This book represents the first collection specifically devoted to New Speaker Studies, focusing on language ideologies and practices of speakers in a variety of minority language communities. Over thirteen chapters, it uses the new speaker lens to investigate not only linguistic issues, such as language variation and change, phonetics, morphosyntax, language acquisition, code-switching, but also sociolinguistic issues, such as legitimacy, integration, and motivation in language learning and use. Besides covering a range of languages - Basque, Breton, Galician, Giernesiei, Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Welsh - and their different sociolinguistic situations, the chapters also encompass a series of interactional settings: institutional settings, media and the home domain, as well as different contexts for becoming a new speaker of a minority language, such as by migration or through education. This collection represents an output by a lively network of researchers: it will appeal to postgraduate students, researchers and academics working in the field of sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, language policy and those working within minority language communities.

The first in-depth investigation of Gaelic based on sociolinguistic analysis . Draws on the latest scholarship and expertise developed by the Soillse research network for Gaelic revitalisation . Offers fresh perspectives from notable early career scholars together with internationally recognised experts in small language revitalization The number of young people speaking Gaelic in Scotland is growing for the first time since Census records began but less than half of all Gaelic speakers use Gaelic in the home. This book sets out to explore why. Focusing on how people, communities and organisations are 'doing' Gaelic, this book explores the processes and patterns of Gaelic language acquisition, use and management across four key spaces of interaction: the family, the community, educational settings, and in organisations. The contributors adopt an experiential approach to give voice to speakers in a diverse range of communities, both geographically and socially, as the volume illustrates the ways in w