Language Ideologies and Urban Welsh

我的目标是承担一个博士项目，使用人种学的方法来探索使用威尔士语和风格化在城市和专业背景。在此过程中，它将研究官方语言政策中推广的一般单一的规范概念与城市环境中发展的各种语言意识形态和实践之间的冲突，这些意识形态和实践对语言的生存越来越重要。我在卡迪夫郊区长大，上的是威尔士语中等学校和大学，我对威尔士语的体验是在城市背景下定义的。但我越来越意识到，这并不是威尔士语的自然栖息地，而且城市威尔士语经常被认为是不真实的。我致力于从社会语言学角度更好地理解威尔士语的当代现实，这是由于我自己的经历与威尔士语作为一种理想化的农村语言的广泛推广之间的对比。威尔士语言规划者希望将威尔士语纳入日常生活中公共领域使用的官方经济相关语言（威尔士政府2016:9-11,13-15,17），但该语言被广泛理想化为农村现象。这种理想化被维多利亚时代的Gwerin概念所概括，源于浪漫主义的努力，以对抗历史上关于威尔士语使用者是农村、贫穷和落后的刻板印象，但它使语言同质化，并诋毁了较新的城市变体，而此时，如果语言规划者要实现创造新使用者的目标，城市地区就变得越来越重要。威尔士议会政府2003年的计划，aiith Pawb及其最近的咨询文件（WAG 2003; WG 2016:7）都将教育确定为增加威尔士语使用者数量的核心工具，统计证据表明，通过教育传播威尔士语的人数正在增长，特别是在城市东南部。与此同时，在农村地区，威尔士人被视为“正宗”的代际传承正在下降（Jones 2008:549-50）。但是，威尔士语的政策目标与其作为乡村语言的理想之间的紧张关系在政府文件中没有得到适当的解决，这些文件中充满了诸如“继承”和“国家认同”之类的术语，并且好像人口在社会经济和种族上是同质的，忽视了城市环境日益增长的多样性。实际上，“正宗”乡村理想的声望可能会破坏威尔士语在日常专业环境中的实际使用。因此，尽管最近创造了一些现代术语，但威尔士人经常觉得这种语言不适合用于技术术语，并且经常故意将其转换成英语，并标记为“fel mae”或“Sais yn dweud”，即“正如英国人所说”。事实上，威尔士语的许多不同风格、变种和地方意识形态正在发展（例如，学校威尔士语、媒体威尔士语），对说话者如何驾驭这种新的、复杂的社会语言学环境的研究将产生令人着迷的结果，这也将挑战政府语言政策中提倡的意识形态简化。我预计这项研究将利用语言民族志，使用“上下文的分层和多标量概念化”（Blommaert et al 2011: 11），并将调查新的城市社会领域如何影响传统的语言使用和破坏“符号规则”（Agha 2007: 205）。它将研究微观层面的语音和词汇变量，并专注于反身文体化，以理解语言意识形态和说话者传达的索引关联。

I aim to undertake a PhD project that uses an ethnographic approach to explore the use of Welsh and stylisation in urban and professional contexts. In doing so, it will examine the conflict between the generally monolithic, normative concepts promoted in official language policy and the diverse language ideologies and practices developing in the urban contexts that are becoming increasingly important for the language's survival.Having grown up on the outskirts of Cardiff and attended a Welsh medium school and university, my experiences of the language have been defined in an urban context. But I have become increasingly aware that this is not seen as the natural habitat of the language, and that urban Welsh is often considered inauthentic. My commitment to contributing to a better sociolinguistic understanding of the contemporary realities of Welsh is driven by this contrast between my own experience and the widespread promotion of Welsh as an idealised rural language. Welsh language planners want to incorporate Welsh as an official, economically relevant language used in the public sphere in day-to-day life (Welsh Government 2016:9-11,13-15,17), but the language is widely idealised as a rural phenomenon. Encapsulated by the Victorian concept of the Gwerin, this idealisation derives from Romantic efforts to counter historic stereotypes about Welsh speakers being rural, poor and backward, but it homogenises the language and denigrates newer urban varieties, at a time when urban areas are increasingly vital if language planners are to achieve their goal of creating new speakers. Both the Welsh Assembly Government plan of 2003, Iaith Pawb and its recent consultation document (WAG 2003; WG 2016:7) identify education as a central tool in increasing the number of Welsh speakers, and statistical evidence shows that the transmission of Welsh through education is growing, especially in the urban south-east. At the same time in rural areas, the intergenerational transmission of the Welsh deemed 'authentic' is in decline (Jones 2008:549-50). But the tension between policy goals for Welsh and its idealisation as a rural language is not properly addressed in government documents, which are filled with terms such as 'inheritance' and 'national identity' and speak as if the population was socio-economically and ethnically homogenous, overlooking the increasing diversity of urban environments. In reality, the prestige of an 'authentic' rural ideal can undermine the actual use of Welsh in everyday professional settings. So although a recently coined, modern terminology is available, Welsh speakers often feel that the language is inappropriate for technical terms, and often intentionally code-switch into English, marking this with keys such as 'fel mae'r Sais yn dweud', 'as the Englishman says'. In fact a number of different styles, varieties and local ideologies of Welsh are developing (e.g. school Welsh, media Welsh), and a study of how speakers navigate this new and complex sociolinguistic environment will yield fascinating results that will also challenge the ideological simplifications promoted in government language policy.The study I anticipate will draw on linguistic ethnography, working with a "layered and multi-scalar conceptualisation of context" (Blommaert et al 2011: 11), and it will investigate how the new urban social domain affects conventionalised language usage and disrupts 'semiotic regularity' (Agha 2007: 205). It will examine micro-level phonological and lexical variables and focus on reflexive stylisation to understand language ideologies and the indexical associations conveyed by speakers.