Talk on Minority Language Protection

The recording of Professor Ó Giollagáin's talk on Minority Language Protection has been placed online. The talk was presented as a joint venture between the CIALL project and the Humanities and Arts Research Cluster of UHI.

Coherent language protection and promotion initiatives are of vital relevance to minority-language survival. Whilst economic, geographic, demographic, and socio-political factors are crucial to successful language protection and promotion at a macro level, positive factors influencing the primary aspects of language vitality, i.e., acquisition, socialisation, ethnolinguistic identity, and praxis, are crucial at a micro level.

This paper aims to present a new conceptual framework by which we can interpret the various social elements contributing to minority-language social dynamics. Four phases of socialisation (primary, secondary, civic reinforcement, and processes of collective coherence) are indicated in the social dynamic, and the influence and interaction of key groups of social participants (identified as minority; majoritarian; tangential and neo-cultures) on the outplay of the dynamic in society are demonstrated. The analysis underlying this new conceptualisation examines: a) the implications of minority-language promotion with insufficient language protection, and b) the influence of the minority-language policy and planning framework on the social dynamics of the minority group. It is contended in the paper that minority language protection is more likely to be successful when it adequately aligns and addresses the core aspects of the actual reality of minority social dynamics.