Identities, language use and ideologies of former immersion students

What is it about?

In this paper, I draw attention to some of the language ideologies that former immersion students conveyed when describing their cultural identifications with Gaelic, a minoritised language in Scotland. I argue that the ideologies that informants express seem to militate against their more frequent use of the language and their association with the wider Gaelic community. In particular, I discuss interviewees’ negative perceptions of the traditionally defined, ethnolinguistic identity category ‘Gael(s)’ in their expression of language ideologies and identities, and the implications of this finding for other contexts of minority language revitalisation.

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