Case Study
The Welsh language promises an intriguing case study; informal de facto language policy, handed down from an English government first oppressed the Welsh language. With the Laws in Wales Acts of 1535-1542 the policy was codified and English officially became the only language of law and of public administration in Wales, and further, any person who spoke Welsh could not be appointed to any public office (Wright 2004, Davies 2014). At the recommendation of the 1965 Hughes-Parry report, the Welsh Language Act of 1967 was enacted, granting speakers of Welsh rights to use Welsh in some legal proceedings, and allowed the Minister for Wales to reproduce some relevant governmental documents in Welsh, thus using a de jure policy to enact
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This is not the case with all more dominant languages that come into contact with the minority language, for example the Norman Invasion of Great Britain, which necessitated extensive contact between French and Welsh, Wales remained predominantly Welsh speaking throughout the Middle Ages (Davies 2014). It may in fact be the case, that these oppressive policies merely codify the separation of domains each language is used in, and that the oppression of minority languages is a long, drawn out process, as seems to have been the case in Wales. This section will focus on the legal system, religion and education, three key areas which came into contact with English over a long period of time, and which are likely to have had widespread …show more content…
This effectively meant that Welshmen working in the legal system would have had to know English, and would likely have taught children the more dominant English so as to improve their employability. Fishman suggests that it is the transmission of languages across generations that is often key to the success or failure of a minority language, thus parents choosing to educate their children in the more dominant contact language of English is likely to have had significant impacts on the decline of Welsh. Welsh gentry of this era, for example, may have studied English, perhaps recognising that the language would come to be more important than their own native Welsh in legal contexts (Davies
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In “Why I Choose to Write in Irish, the Corpse that Sits Up and Talks Back”, Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill argued for the survival of minority languages, especially her own Gaeilge (Irish) language. She compared the issue of preserving minority languages as important as the issue of the “preservation of the remaining rain forests is for biological diversity”. She fears that the death of minority languages and the dominance of English would “reduce everything to the level of most stupendous boredom”. (53) The author did not bash on the English language, only that if all other minority languages died and it was the only one that remained then the lack of diversity will just be plain dull.
This freedom has created the English we speak today. Although a little behind the times, Oxford changes the rules as to what is correct English due to what is being spoken. In English Belongs to Everybody, Robert MacNeil, feels that English has prospered and grown because it was able to accept and absorb change (140). So change in the English language helps it grow, yet the dialect of the inner city blacks in our country is looked upon as a problem. To those in charge, there is no more room for growth.
For Gerald of Wales, religion was one of the most essential aspects of being a civilized human being. Therefore, when he wrote, The History and Topography of Ireland, he portrayed its inhabitants as subhuman and barbaric during his apparent travels to Ireland. As a colonizer, Gerald picked a far away place in which many had not been to, in order to establish them as the “other”. Unfortunately, for Gerald, he may have ridiculed the Irish for their lifestyle conveyed in his writing, but his exploitation of them most likely was done because he could in fact relate to them. In the book, The Postcolonial Middle Ages, Jeffery Jerome Cohen’s analysis in his chapter, “Hybrids, Monsters, Borderlands: The Bodies of Gerald of Wales”, closely focuses on Gerald’s cultural hybridity, which mirrors his accounts of the Irish. Although he deemed the Irish as barbaric, they were also hybrids, thus he also shared a feeling of displacement with them. Nonetheless, he still held himself to a higher degree because they did not properly celebrate Christianity, ultimately leading them to make other unpleasant decisions.
Despite the warnings of Orwell through both his essay and dystopian novel, bad English is still used today, and could be argued to affect more English than it did during Orwell’s life. The consequences are also just as he predicted, those who control the language are able to wield control over the thoughts of others. The usage of poor quality English by media has he effect of making the recipients of news more detached from events and as a consequence, more self-focused. The clumsiness and foolishness imposed by bad English ultimately degrading thought, politics, culture, and society is what Orwell had foretold. This is the English tragedy that is disregarded, modern thoughts of “English” are not of language but of the English Queen.
Another difficulty cultures deal with is language and the way people speak. In some cases, people struggle to belong by making changes in the way they speak the English language just to be assimilated. They attempt to use words and letters, as well as body language that fit in the norm; all in an attempt to denounce their original intonation and style of pronunciation. One ...
There are a lot of students being placed whose primary language is not English. Students walk into a mainstream classroom not being able to speak English. Students in this situation are call English Language Learners(ELLs). These students are not receiving appropriate language support to succeed in their language development which is causing them to not have the ability to acquire language.
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There is no doubting the significance of the laws of Hywel Dda in developing a national identity for the Welsh people in Mediaeval Wales. Scholar Rees Davies maintains that Wales was a powerful legal entity; “A country culturally, linguistically and legally unified, which did much to counterbalance politically instability.” Agreeing, John Davies “The law is among the most splendid creations of the Welsh for centuries it was a powerful symbol of unity and identity” , Welsh economy minister Edwina Hart also states Hywel Dda was centuries ahead of his time “Wales has a very long history of innovation when it comes to the development and delivery of law.” I will evaluate the political, constitutional and legal significance of the laws and their
In their book, Smith and Wistrich state that Britain sensed a problem in the identity once there has been devolution of power to Scotland and Wales in 1998 (2009). It maybe true that Scots and Welsh feel more attached to their own na...
Standardization of the English Language There are several important events before 1500 that, when listed together, show a series of steps in the struggle for English language supremacy. These steps are mainly governmental, legal and official events that pushed English usage. In 1356 The Sheriff's Court in London and Middlesex were conducted in English for the first time. When Parliament opened in 1362 the Statute of Pleading was issued declaring English as a language of the courts as well as of Parliament, but it was not until 1413 that English became the official language of the courts everywhere. Thirteen years later in 1423, Parliament records start being written in English.
To commence this discussion, it is first essential to establish an understanding surrounding the role of language in relation to national identity. Theoretically, the more power language has in this relation, the more powerful language planning may be when creating a national identity. However, the role language plays in this respect is somewhat problematic to define and has proven to be a debatable topic among nationalists, sociologists and sociolinguists. For instance, May demonstrates that ‘sociological commentators, unlike sociolinguists, have generally been loath to apportion a prominent role to language in the explanation of minority ethnic and national identity claims’ (2001: 8). Consequently emulating distaste from sociologists to credit language with significant power in a national identity. In a similar sense, de Vries notes that, in relation to a language community, ‘social scientists have generally ignored the systemic properties of language’ (1991: 39), thus, concurrently suggesting with May, a disagreement from the social sciences over the role of language in terms of identity and national identity. Similarly, circa the French revolution, the concept
Mollin, S., 2006. “English as a Lingua Franca: A New Variety in the New Expanding Circle?”, The Nordic Journal of English Studies 5(2), pp. 41-57. Available from