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Article published In:
Journal of Language and Sexuality
Vol. 8:1 (2019) ► pp.53–81

National identity and belonging among gay ‘new speakers’ of Irish

| National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland

‘New speakers’ refer to people who use a language regularly but are not traditional ‘native’ speakers of that language. Although this discussion has been going on for some time in other sub-disciplines of linguistics, it is more recent in research about European minoritised languages. A feature of discourse around such languages relates to their perceived suitability for diverse urban settings removed from their historical rural heartlands. Irish is an example of a minoritised language which was long associated with conservative rural communities, a reified Catholic discourse of national identity and language ideologies based on nativism. Such an approach not only marginalised urban new speakers of Irish but also exhibited hostility to LGBTQ citizens who did not befit its particular version of Irishness. In this paper, a framework of Critical Sociolinguistics is used to analyse identity positions and ideologies expressed by urban new speakers of Irish who identify as gay and/or queer.

Keywords: new speakers, Irish language, minoritised languages, language ideology, critical sociolinguistics, queer linguistics, multilingualism, bilingualism, language planning
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Context of Irish language and Irish national identity
    • 2.1The minoritisation of Irish
    • 2.2The Irish language, queerness and national identity
  • 3.Theoretical framework
    • 3.1Critical Sociolinguistics
    • 3.2Queer Linguistics
  • 4.Methodology and analysis
  • 5.Sexual, linguistic and national identity among gay new speakers of Irish
    • 5.1Tensions around historical ideologies of national identity
    • 5.2Hierarchies of Irish-speaking and gay identities
  • 6.Discussion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Transcription conventions
  • References
Published online: 7 March 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jls.18008.wal
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