Educational initiatives in many minority language communities in Europe and beyond are producing 'new speakers' of the languages in question. The status of such speakers is often contested, however, and many people who have been through immersion education in a minority language can find themselves on the fringes of the language community of which…

Immigrant integration in nation states increasingly focuses on the importance of learning the national state language. This is evidenced by increased emphasis on rigorous language testing and tighter citizenship regulations. This paper analyses immigrant integration in two sub-state contexts, Galicia and Wales, where presence of a national…

This paper addresses how different media production teams negotiate the use of their minority languages in their practice. After a brief discussion of the concepts of language and description of a linguistic minority, a short review of similar research in the area of Minority Language Media is presented. Within this area, radio producers from…

This study looks at the effectiveness of an intervention to improve student retention on a distance language course. Of the six beginners' language courses offered by the UK's Open University, the beginners' Welsh course has consistently had the lowest retention rates since it was first presented in 2008. In order to address this, a project was…

Conole and Alevizou's social media typology (Conole and Alevizou, 2010) includes amongst its ten categories: media sharing; conversational arenas and chat; social networking and blogging. These are all media with which language learners are increasingly engaging (Lamy and Zourou, 2013). Social networking tools, in particular, which encourage…

Previous studies have demonstrated how primary-school-aged children learning a minority language at school revert to the use of their dominant L1 in peer-peer situations, both within and outside the classroom. Identifying the cause of this pattern is central to language policy strategies and initiatives across many minority language regions, and…

Results are presented of a comparative study of the reasons for parental choice of Scottish Gaelic-medium and Welsh-medium primary education in the year 2000 and of the reasons for pupils' decisions to continue with Gaelic or Welsh-medium education at secondary school in 2007. Parents in both contexts cited the quality of Celtic-medium education…

This study explores the perspectives of education practitioners towards the process of reintegrating pupils (many of whom display social, emotional and behavioural difficulties), from a pupil referral unit (PRU) to mainstream educational provision in a rural bilingual Welsh authority, and examines the barriers and facilitators they identified as…

Existing research concludes that diglossia between languages is a barrier to minority language use in health, social care and criminal justice settings. In addition, it concludes that more fulsome service provision is the key for promoting greater minority language use in such settings. Using the case of Welsh speakers in Wales as an exemplar,…

This article aims to develop the concept of ethnolinguistic vitality by adopting a qualitative approach to vitality rather than the statistical approach traditionally used. Ten small-size focus group style interviews were held with members of the Welsh-Argentinean community in the Chubut Province in the south of Argentina in order to explore…

This paper examines language reproduction in the family in the context of a highly innovative project in Wales, where the Welsh language has been in decline for over a century. Although Welsh-medium schooling has played a pivotal role in slowing and even reversing language shift in recent decades, there is mounting evidence of the dangers of …

Explores the adoption of aspects of Welsh social identity by members of an American college choir specializing in Welsh repertoire. Drawing on questionnaires, face-to-face and email interviews, and recordings of the choir in performance, a picture is built up of the singers' attitudes towards Welsh people, culture, and language, and their…

Evaluated the WLPAN method of intensive language teaching by studying 7 students at Cardiff University's Centre for Teaching Welsh to Adults. Using questionnaires and interviews, factors affecting students' ultimate ability to speak Welsh were examined. Factors included students' motivation, background in Welsh or other foreign languages, and…