Negotiating the politics of language

Language learning and civic identity in Wales

Bibliographic Data

ID6256550
AuthorsR Mann (0000-0003-3041-6624, University of Oxford, corresponding author)
Year2007
Volume7
Issue2
Pages208-224
Publication date2007-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEthnicities (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1468-7968 • E-ISSN: 1741-2706
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1468796807076845
OpenAlexW2135399337
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited17

Since 2001, political concerns over social and ethnic cohesion have stimulated new debates over citizenship and belonging in the UK. A central feature of which has been a civic requirement of new citizens to learn English. Such a debate however coincides with concerns around in-migration in Wales, and the highly contested notion that non-Welsh speakers have a civic responsibility to learn Welsh. This article aims to explore the contradictions between these two cases via research with adult language learners in Wales — a group often ignored within literature on language, identity and citizenship. In analysing learners' discourses, the article identifies the ways in which learners come to terms with such notions of responsibility. However, the article argues that by positioning language learning in Wales in relation to the development of Welsh civic institutions, and by locating learning itself as a means of expressing such civic identification to place, so the demands for linguistic accommodation by monolingual English speakers may be increasingly articulated

Aesthetics · Citizenship · Cohesion (chemistry · Ethnic group · Identity (music · Linguistics · Media studies · Negotiation · Political science · Politics · Relation (database · Social science · Sociology · Welsh · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Law · Multilingual Education and Policy · Second Language Learning and Teaching

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Open DOISci-HubOpen Access