Attitudes to contemporary English interference on Welsh

Abstract

The research outlined in this thesis is based on the hypothesis that there is a connection between interference usage and language attitudes.

The milieu chosen for the research is present day Wales, with the contact situation under investigation involving the English and Welsh languages.

The research proceeds by investigating the attitudes and usage of four groups of subjects from the Aberystwyth area. These comprise groups of Lecturers and local Teachers and two less well-educated groups of urban subjects from Aberystwyth and rural subjects from Llangwyryfon.

The language attitudes investigated involve both general attitudes towards the language situation in Wales and attitudes towards language standards in Welsh with particular reference to interference from English. The instrument employed to elicit this data was a questionnaire comprising largely closed questions.

Comparable examples of interference usage, mainly in the lexical field, were elicited by the use of a number of specially devised tests.

Results showed that the two less well-educated groups were not as normative towards certain kinds of interference (especially lexical) and less aware of other kinds. In addition, these groups also tended to be less pro- Welsh on an index of Welsh commitment which consisted of questions on language use and on political aspects of the language situation.

In the usage tests, high levels of interference usage were revealed in the same less well-educated groups. Some differences were also revealed between sub-groupings of the Lecturer and Teacher groups on the basis of the medium of instruction employed by the subjects in their work. Any differences are, however, restricted to the attitude questionnaire and are not paralleled in usage. It is posited that while there is a clear relationship between the two phenomena tested, it is not proven that the relationship is a direct one.