{"id":288,"date":"2019-06-28T09:17:46","date_gmt":"2019-06-28T09:17:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/interculturaldiscourse19s\/?p=288"},"modified":"2019-06-28T09:17:46","modified_gmt":"2019-06-28T09:17:46","slug":"linguistic-landscape-of-dublin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/interculturaldiscourse19s\/2019\/06\/28\/linguistic-landscape-of-dublin\/","title":{"rendered":"Linguistic Landscape of Dublin"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Craig McHugh<\/p>\n

Prof Bledsoe<\/p>\n

LING343<\/p>\n

28th June 2019<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The linguistic landscape of Dublin is fascinating, especially to a history major like myself. Although everyone I have encountered here has spoken English, all government-planned signs and services are in Irish as well as English. An example of a state service which is referred to entirely by its Irish name is the\u00a0Garda<\/em>, or Police. The pictures I have taken from the neighbourhood Santry where I am living helps illustrate these points.<\/p>\n

The first image shows a sign for a ramp on the road, or\u00a0rampai.\u00a0<\/em>As I have said, not a single person I have met here speaks only Irish, which would suggest that rather than provide access for the speakers of this minority language, the government is actually trying to promote its usage. These are the two reasons Leeman and Modan give for the existence of such bi-lingual signs (358), but I believe that this is rather simplistic. As well as promote Irish, I believe these signs also serve to protect the nation\u2019s ancient culture, and are undoubtedly connected to the country\u2019s colonial history with the British. Such bi-lingual government initiatives have caught on in Wales and even Scotland for the same reason (using Welsh and Gaelic respectively on signs in these countries as well as English to protect their pre-colonial history). This is a clear example of \u201chistorical forces shaping the environment\u201d (Leeman and Modan, 336).<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Garda<\/em>, or Police, are an example of a state service which only uses their Irish name. In my internship I am dealing with historical newspaper articles regarding police corruption in Ireland, and in these articles the force here are always referred to as the\u00a0Garda.<\/em>Despite the overall population speaking English, they almost all refer to the police by their Irish name too. There could well be a historical reasoning behind such usage of the term\u00a0Garda\u00a0<\/em>which I would presume goes even further back than British colonialism. However, despite this fact, the decision to keep the Irish name alive has in a way led to a promotion of the ancient language, and this is clear in English speakers\u2019 usage of the term. Attached are images from the outside of the Garda station in Santry (which in hindsight I must looked rather suspicious obtaining).<\/p>\n

Despite the Irish language being plastered all over the old city, it is undeniable that the English language rules the roost in Dublin. Even with the existence of a longstanding historical tension between the Irish and the British, English has still prevailed here. The usage of English is by far the most obvious indication of Ireland\u2019s colonial past. Even the most infamous anti-British terrorist group, the Irish Republican Army (or IRA), uses the language of their \u201coppressors\u201d in their name (which is admittedly ironic, to say the least). Due to the controversial nature of the IRA, however, I decided to go in a safer direction when it came to obtaining images that displayed the widespread usage of English in Dublin. Of the pictures I did obtain, one of the pictures shows that there is no Irish equivalent of the term taxi, and another displays the fact that the overwhelming majority of private businesses here in Dublin use English. There is a clear distinction between state-usage of language in the city and private usage of language. This supports the claim of both Leeman and Modan that \u201cthe elements of LL (linguistic landscape)\u2026 (are) artefacts of state driven processes\u201d but are also ~produced by individuals or private establishments\u201d (334).<\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t mean that all businesses use English in Dublin though. In fact, many businesses employ the usage of Irish to enhance their profitability. This is mostly the case with tourist-linked businesses, such as the Guinness Storehouse, which offers a tour of one of the factories in the city centre which has a built-in museum. Before consuming each (free) pint of Guinness here, you are expected to yell\u00a0Slainte,\u00a0<\/em>which is Irish for \u201ccheers\u201d. This is obviously to enchant visiting tourists, whilst giving them more than just a taste for the stout but a taste of the culture in general. As the authors from this week\u2019s readings state, \u201cConsumption becomes culture, and culture becomes consumption\u201d (Leeman and Modan, 337). In many tourist-trap businesses, the Irish language is being commodified in order to enchant its customers, who presumably come from all over the world and are maybe seeing the Irish language for the first time. Ireland is already attached in many people\u2019s minds to ancient mystique, and commodifying the language cleverly taps into this stereotype.<\/p>\n

To conclude, Dublin is a city in which an overwhelming majority of the population speak English as their first and even their only, language. However, the Irish language refuses to go away, and can be seen all over the city, be it on the ever-present vehicles of the Garda or in the tourist hot-spots in the centre of town. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 These two languages are the most prominent in Dublin\u2019s linguistic landscape, but this is not to say that the city is not multi-cultural: it is. In reality, many different nationalities coincide in this now-global city. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\"\" \"\" \"\" \"\"9<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Craig McHugh Prof Bledsoe LING343 28th June 2019   The linguistic landscape of Dublin is fascinating, especially to a history major like myself. Although everyone I have encountered here has spoken English, all government-planned signs and services are in Irish as well as English. An example of a state service which is referred […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6042,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/interculturaldiscourse19s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/interculturaldiscourse19s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/interculturaldiscourse19s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/interculturaldiscourse19s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6042"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/interculturaldiscourse19s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/interculturaldiscourse19s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":297,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/interculturaldiscourse19s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288\/revisions\/297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/interculturaldiscourse19s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/interculturaldiscourse19s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/interculturaldiscourse19s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}