Transcriber: Lorcan Walsh Reviewer: Denise RQ
(Spoken Irish) Girl 1: Oh, my god! Seriously?
Girl 2: No, I'm just messing with you.
Girl 1: Oh yea, me too.
It will be like totally awkward.
Girl 2: Yea, so awkward, seriously.
(Laughter)
About three years ago I was on the bus
when I heard a conversation just like that.
In front of me was a group of students
from a Gaelscoil, or a local immersion school
where English speaking kids go to learn Irish
through speaking Irish at school.
Now, this conversation struck me as weird
because I'd never heard anything like this.
It wasn't English, but it wasn't strictly Irish either.
It was a hybrid language that I like to call 'Gaelscoilis.'
This language is a mixture
between their first language and their target language.
And the inter-language stage, this Gaelscoilis, appears
right on the linguistic spectrum between these languages,
influenced by English and Irish,
but not contained by the rules of either.
The human brain looks at languages in two ways.
First, the semantic level,
the ideas and concepts that we want to communicate,
and the syntactic level, the rules of language
like word order, person, tense
that communicate these ideas in a way that other people can understand.
Research shows us that the Gaelscoil kids
interpret language only on a semantic level,
and don't even notice how they put their language together.
They do this because they are seasoned strategists,
finely in tune with the inherent limits of human cognition.
You see, the human mind is like RAM in a computer,
we only have a limited amount of attention
that we can put on different things.
So, the Gaelscoil students focus all these attentional resources
on processing the meaning,
interpreting it and communicating it effectively to others.
This is why, in the language classroom,
the Gaelscoil kid hears all this language data,
they get the message loud and clear,
but all these native-like grammar forms
literally go in one ear and out the other.
They are not noticed, therefore are not learned.
And without a frame of formal reference,
these kids are forced to improvise.
This improvisation happens in a place called the language faculty,
it's a part of our minds that allows us to construct language.
And just like a grammar book,
it has all the rules of what we can, and cannot do with language.
Left to their own devices,
these kids have to write their own Gaelscoilis grammar,
subconsciously plagiarizing the English rulebook
to make sense of this weird and strange Irish.
This fusion of language
allows them to express rich idiomatic English phrases,
but yet adhere to the complex grammar rules of Irish.
And we get such gems as,
(Spoken Irish) "Caithfidh siad Ar ais as," for "They have to back off."
Their environment also encourages them to be resourceful.
Not allowed to speak English during the day at school,
they're forced to use
grammatical structures from English that they have mastered,
and forget the ones that they don't,
and plot in Irish words into these grammatical structures
to make what they want to say.
And this is how we get stuff like,
"Ní maith leis imirt an cluiche" [He doesn't like playing the game]
and (Spoken Irish) "Tá sin mo phean." [That is my pen.]
These are not heard in natural Irish,
but they are constructed in the Gaelscoils.
Turns out that these kids are highly motivated individuals,
possessing what we call integrative motivation,
where a person learns the language of a valued group
to earn the acceptance of that group.
The thing is the language of this valued group
is far different from the native-like Irish ideal.
As language teachers, we hope that our students
progress through this inter-language stage
to reach a level of near native proficiency.
But what happens in the Gaelscoil is really quite amazing.
In the first few years of school, they acquire language,
they acquire the Irish at a phenomenally fast rate.
But somewhere along the lines,
this progress slows down to a point where it almost stops.
And when we look at this point,
this is the point of communicative effectiveness.
They can communicate with those around them
and they can be equally understood.
So, there's no drive
to learn these more native-like forms for communicating
because they simply find no need for them.
And who wouldn't want to integrate with such a society?
This language society is liberal,
it's a place where creativity flourishes
and linguistically speaking, anything goes.
Research shows us that Gaelscoil kids won't interrupt each other
— even if they know, they won't even question each other's language —
even if they know it to be ungrammatical.
And this is at the point where language is created in real time.
Forget the Internet and social media,
this is where language goes viral.
Weird and wonderful things that are wrong or ungrammatical,
are instantly validated
when they prove effective in communicating the intended meaning.
They spread around the school like wild fire,
and soon it is these creations that form
the accepted and now legitimate, linguistic norms of the school.
Now, no one's doubting that these are great communicators, these kids,
but there's a problem.
Research also shows us that they are not functional bilinguals,
speaking Irish after the bell rings.
And we have to look at why.
Linguists believe that Gaelscoilis, this language that they create,
although communicatively effective in the language classroom
and on the playground
does not meet the needs of real-world communication.
If we think about it, even simple every day interactions
require succinct expressions of complex ideas
like emotions and feelings,
like frustration and apprehension.
And the Gaelscoil kids may simply think that these things are
beyond the reach of their grammar that they've constructed
and now choose to speak English.
So, what can we do about this?
Well, if we look at the figures here...
There are about 77,000 people
that speak Irish every day outside the school system.
And if we look at our research, this 45,000 or so of these Gaelscoil kids
don't really make up a significant part of this number.
What we have to ask ourselves is:
if we provided a more useful form of language to these Gaelscoil kids,
would they speak more Irish outside the school?
How do we do this?
Well, I think we should use the skills
that they already have in creating their own language.
These experimentations, these formulations of rules,
these cross-linguistic inferences, bring these into the classroom,
and harness the creativity,
and help them learn Irish that they can use outside.
If we succeed in this,
it's not beyond the realms of possibility
that we could change the linguistic landscape
that looks something more like this,
vastly increasing the amount of daily Irish speakers.
David Harrison is an esteemed field linguist
and he calls everyone of these daily Irish speakers,
and all speakers of minority languages
language warriors,
and I believe that.
But in every group of language warriors
we have a radical cohort,
people that are not afraid to break the rules
to drive the movement forward.
I believe that these Gaelscoil kids are the driving force of this movement,
operating fearlessly everyday,
on the cutting edge of contemporary Irish language use.
These linguistic deviants
use language and break the rules of language
to create a language
that they can effectively communicate with others,
they break the rules of language to do what needs to be done.
Now I feel it's high time to honor these linguistic deviants.
If we understand the way that they have created this language
we can then,
understand the underlying processes of the creation of this language,
and we can learn how they learn,
and because of that, we may be even able to change
the linguistic landscape of Ireland while we're at it.
Thanks very much.
(Applause)