Beth Cole, PhD Student
My PhD considers language variation and change in a Gaelic community, focusing particularly on changes in case morphophonology. By studying native Gaelic speakers of a variety of ages across North and South Uist, which is around 65% Gaelic speaking and where the language can still be heard in daily life, I aim to investigate the amount and type of changes present in the Gaelic case system, and analyse these changes within the context of underlying language shift. Linguistic changes of this nature can often be a symptom of language shift, resulting from speakers changing from using a minority language in their daily lives to a dominant language in the area. However, variation is also a normal process in language change, which occurs without the existence of language shift. The difficulty is determining which changes are natural, and which potentially pose a threat to the language’s continued use and ultimately its existence. By studying both linguistic changes and the community’s patterns of language use and attitudes towards Gaelic, I hope to be able to describe the linguistic situation in Uist more fully than has previously been attempted, and contribute to our understanding of the processes involved in language shift and the present state of the Gaelic language in Scotland.
Contact me
Email: e.cole@abdn.ac.uk
Address: Room A55, Taylor Building, Celtic & Gaelic
Supervised by
