Cover not available
Article published In:
Narrative Inquiry
Vol. 28:1 (2018) ► pp.94–118

Confirming two cultures

Negotiation of negative evaluation in the narratives of adult learners of Irish in post-conflict Northern Ireland

| Ulster University

The learning journey of adult learners of Irish in post-conflict Northern Ireland can contain contentious elements, particularly related to (perceived) politicisation of the language during and following the conflict. Coates and Thornborrow (2005) suggest that stories involve striking a balance between deviation from norms and presenting oneself as “culture confirming”, so an apt way to explore these learners’ experiences is to elicit and analyse their narratives. A majority of the narratives contain one or more “opponents”, in the Greimasian sense, that detrimentally affected the learner’s engagement with the Irish language and would therefore invite negative evaluation. The learners, however, use a unique range of devices to mitigate, background, abstract or make implicit their evaluation. This enables them to simultaneously mark and move on from the challenge, maintain or restore equilibrium, and confirm two cultures: their traditional culture and a new post-conflict cultural formation.

Keywords: identity, narrative, negotiation, evaluation, mitigation, Irish, culture, conflict, post-conflict, Northern Ireland
Article outline
  • Introduction
    • Background
    • Rationale
      • Why narrative analysis for this topic?
  • Review of literature in the field
    • Language and identity
    • Narrative analysis and contested identities
  • Method
    • Data collection
    • Theoretical approach to the analysis
  • Findings
    • The data
    • Outline of devices found in the data
    • Analysis of individual narratives
  • Discussion
    • Patterns relating to community background
      • Opponents
      • Helpers
      • Overlapping cultural confirmations
    • Patterns relating to age
    • Developing the notion of “complement story”
  • Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 27 September 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.17043.irw
References
Barthes, R.
(1982) Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narratives. Image-Music-Text, reprinted in S. Sontag (Ed.) A Barthes reader (pp. 251–95). New York: Hill & Wang.Google Scholar
Belfast Telegraph
(2012, april 2) Census 1911: Belfast’s Shankill had as many Irish speakers as Falls. Retrieved from [URL] accessed 17/12/15.
Bourdieu, P.
(1986) Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1990) (trans. Adamson, M.). In other words: Essays toward a reflexive sociology. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
(1992) Language and symbolic power. Cambridge: Polity. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bruner, J.
(2001) Self-making and world-making. In J. Brockmeier & D. Carbaugh (Eds.) Narrative and identity: Studies in autobiography, self and culture (pp. 25–28). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clayman, S.
(1993) Footing in the achievement of neutrality: The case of news interview discourse. In P. Drew and J. Heritage (Eds.) Talk at work (pp. 163–198). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Coates, J., & Thornborrow, J.
(Eds.) (2005) The sociolinguistics of narrative. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Creeth, B.
(2012, November 19). The healing tongue: Irish learners in Belfast finding common heritage and common ground. Northern Ireland Foundation. Retrieved from [URL]
Department of Education for Northern Ireland
n.d.). Integrated Schools. Retrieved from [URL]
Fairclough, N.
(2014) Language and power (3rd edition). London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Foucault, M.
(2001) The order of things: Archaeology of the human sciences. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
(2002) The archaeology of knowledge. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Fowler, R.
(1991) Language in the news: Discourse and ideology in the press. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goffman, E.
(1981) Forms of talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Greimas, A. J.
(1983) Structural semantics: An attempt at a method (trans. D. McDowell, R. Schleifer, and A. Velie). Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gubrium, J. F., & Holstein, J. A.
(2008) Analysing narrative reality. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hall, J. K.
(2012) Teaching and researching language and culture (Applied Linguistics in Action). New York: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Holmes, J.
(1995) Women, men and politeness. London: Longman. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Labov, W.
(2006) The social stratification of English in New York City. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Labov, W., & Waletsky, J.
(1967) Narrative analysis: Oral versions of personal experience. In J. Helm. (Ed.) Essays in the verbal and visual arts (pp. 12–44). Seattle: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Lakoff, G.
(1972) Structural complexity in fairy tales (The story of man). Irvine: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Lindemann Nelson, H.
(2001) Damaged identities, Narrative repair. Cornell: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
McMonagle, S.
(2009) Deliberating the Irish Language in Northern Ireland: From conflict to multiculturalism? Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 31(3), 253–270. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Norton, B.
(2000) Identity and language learning: Gender, ethnicity and educational change. Harlow, UK: Pearson.Google Scholar
Ochs, E.
(1996) Narrative. In T. A. Van Dijk (Ed.) Discourse: A multidisciplinary introduction (pp. 185–207). London: Sage. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister
(2005) A shared future: Policy and strategic framework for good relations.Google Scholar
O’Reilly, C. C.
(1999) The Irish language in Northern Ireland: The politics of culture and identity. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Polanyi, L.
(1985) Conversational storytelling. In T. A. Van Dijk, (Ed.) Handbook of discourse analysis 3: Discourse and dialogue (pp. 183–201). London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Pritchard, R. M. O.
(2004) Protestants and the Irish language: Historical heritage and current attitudes in Northern Ireland. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 25(1), 62–82. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Propp, V.
(1968) Morphology of the folktale. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
The Belfast Agreement
(1998) Retrieved from [URL]
Todorov, T.
(1969) Structural analysis of narrative. NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, 3(1), 70–76. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Nic Craith, Mairéad & Philip McDermott
2023. Intracultural dialogue as a precursor to cross-community initiatives: the Irish language among Protestants/unionists in Northern Ireland. Identities 30:5 ► pp. 744 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 6 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.