"Life after 'Death': The Impact of Sociolinguistic Factors on the Structure of Revitalised Manx"

Many minority linguistic communities are affected by language death. However, in some communities, policy makers, activists, and speakers themselves have succeeded in reversing this shift towards the majority language (Fishman, 1991). Linguistic revitalisation often focuses on recruiting 'New Speakers' (henceforth NS) to bolster the language. Hornsby (2015: 108) defines NS as a "category of speakers that stands apart from others in 3 ways: transmission, attitude, and
origin". They are speakers who acquired the minority language through education or in a formal setting, are positively disposed towards it, and who may not originate from one ethno-linguistic group. My project will examine the language use of NS of Manx, the Celtic minority language of the Isle of Man; a unique community which lost its cohort of native speakers, the language being kept alive by NS.

I will investigate to what extent and in what ways we can use sociolinguistic factors to explain differences in linguistic structure across Manx NS, according to the following questions:
1.How can we describe the morphosyntax of spoken revitalised Manx?
a. In what ways and to what extent does the morphosyntactic structure Manx differ
between speaker groups?
b. How and to what extent can we understand these differences within an NS
framework (i.e. involving language acquisition)?
2.What sociolinguistic differences are there between groups of Manx speakers e.g. with regards to
linguistic attitudes/identity?
a. How do ideas of 'good language use' differ between groups?
b. To what linguistic models might Manx NS be aspiring?
3.How do the above findings differ from those of linguistic minority communities that have native
speakers?
a. What implications do the findings have for NS frameworks which rely on opposition
between New and native speakers to explain NS language?