Bilingual literacy in and for working lives on the land: case studies of young Welsh speakers in North Wales
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Marilyn Martin-Jones
Abstract
This article is based on ethnographic research on literacy carried out with young bilinguals, aged 16–19, in North Wales from 2005 to 2007. Here, we present case studies of five young people who were enrolled in a bilingual vocational course in agriculture in a local college and who were planning to make a living for themselves on the land and to create a workplace for themselves where Welsh could be used. All five of these young people were working in land-based industries, on a part-time basis, as they pursued their studies at college. The main focus of this part of our investigation was on the ways in which literacy, in Welsh and in English, mediated the work they did on the land. This work included running their own businesses on the family farm or smallholding, collaborating with older members of the household (parents or grandparents) in handling the farm paperwork and the digitised record keeping, and searching the Web for funding opportunities to initiate agri-environmental schemes or land improvement projects. In analysing the ethnographic and textual data from this part of the project, we show how the young people's language choices and literacy practices were shaped by the nature of the land-based enterprises they were involved in. Some were reading and writing predominantly in Welsh for local clients, some were engaged in bilingual literacy practices, and others made predominant use of English. We also show how the local literacy practices of these young people and their families were bound up with global changes in agriculture, with changes in the everyday work routines of farmers, and with changes in the literacy practices and uses of texts in contemporary workplaces.
© 2009 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin
Articles in the same Issue
- Preface
- In memoriam: Alan Richard Thomas
- Introduction: a critical approach to the revitalisation of Welsh
- Code switching and the future of the Welsh language
- Bilingual literacy in and for working lives on the land: case studies of young Welsh speakers in North Wales
- Language attitudes and identity in a North Wales town: “something different about Caernarfon”?
- Accommodating “new” speakers? An attitudinal investigation of L2 speakers of Welsh in south-east Wales
- Issues of gender and parents' language values in the minority language socialisation of young children in Wales
- How green is their valley? Subjective vitality of Welsh language and culture in the Chubut Province, Argentina
- Diasporic ethnolinguistic subjectivities: Patagonia, North America, and Wales
- Commentary: the primacy of renewal
- The straw that broke the language's back: language shift in the Upper Necaxa Valley of Mexico
Articles in the same Issue
- Preface
- In memoriam: Alan Richard Thomas
- Introduction: a critical approach to the revitalisation of Welsh
- Code switching and the future of the Welsh language
- Bilingual literacy in and for working lives on the land: case studies of young Welsh speakers in North Wales
- Language attitudes and identity in a North Wales town: “something different about Caernarfon”?
- Accommodating “new” speakers? An attitudinal investigation of L2 speakers of Welsh in south-east Wales
- Issues of gender and parents' language values in the minority language socialisation of young children in Wales
- How green is their valley? Subjective vitality of Welsh language and culture in the Chubut Province, Argentina
- Diasporic ethnolinguistic subjectivities: Patagonia, North America, and Wales
- Commentary: the primacy of renewal
- The straw that broke the language's back: language shift in the Upper Necaxa Valley of Mexico
