Volume: 8  Number: 1  Page: 1–24

Affiliation, Engagement, Language Use and Vitality: Secondary School Students’ Subjective Orientations to Welsh and Welshness

Nikolas Coupland, Hywel Bishop, Angie Williams, Betsy Evans and Peter Garrett Centre for Language and Communication Research, Cardiff University, Wales, UK

The revitalisation of a minority language implies subjective as well as objective (e.g. demographic) criteria of vitality. School students of around age 16 have been identified as a key group for carrying a revitalised Welsh language through into social life. Our research profiles the feelings of ethnic affiliation and cultural engagement, and perceptions of the vitality of Welsh, of students at four secondary schools in Wales, representing different local sociolinguistic environments. Quite high levels of ethnic affiliation to Wales contrast with variable levels of reported engagement and vitality beliefs. The findings are interpreted as qualifying rather widespread positive assumptions in Wales about the revitalisation of the Welsh language among young people.

Keywords: Welsh, Wales, ethnolinguistic vitality, affiliation, secondary education, identity

© 2005 N. Coupland et al.

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