Neoliberalism and Language Shift: Lessons from the Republic of Ireland Post-2008

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About this book Joshua A. Fishman Award winner 2021 While "economic forces" are often cited as being a key cause of language loss, there is very little research that explores this link in detail. This work, based on policy analysis and ethnographic data, addresses this deficit. It examines how neoliberalism, the dominant economic orthodoxy of recent decades, has impacted the vitality of Irish in the Republic of Ireland since 2008. Drawing on concepts well established in public policy studies, but not prominent in the subfield of language policy, the neoliberalisation of Irish-language support measures is charted, including the disproportionately severe budget cuts they received. It is argued that neoliberalism’s antipathy towards social planning and redistributive economic policies meant that supports for Irish were inevitably hit especially hard in an era of austerity. Ethnographic data from Irish-speaking communities reinforce this point and illustrate how macro-level economic disruptions can affect language use at the micro-level. Labour market transformations, emigration and the dismantling of community institutions are documented, along with many related developments, thereby highlighting an issue of relevance to communities around the world, the fundamental tension between neoliberalism and language revitalisation efforts. Author information Ben Ó Ceallaigh, Aberystwyth University, Wales, UK. Contents List of figures List of tables Abbreviations Part 1: Foundations 1 Introduction 2 Irish, Ireland, neoliberalism: Some background Part 2: Overt and covert Irish-language policy post-2008 3 Official Irish-language policy post-2008 4 Irish-language institutions: Covert policy and state retrenchment 5 Austerity and Irish-language media 6 Neoliberalism and language policy in public and private spheres: Structural impediments Part 3: Neoliberalism and the Gaeltacht – an ethnographic study 7 Quantitative background to Part 3 8 Effects of the post-2008 crisis on the Gaeltacht labour market 9 Migration 10 Tourism and the Gaeltacht post-2008: Uneasy bedfellows 11 Community responses to austerity 12 Cuts to other community projects 13 Further observations on language use Part 4: Conclusion 14 Summary and conclusion Bibliography Index