34.2558, Review: Language Policy and the New Speaker Challenge

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LINGUIST List: Vol-34-2558. Wed Aug 23 2023. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 34.2558, Review: Language Policy and the New Speaker Challenge

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Date: 14-Aug-2023
From: Griffin Cahill [gvcahill at gmail.com]
Subject: Language Documentation, Sociolinguistics: Williams (2023)


Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/34.578

AUTHOR: Colin H. Williams
TITLE: Language Policy and the New Speaker Challenge
SUBTITLE: Hiding in Plain Sight
PUBLISHER: Cambridge University Press
YEAR: 2023

REVIEWER: Griffin Cahill

SUMMARY

Collin H. Williams’ new book, ‘Language Policy and the New Speaker
Challenge,’ offers a comprehensive look at the role of ‘new speakers’
(ie. those who have learned a particular minority language by means
other than through home or community transmission) in a number of
linguistic communities and their growing relevance to language policy
and planning. Through seven European case studies, Williams approaches
both the phenomenon and impact of new speakers generally and within
their specific contexts. The book is a synthesis of interviews with
scholars, language policy-makers, and community activists and
stakeholders. For those seeking an overview of the challenge presented
to traditional language policy by new speakers, or an introduction to
the contemporary linguistic environment, and new speakers’ role
therein, of any of the eight case studies, this text provides a
thorough point of reference.

‘Language Policy and the New speaker Challenge’ is organized into nine
chapters, totalling 375 pages excluding the index. The first chapter,
‘The Emergence of the New Speaker Phenomenon,’ is followed by the
second, ‘Popinjays, Pragmatism and Policy: A New Speaker Triptych.’
These chapters regarding the general notion of new speakers and their
place in language policy are followed by those describing specifically
the case studies. The third chapter, and first study, is on Wales,
with the other Celtic nations: Scotland and Ireland, discussed in the
fourth and fifth chapters respectively. Chapters Six and Seven focus
on new speakers of Basque, Catalan, and Galician in their relevant
autonomous communities of Spain. Williams concludes with a series of
suggestions to policy makers regarding new speakers in Chapter Eight,
and finally a more general summation of the entire volume in Chapter
Nine.

‘The Emergence of the New Speaker Phenomenon’ introduces the reader to
the concept of the new speaker in sociolinguistic and language policy
research. Williams defines new speakers in quite broad terms, and
discusses how, despite increasing scholarly work centred around them
and their increasing numbers in absolute and proportional terms in
many minority language communities in Europe, they remain largely
unaddressed by policy makers. This chapter also provides a snapshot of
who new speakers are, and how many come to be characterized as such.

‘Popinjays, Pragmatism and Policy: A New Speaker Triptych,’ the second
chapter, is a collection of the author’s reflections on the key issues
relating the new speakers in the realm of language policy. As this
chapter is a revised version of a plenary address to members of the
COST New Speakers Network, the tone differs from the other and it is
wide in scope. The subject ranges from the methodologies utilized in
investigating the new speaker phenomenon from a myriad of disciplines
to the role of artificial intelligence in lesser-used language
communities.

The third chapter, and the first to illustrate one of the case studies
in depth, is on Wales and Welsh, and is subtitled ‘Normalised
Expectations.’ Williams describes the Welsh subnational government’s
efforts to promote the Welsh language, with much of that effort
centred on the development and propagation of Welsh bilingual and
immersion education. The author notes how this has been successful in
creating numerous new speakers, especially in areas outside of the
traditional heartland of the language. However successful, this
targeted approach is shown to have limits, and to be susceptible to
educational disruptions like the Covid-19 pandemic, which have the
knock-on effects of weakening the language revitalization movement as
a whole, and does not treat new speakers and traditional speakers as
any different, despite the difference in their respective needs from
policy.

Chapter 4, which looks at Scotland, looks at how the devolved Scottish
government approaches new speakers and native speakers of Scottish
Gaelic. Unlike the other cases described in this volume, Gaelic
speakers make up less than 2% of the total population, and “[t]he
restoration of a Scottish parliament did not occasion the same levels
of commitment to the development of Gaelic as happened to Welsh in
Wales” (p. 110). However, similarly to Wales, policy makers recognize
the importance of new speakers in the future vitality of the language,
they believe that those measures already in place for other speakers
will be sufficient.

The fifth chapter examines the linguistic policy environment in the
third of the traditional Celtic nations examined in this volume:
Ireland. Ireland, unlike any of the other cases, is not only an
independent state, but also recognizes Irish as its national and first
official language. As Williams notes though, this is not reflected in
any inherently better outcomes for its language revitalization project
than in other locales. As in Wales, the main thrust of language policy
has been directed at education, and as in Scotland, policy makers have
largely seen new speakers as not requiring any unique or special
provisions to support their usage of Irish. However, Williams and
others note that recent legislative initiatives “may herald a new
phase of the state’s involvement in the promotion and protection of
Irish…” (p. 210)
For the sixth chapter, the author heads south from the languages and
polities of the North Atlantic to Spain, starting with the two
autonomous communities (the Basque Autonomous Community (BAC) and
Navarre) where Basque is the relevant language. New speakers of Basque
have been, by and large, welcomed by governing nationalist parties and
civil society organizations dedicated to the revitalization of the
language. The requirement of Basque-language fluency in many areas of
the civil service, and its growing importance in the private sector,
have gone far in building a bilingual economy.

