Welsh Voices: understanding social restructuring and Welsh language planning

IAITH: Welsh Centre for Language Planning on-line lecture

IAITH: Welsh Centre for Language Planning is pleased that our annual lecture is being delivered this year by Dr Catrin Williams who has recently received her doctorate from King’s College, London.

This lecture raises questions about the social implications of the success of language policy in south-east Wales. Based on ethnographic doctoral research, this presentation argues that everyday language use highlights and explains important processes in the development of the language, beyond statistics and demographic considerations. By analysing the everyday language of Welsh speakers and non-Welsh speakers, the research explores significant stereotypes and identities to understand what matters to people. It considers how the growth of the language, and the growth of Welsh-medium education, is apparent in the everyday experiences of different people.  The lecture argues that, hand in hand with the success of language planning, there is also a growth in feelings of difference, exclusion, boundaries, and social inequality among people living in south-east Wales.

Simultaneous translation provided

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