Galician and Irish in the European Context

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-x

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Bernadette O’Rourke

   Pages 1-4

3. Language Attitudes

   • Bernadette O’Rourke

   Pages 5-33

4. Evolution of Attitudes towards Irish and Galician

   • Bernadette O’Rourke

   Pages 34-57

5. A New Policy for Ideological Change

   • Bernadette O’Rourke

   Pages 58-90

6. Effects of Language Policies on Attitudes

   • Bernadette O’Rourke

   Pages 91-115

7. A Cross-National Study of Young People’s Attitudes

   • Bernadette O’Rourke

   Pages 116-147

8. Conclusion

   • Bernadette O’Rourke

   Pages 148-154

9. Back Matter

   Pages 155-185

   PDF

An exploration of the role of language attitudes and ideologies in predicting the survival prospects of a minority language. The author examines this role through a cross-national comparative analysis of Irish in the Republic of Ireland and Galician in the Autonomous Community of Galicia in north-west Spain.

• bibliography
• comparative
• Europe
• Ireland
• language
• minority language
• policy
• Spain

This comparative analysis of the Irish and Galican languages is framed by the persepctive that the impact on language maintenance and shift of macro-ocial factors such as political and institutional support can only be assessed adequately through 'the interpreative filter of linguistic eliefs,/attitudes and ideologies' (p. 3/4). The rationale for this and other compartive studies is that they offer 'a broader and more objective framework than can be achieved through single case studies' (p. 4) avoding the solipsism that can be found in the limited horizons of one langauge studies and benefitting from the novel insights that O'Rourke offers.' Dick Vigers, University of Southampton, Current Issues in Language PLanning, Sept. 2012

• Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK

  Bernadette O’Rourke

BERNADETTE O'ROURKE lecturers in Spanish and General Linguistics at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK. Her main research interests, on which she has published various articles and chapters, are in sociolinguistics and the sociology of language, with a particular focus on minority language issues.

Policies and ethics