The seventh chapter examines the language policies of Catalonia and
Galicia, and the roles of news speakers of Catalan and Galician. As in
the BAC, new speakers of Catalan have received a positive response
from policy makers, especially those of non-traditional backgrounds.
In Galicia, the majority of neofalantes are not immigrants, but rather
Galicians who had previously undergone language shift. The
revitalization of Catalan, and its usage by immigrants, is strongly
supported by the autonomous community as a means of (re)asserting an
independent Catalan identity, while in Galicia there is more support
for maintaining the status quo and preservation of traditional
culture. As in the BAC and Navarre, although “civil society activists
… were enthusiastic about [the new speaker phenomenon], higher level
policymakers were less convinced by any arguments in support of adding
a new category to their programmes of action.” (p. 305)

Chapter 8 gives both specific and generic recommendations for
policymakers when considering new speakers and the new speaker
phenomenon. As far as the general recommendations go, these are to
develop standardized supports for the needs of new speakers in
educational, social, and work domains, while at the same time
recognizing the diversity of new speaker experiences and backgrounds
and the importance of developing and testing new ideas and
methodologies as they arise to avoid stagnation. The specific language
recommendations vary, from expanding those programs that already do a
respectable job in training and integrating new speakers (as in the
BAC and Catalonia) to building inroads between already-extant
traditional speaker networks with those of new speakers (as in Ireland
and Scotland).

The final chapter concludes with some reflective observations on the
new speaker phenomenon as a whole, and their place in language policy
in the cases previously described. Williams recognizes that although
policymakers may be aware of the new speaker phenomenon and the need
to plan for its growth, they were reticent to adopt any innovative
strategies to account for these speakers, unless they had already been
adopted at the local level and strong results had been demonstrated
before they slowly moved their way up the food chain. He ends with
some thoughts on what future research on the subject might hold,
notably how linguistics and language science grapple with societies in
increasingly diverse multilingual contexts.

EVALUATION

This book does an excellent job in providing a full overview of the
new speaker phenomenon and their place in the contemporary language
policies of the seven polities discussed therein. Williams discussions
and interviews with policymakers, activists, and scholars alike have
provided a wealth of firsthand accounts of phenomenon and how new
speakers are approached from a policy perspective at all levels of
government. These accounts are then expertly synthesized with the
author’s own extensive experience, both as a researcher and as a
specialist working with some of the very governments examined in these
cases. Those seeking a comprehensive introduction to any of the
individual case studies, or a starting point for a comparison, either
between two of the cases, or a case and another polity, would benefit
greatly from reading this text.

There is, however, an area in which I feel that the book would have
benefitted from addressing. This relates to, at least in my opinion, a
state conspicuously absent from such a discussion involving language
policy in Western Europe: France. Two of the languages considered in
this book, Basque and Catalan, are transborder in that they are spoken
in a relatively contiguous territory which is bisected by the
Franco-Spanish border. Although a fully fleshed out illustration of
the language policies in relation to new speakers in
Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Occitania would not be strictly necessary in
this volume, a brief comparison with the BAC/Navarre and Catalonia
respectively would have been beneficial. Certainly, in the case of the
French Basque Country, the trajectory of ikastola has differed from
that of the BAC/Navarre in Spain, and new speakers and language
activists have a completely different relationship with the relevant
national and subnational units (Heidemann 2014). Generally speaking
the relationship between language activists and policy makers has been
vastly different in France than in Spain, with the national ideology
of Republicanism serving to motivate substantial limits on regional
language rights (Harguindéguy & Itçaina 2012; Oakes 2017). Yet still,
there has been a process of institutionalization of language rights in
the French Basque Country; and even brief a discussion of the new
speakers finding themselves in French territory would have
contextualized the language policy across the border in Spain in a
beneficial manner.

REFERENCES

Harguindéguy, J-B. & X. Itçaina. 2012. Towards an institutionalized
language policy for the     French Basque Country? Actors, processes
and outcomes. European Urban and Regional      Studies 19(4): 434-447.
Heidemann, K. A. 2014. In the name of language: School-based language
revitalization, strategic         solidarities, and state power in the
French Basque Country. Journal of Language, Identity       & Education
13(1): 53-69.
Oakes, L. 2017. Normative language policy and minority language
rights: rethinking the case of  regional languages in France. Language
Policy 16: 365-384.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Griffin Cahill is a PhD student in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics
at York University, Toronto, Canada. He holds two MA’s, one in
European Studies from the University of Guelph, where the subject of
his research was language policy in Scotland and Catalonia, and
another in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics from York University,
where the subject of his research was language change among native and
new speakers of Irish. His current research focuses on the phonologies
of minority and indigenous languages in Europe and North America, as
well as broader aspects of those languages’ respective
revitalizations.



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