The role of 'language-learning holidays' on minority language revitalisation: Native speaker attitudes towards non-native new speakers and an alternative approach

Details

Supervisors

Hambye, Philippe

Faculty

Faculté de philosophie, arts et lettres

Degree label

Master [120] en linguistique

Abstract

This paper investigates whether a recent niche language tourism (Yarymowich, 2005) in the form of language-learning holidays (Garland, 2008) has the capacity to become a viable, alternative approach to minority language revitalisation, and whether possible hostility or resistance from native speakers towards such holidays and towards 'foreign' non-native new speakers due to ideologies of identity, ownership, authenticity and commodification, may affect the implementation and success of such an initiative. The attitudes and perceptions of native speakers from three minority language groups: Irish, Welsh and Sardinian, were observed through surveys and interviews, and findings reveal that native speakers' strong feelings of cultural and community identity and 'ownership' that surround their native language are contradicted by overt expression of welcome, support, encouragement and enthusiasm for non-native new speakers and minority language-learning holidays. Language-learning holidays situate themselves as a promising bottom-up, community-based initiative that result in promoting and valorising, through the attribution of cultural capital, minority languages that are at risk of stagnating in associations of folklorisation.