LLS Colloquium: Acquiring sociophonetic variation in a context of minority language bilingualism

In this talk I discuss speech production in a context of language endangerment, revitalisation, and bilingualism. In particular, I focus on young people who are acquiring Scottish Gaelic, an endangered Celtic language spoken primarily in Scotland, as well as English. Most young Gaelic-speakers today acquire the language almost entirely through immersion schooling, though some children also acquire it at home. I consider the effects of social factors, identity as young people, and knowledge of multiple languages, on both speech acoustics and speech articulation. I present data from two case studies:

Study 1 examines how adolescents in Gaelic Medium Education manipulate sociolinguistic variation. Despite the acquisition mode of (near) immersion schooling bilingualism, young people demonstrate a negotiation of place identity and authenticity when using Gaelic variants (Nance & Moran 2022).

Study 2 describes work in progress investigating the articulatory development of children in Gaelic Medium Education on the Isle of Lewis, north-west Scotland. I discuss the interaction of developmental and bilingualism factors in tongue shape acquisition for Gaelic speakers aged 4-11.

More generally, I argue for the inclusion of a broad range of languages in sociolinguistic and bilingualism research, and demonstrate that data from lesser used and minority languages can challenge and advance theoretical models.

Nance, Claire and Dom Moran. 2022. Place identity and authenticity in minority language revitalisation: Scottish Gaelic in Glasgow. International Journal of Bilingualism 26(5), 542–563.