W1A-013 Language and culture-0.txt
Culture as a system of participation
The idea of culture as a system of participation is based on the assumption that any action in the world, including verbal communication, has an inherently social, collective and participatory quality. This is a particularly insightful concept of culture for looking at how language is used in the real world, more specifically in Northern Ireland, because to speak a language means to be able to participate in interactions with a world that is always larger than us as individual speakers. Words carry in them a multitude of possibilities for connecting us to other human beings, other situations, events, acts, beliefs or feelings. This is primarily because of the ability that language has to describe the world as well as its ability to connect us with its inhabitants, objects, places and periods in social history. Therefore, if the world is held together by communicative acts and connected through communicative channels, to speak means to chose a particular way of entering the world and a particular way of sustaining relationships with those we come into contact with. In brief, what this theory is suggesting, is that all of us participate in the world in one way or another, particularly through speech or verbal communication, but there is a great deal of variation in the ways that we participate. If we were to relate this theory to the current situation in Northern Ireland, we might say that it is generally assumed that everyone within the wider community wants peace, but everyone also has different ideas about how to achieve peace. All participate in sharing the same objective, but there is a large degree of variation towards that goal. We might also refer to the example of terminology used to describe the north east part of the island. For some, it is known as the north, for others it is termed as 'Ulster' and for other still it is simply 'Northern Ireland.' What we can draw from this then, is that whilst participation requires the explicit sharing of existing 'resources' such as beliefs, languages, environment and people, it does not assume an equally shared knowledge or control over these resources. We might all exist socially as part of a larger unit, but there are many different parties involved within that unit. In Northern Ireland, we might identify two separate communities within this part of the island - nationalist and unionist. Quite often it is through the language that we use and the way that we use it that we identify the different variations within one larger community. In this way, language and culture in Northern Ireland combine to form a basis of identity.

Language and Culture as a means of Identification

As already mentioned, it is generally accepted that there is a natural connection between the language spoken by members of a social group and that group's identity. Features such as accent, vocabulary and discourse patterns allow speakers to identify themselves and in turn, to be identified as members of this or that discourse community. Members acquire a sense of strength, pride, social importance and historical continuity from speaking the same language as the group they belong to. Group identity is not a natural fact, but a cultural perception. What we perceive about a person's culture and language is what we have been conditioned by our own culture to see. In periods of social fragmentation and multiple identities, each aspiring recognition, language adopts a symbolic value. When people feel economically or ideologically disempowered, or when their cultural or political identity is threatened, they attach particular importance to the maintenance or resurrection of 'their language'. They can also attribute cultural value to their language so that language acts as a way of participating in one culture as opposed to the culture of another. Language is used as a means of identifying members of one community (insiders) against members of another community; (those defined as outsiders). As Claire Kramsch rightly concludes then: A community's language and its material achievements come to represent a social patrimony and a symbolic value that serve to perpetuate relationships of power and domination; they distinguish insiders from outsiders.

In this way, language acquires a symbolic value beyond its pragmatic use and becomes a totem of a cultural group. This is especially true of the recent situation in Northern Ireland. Language has become a metonymic symbol of ethnic identity. Sectarian ethnicity has adopted linguistic reinforcement with Catholic nationalists advocating Irish as a symbol of their cultural identity and Presbyterian unionists promoting an increasing awareness and circulation of Ulster Scots, but more specifically Ullans.

Language and culture first emerged as a 'political axe to grind' in the 1980s from within the Maze prison. Republican inmates began learning Irish and studying the associated heritage and culture to reinforce their sense of identity. They embraced it as a weapon by talking and writing in Irish, or 'jailic,' as it was later dubbed, to perplex and annoy the wardens and police. The Irish language was selected as an indicator of difference between insiders, (in this case Nationalists) and outsiders, (Unionists). In this way, the Irish language also came to be perceived as a sign of political allegiance. Loyalists with some amount of initial amusement observed this new cultural front in the IRA's campaign. However, as the renaissance of Irish and the advance of Sinn Fein's political power extended beyond the perimeters of the Maze and tradition and identity were recognised as being capable of exerting a powerful political influence, some loyalists began embracing what had previously been a small,'semi-eccentric cultural persuasion' as one writer of The Irish Times termed it. In this way, Ulster Scots gave cultural legitimacy to the unionist cause and language became a marker of cultural identity among the people of Northern Ireland.

