Standard and non-standard Breton on Facebook

Presented on 10 July 2018, at theReies an 10 a vis Gorefen 2018, ort an 3rd Poznań Conference of Celtic Studies, pednscol Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, 9–10 Julya vis Gorefen.

Abstract

Berrscrif

Studies of the sociolinguistic situation of Breton (e.g. Jones, 1995; Hornsby, 2005; Timm, 2001; German, 2007) tend to polarise its speakers into two groups: traditional speakers, who speak Breton as a result of uninterrupted intergenerational transmission and are characterised as elderly, working-class and rurally located; and new speakers, who have in most cases acquired the language through formal education, and are considered younger, more educated, literate in Breton, and more motivated to use it. Breton use on the internet is accordingly associated with the category of new speakers, whose language is usually depicted in academic work as conforming to a standard, non-dialectal form of Breton as prescribed by the Breton language office, which has overall control of language planning.

This paper examines whether these claims are borne out by the data. If the Breton found online is the preserve of new speakers, and if their language is highly standardised and lacks overt French influence, we should expect to find almost exclusively this variety on Facebook, a context that requires literacy in Breton and an internet connection, and has typically been associated with a younger group of users. Examining “Facebook e brezhoneg”, the most active Breton-language Facebook group, we can test whether this is the case. Focusing on the lexicon, this paper uses a corpus-based methodology and quantitative analysis to examine a sample of posts, determining whether new lexical items conform to or reject the standard Breton proposed by language planning authorities. Orthographic and discursive features are also examined in order to construct a fuller picture of how standard and non-standard Breton are presented and viewed in this context.

In examining the use of Breton in the non-regulated space provided by a Facebook group, this paper investigates the potential properties of minority languages in such spaces, revealing both what new media can tell us about the under-researched context of informal writing in minority languages, and how it may enable the perpetuation of diverse linguistic variation in the face of potentially restrictive standardisation from above.

References

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