are explained subsequently, but not clearly enough in contrast to previous publications.

‘Two hands over two sands’: Capel Bethel, Dulyn: the Welsh chapel in Dublin

ABSTRACTNo sense of inter-Celtic harmony underpinned the Wales-wide campaign to set up a Welsh Methodist chapel on Talbot Street, Dublin, in 1838. Rather, it was the Welsh community’s determination to take on the Church of Rome, and to ensure that the Welsh diaspora in Dublin – many of them seamen serving on vessels making the short crossing to Holyhead – would be ministered to in their native language. Bethel chapel proved to be remarkably successful, with its use of Welsh attracting the interest of members of the Gaelic League in the early twentieth century. Bethel chapel continued to be used by its Welsh congregation until 1939. The building survives as a cyber café, used by the Chinese community, and is on Dublin City Council’s record of protected structures.

The influence of social factors on minority language engagement amongst young people: an investigation of Welsh-English bilinguals in North Wales

The majority of young Welsh speakers now come from English-speaking homes and reside in communities where English is the dominant language (Jones 2008: 550; Jones 2012: 6). Previous studies have shown, however, that these speakers use Welsh less than those from Welsh-speaking homes in Welsh-dominant communities (Jones 2008: 553). This article examines the correlation between speakers' backgrounds and their language attitudes, self-confidence in their language skills and use of Welsh. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected from 27 participants from two cohorts of Welsh-medium Sixth Form units in a Welsh-dominant area of North West Wales and an English-dominant area of North East Wales. While attitudes towards Welsh were generally positive, those from English-speaking homes feel less confident in their Welsh in both areas. The use of Welsh amongst those from English-speaking homes is also relatively low regardless of the dominant language of the community. Amongst those from Welsh-speaking homes, use is significantly lower amongst those who reside in the North East. It is suggested that these results are attributable to peer-group dynamics in the two areas: in the North West, language-specific peer groups were found whereas English was the language of all peer groups in the North East.

Young Bilinguals' Language Behaviour in Social Networking Sites: The Use of Welsh on Facebook

Social networking sites feature significantly in the lives of many young people. Where these young people are bilingual, social networking sites may have an important role to play in terms of minority language use and in shaping perceptions of that language. Through a quantitative and qualitative study, this paper investigates the use of language in social networking sites by young Welsh speakers, focussing particularly on Facebook. Language choice and behaviour, factors influencing that behaviour, and attitudes towards use of the Welsh language in Information Technology are explored. The data suggests that there are a number of different factors at play, and that it is necessary to consider language behaviour in social networking sites in the context of offline language behaviour.

Social networks and minority languages speakers: the use of social networking sites among young people

This paper outlines the results of a project carried out in Wales in 2010 looking at how extensively young Welsh speakers used the language within their social networks. A study of 200 young people aged 13-18 years was conducted in four Welsh medium secondary schools, two in south east Wales and two in north west Wales. An on-line questionnaire was used to gather information about the young people’s family and educational background, the language of their home, their self-perceived language ability, their use of Welsh and English in different social contexts, and their use of Welsh and English in emails, texting and social networking sites. Then a series of focus groups discussed these issues in more depth. We found that almost 90 per cent of the young people interviewed used Social Networking Sites regularly, and the language they used on these sites reflected to a large extent the language they used with contacts in the real world. There was some evidence that Social Networking Sites afforded young people in the more Anglicised areas of Wales the opportunity to use Welsh on a daily basis, and thus the use of Social Networking Sites can be useful in maintaining a minority language. However, it is necessary to consider innovative ways of encouraging young people to use it within their favoured social media.

Early Modern Migration from the Mid-Wales County of Radnorshire to Southeastern Pennsylvania, with Special Reference to Three Meredith Families

In 1971 the Honorable Thomas M. Rees of California observed that "very little has been written of what the Welsh have contributed in all walks of life to the shaping of American history." In 1979 historian David Galenson maintained that "the issue of the composition of America's early immigrants is an impor-tant one and will continue to receive considerable attention from historians who seek to understand the social and economic history of colonial America." However, Douglas Greenburg's examination of the historiography of the middle colonies revealed that Pennsylvania, which witnessed the immigration of many early modern Welsh Quaker migrants, has not attracted as much attention from researchers as has its neighboring states.

Towards a fuller understanding of language use in Wales

This article considers the importance of developing a holistic understanding of the factors that influence language choice and examines two periods of intense language policy and planning activity in Wales. Part 1 looks at the historical context of the interaction between Welsh and English, focusing on the pivotal years 1880–1920. Part 2 turns to the present day and to measures put in place to influence the use of Welsh. In both periods, language policy and planning has operated across many spheres with the aim of either maintaining the use of Welsh or triggering a switch to using Welsh. In light of these discussions, Part 3 considers the kind of research needed to further develop the field and suggests that long-term micro-level study of an individual’s language choice may help us better understand the nuances of this issue and thus better shape policies and initiatives that respond to these complexities.