Having looked at the theory of how culture acts as a system of participation and having discussed something of the relationship between language, culture and identity with particular reference to Northern Ireland, I now need to substantiate my theoretical propositions with relevant data. Thus far, I have learned that we all exist socially as members of one larger community. Yet within this community there is a great deal of diversity and language is often used as a way of identifying such diversity or variations that exist in society as a whole. I have also discerned that in periods of social fragmentation or where there are multiple identities, language can adopt a symbolic value, both for insiders and outsiders. I have applied this theory to the current situation in Northern Ireland and have shown that language has become a metonymic symbol of ethnic identity, Irish as a symbol of nationalists identity and Ulster-Scots, or more specifically Ullans as a symbol of unionist identity. I now intend to substantiate this cultural theory by providing relevant data to support it. I intend to do this by assessing and analysing how far the expressed culture of Ulster-Scots compares with the vocabulary or lexis. I intend to investigate the opinion that the Ulster Scots language and heritage has only been set rolling out of a sense of cultural rivalry among some Protestants and unionists. Keen to counter-balance the onward march of the Irish language movement, coinciding with the unprecedented recognition and financial funding for the Irish language in the north (stimulated by Sinn Fein direct action such as erecting bilingual street signs) and motivated by a disillusionment with their previously cherished British heritage, it has been suggested that unionists have 'manufactured' a new written form of the Ulster-Scots dialect known as Ullans. I intend to suggest the possibility that the vocabulary used to compile Ullans, fails to compare with the expressed culture and is a prime example of how a community, whose cultural and political identity is threatened, refocuses their sense of identity around 'their' language, which in turn adopts a purely symbolic value. In this way, Ullans is used as a means of excluding outsiders (nationalists), and of maintaining a sense of unity and identity within the unionist community. Objectively, I want to assess the value of a statement made by Manfred Gorlach that Ulster Scots is:'simply a second dialect relearnt to stress ethnicity.'

Speech versus Writing: an important distinction

The terms Ulster Scots and Ullans when used inter-changeably, have created a lot of confusion. The cultural distinction between the traditional Scots dialect, which still has native speakers, especially in County Antrim and written Ullans, is usually blurred by activists. However, the difference should certainly be noted. The naturally expressive spoken dialect and its literary adaptations do indeed express and substantiate the culture of its speakers. The vocabulary of the dialect portrays this very clearly. In a poem entitled 'The Flow,' James Fenton uses words for peat cutting such as 'trinketin,' 'breeshin,' and 'underfittin,' that have no English equivalents. Moreover, James Orr's poem entitled 'The Wanderer' also expresses the culture of Ulster-Scots tradition. The title of the poem suggests a simple story about someone lost in the mountains, but the poem has in fact a lot to tell us about the Ulster-Scots language. A Wanderer was a coded message for the readers in the times that Orr was writing. It had the specific meaning of a fugitive, especially a Covenanter being pursued by the military. It would seem then that the naturally spoken dialect of Ulster-Scots does express and substantiate the culture of its speakers. As Deputy Chief Executive of the Ulster-Scots Agency, George Holmes, told delegates at a recent conference in Ballymena, 'Our culture already exists and does not need to be manufactured.' What Fenton says of the Scots Thesaurus is also true of the dialect vocabulary of Ulster as well. He says that Ulster-Scots tells us a lot about man's attitude to the environment and to each other. 'It is like a map of man's mind in which fragmentary pieces of the lore of the past jostle with perceptions of the present.' This is certainly true, for the Ulster dialect is rich in references to folklife, especially farming, haymaking, carts and slipes, clothing, traditional medicine, animal husbandry and cooking to name but a few. Ulster-Scots has its own vocabulary for traditional foodstuffs including 'barnbrack,' (a large round bun with dried fruit in it), 'farl,' (a quarter of a circular griddle scone), and 'fadge,' (a thick loaf of wheaten bread baked on a griddle or with a potato). Ulster has its unique religious vocabulary too, including phrases such as 'make your soul,' meaning 'to go confession.' The dialect is also rich in words for people. A 'moiley' for instance refers to a mild mannered person. A 'gabslake' refers to a person who acts the fool and talks too much. Furthermore, there are Ulsterisms - words found in Ulster, or words which were created elsewhere but now survive only in Ulster. Examples include the words 'champ,' and 'diamond,' (meaning town square). All of this reinforces the point that Ulster society and culture is distinct and the dialect has been shaped to express the people's referential needs. It is evident that the language and heritage of Ulster-Scots has existed for years and is not something manufactured to rival the Irish sense of identity. Ulster Scots, it is said: "does express and articulate a rural community cohesion and has a role to play in opposing the decimation of rural communities. It is used by at least one very good amateur drama group. It enshrines the radical political thinking of James Orr and his contemporaries of 1798 and as such it is a historical and educational resource. It is a rich repository of Gaelic words which it has observed... It is the natural medium of beautiful songs. It is necessary for the understanding of many place names. It is a cross-community dialect and not the property of any one faction."

Clearly, the naturally occurring dialect of Scots where still spoken in Northern Ireland, is an integral part of the culture of the island. Moreover, far from being used as a symbol of cultural identity, Ulster-Scots appears to be a cross-community dialect. In an article featured in a recent edition of the News Letter, one reader recalls his experience of 'culture contact': "One day a few months ago when I was away in the Irish speaking parts of Donegal, the bean a'ti' or 'woman of the house' entered the living room with a large pot of freshly brewed tea for her visitors. Setting it on the table, she warned in Gaelic that it was still quite weak. When she saw that an American student staying there hadn't understood, it was Scots rather than English to which she turned - 'A'm juist efter wattin the tae.' Even today, many Gaelic speakers in both Scotland and Ulster have Scots as their second or 'auxillary' language... There is undoubtedly a long tradition of fruitful 'culture contact' between the two languages."
Interestingly, the reader ends his feature on a note of caution by saying'lets hope today's activists maintain it.'