THE USE OF THE WELSH LANGUAGE ON FACEBOOK

The existence of many minority languages is threatened by language shift, whereby the community of speakers moves to using the majority language in place of the minority language. Social network sites such as Facebook might be important environments for minority language maintenance, as networks of strong ties may help speakers resist pressures towards language shift. However, to date, there has been little research that investigates this aspect of minority languages' online presence. This paper presents an initial examination of the current use of the Welsh language on Facebook. The paper introduces a method for sampling the network of groups being used by a language community, based on the ‘Related Groups’ information within Facebook group profiles. Basic information is presented about the use of Welsh in Facebook groups, including membership numbers, the range of topics, and the levels of activity. Visualizations of the network reveal a small number of popular central groups playing a significant role in connecting the community. The successive removal of central groups results in a relatively sparsely connected network and reveals a number of geographical neighbourhood and topic-specific sub-networks. The use of Welsh on personal profiles is also examined, as are the demographics of Welsh speakers on Facebook. The results of this examination provide evidence that suggests that the use of the Welsh language has been normalized to some extent within Facebook and that the language has established an active presence on Facebook groups and profiles.

Diasporic ethnolinguistic subjectivities: Patagonia, North America, and Wales

A total of 956 informants with links to Wales — from Patagonia, North America, and Wales itself — completed a questionnaire investigating their Welsh identities and affiliation, their images of Wales, their engagement with Welsh cultural practices, and their perceptions of the ethnolinguistic vitality of the Welsh language and of domain priorities for the use of Welsh. These three groups produced systematic variation across many of the issues in this study. Overall, for example, the North Americans oriented their Welshness to Wales itself, and in particular in the history and heritage of Wales, while the Patagonians and the Welsh anchored their Welsh identity within their own contexts, and with less focus on the history and heritage of Wales. The results offer insights into the complexity of “home” and “diaspora” relationships, historical and geo-cultural differences, and their impact on Welsh cultural authenticity and ethnolinguistic subjectivities.

Young people’s social networks and language use

This paper outlines the results of a project carried out in Wales between 2003–2005, looking at the social networks and language use of young people aged 13–17 years. Twenty four participants were studied in twelve different areas of Wales, making a total sample group of 288. The participants were selected on the basis of their own Welsh language competence and that of their parents. The resulting network configurations across the various locations portrayed quite different responses regarding the young people’s use of the Welsh language. The major determinant of the Welsh language density of the networks was the language used by the respondent in the home. The analysis of the data allowed the development of a typology of locations distinguished by the incidence of the use of Welsh in different social networks. Three types of communities emerged – firstly, those which integrate dominant language speakers; secondly, communities containing two distinct language groups; and thirdly, communities where Welsh is rapidly being assimilated into the normative context where English is the predominant language.

Minority Language Socialisation within the Family: Investigating the Early Welsh Language Socialisation of Babies and Young Children in Mixed Language Families in Wales

The role of the home and family/caregivers is commonly acknowledged as being central to securing the intergenerational socialisation of minority languages. Research evidence demonstrates that the survival or demise of minority languages crucially depends upon the extent to which the language is passed on from one generation to the next within the household context. In Wales, there is a marked lack of parental success in ensuring children's acquisition and use of Welsh, particularly in cases when one parent speaks Welsh and the other not. Such a trend, should it continue, seriously threatens the future of the Welsh language. In this paper, we discuss the results of a recent research project carried out with 12 families in Wales, where the factors that affect the language socialisation of babies and young children within mixed language households were studied in depth. This study represents the first stage of a longitudinal study of language socialisation of children within mixed language families in Wales.

Home Truths: Globalisation and the Iconising of Welsh in a Welsh-American Newspaper

Global population flows leave some social groups dislocated from their home territories and languages. Under these conditions processes of ethnolinguistic identification can become complex and the use of a home language can take on new symbolic values. We consider the case of Welsh-affiliating people in the United States of America, and the use of the Welsh language in one particular, long-running WelshAmerican community newspaper, Y Drych (The Mirror). Quite differently from its earliest forms in the second half of the 19th century, Y Drych nowadays positions the Welsh language as a richly iconic resource, available for ceremonial and celebratory social purposes - to celebrate Welshness at a remove from 'the homeland'. We interpret the use of Welsh in Y Drych as a form of language display, and as part of a process of retraditionalisation. Linguistic and cultural elements of 'old Wales' are re-embedded into Welsh-American consciousness and practices, in ways that might be paralleled in other sociolinguistic diasporas.

Bilingualism and geographical knowledge: A case study of students at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth

This paper explores the role of languages in the constitution of geographical knowledge. We argue that the fact that people speak different languages is significant to the ways in which they engage with geography as a subject. We unpack some of the processes through which languages make a difference to geography through an empirical project based on students at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, where geography is taught bilingually through Welsh and English. Student geography is a particularly interesting arena to further this theme, because of students' mediating role in translating professional geography into the popular sphere, which in the case of students at Aberystwyth is also a different linguistic sphere. Our empirical work suggests that the use of Welsh creates a particular linguistic culture of geography, because of the shared experience of specific practices and politics in bilingual education. This makes a difference to the kinds of geography consumed and produced by bilingual students. Through a discussion of the linguistic identity of Welsh geography, we address some of the implications and limitations of this social formation. We conclude by arguing that a focus on language has the potential to open up new ways of talking about geography.