Irish Language And Irish National Identity Building

The Irish language is constitutionalized as the first official language of Ireland, although it also falls into the category of minority languages. Because of its natural link with the Celtic origin of Irish traditional culture, it plays a crucial part in Irish national identity building. To a certain degree, Irish language broadcasting was part of Ireland’s national language planning project; meanwhile it also participates in the national identity building process of Ireland. To which extent did the ideological politics influence the language policies of Ireland and its media practices? How did the Irish-language broadcasting help shape Ireland’s national identity since its independence? For this reason, this thesis tries to provide a historical account of Irish-language broadcasting, through which the interactions between Irish language and Irish national identity building will be discussed.This thesis applies media identification theory to interpret the unique situation of the Irish-language broadcasting. Hitherto, the theory is not much applied in minority language media studies. In the case of Ireland, identity studies in Irish language broadcasting have not been theoretically framed. Based on the literature in this academic field, the thesis will generalize a theoretical assumption for researching Ireland’s special broadcasting experience. In the Irish context, what links both language and media to national identity is their cohesion with "memory" and "imagination". Within this framework, case studies of the milestone-like radio and TV stations will be conducted respectively in a comparative perspective.In regard of radio broadcasting,2RN and RnaG are selected as two typical cases of major attempts in Irish post-colonial identification trying to define what "Irish" is. From2RN to RnaG, much changed in terms of the dominant ideology prevailing in Irish society as well as Irish language status in broadcasting. The historical examination of them demonstrates how Irish language on air shifted from symbolic role to civil rights campaign. In this process, Irish-language broadcasting was employed to construct the "imagined community" and cultivate sense of belongings as being an "Irish". Such imagination, which was invented to assert Irish independence and articulate Irish cultural distinctiveness, found its expression in narrow consciousness of officially sanctioned national culture for decades. As Ireland involved more and more into globalization and European integration, the Irish language has been reversed into a "minority" issue from a national one, partly as a result of the reduced influence of Irish nationalist mind. Irish-language television broadcasting came in an age of convergence-a convergence of modern and traditional ideology. Through Ireland’s attempt for national identification towards modernization, RTE and TG4are both beneficiaries and contributors. They are greatly influenced by market forces with focus on program quality and audience rating. In response, RTE participates actively in Irish modern identity construction through its visual representation of Irish modern life. TG4did play a role in constructing minority public sphere, in which a sense of belonging can be cultivated, particularly for Irish-speaking community Gaeltacht.Each pair of comparison in the Irish-language broadcasting verifies the theory assumption proposed by the thesis. Operated in the Irish language, the broadcasting system both represents the Irish "memory" of its culturally prosperous past and casts Irish modern "memory" for the future. Meanwhile, it also contributes to the construction of the Irish "imagined community" in which sense of belongings is shared by the Irish people. In summary, interaction between Irish-language broadcasting and national identification has fluctuated and tried to reach a balance between two forces in the following three regards:(1) Nationalism vs. Pragmatism;(2) Culture Essentialism vs. Pluralism;(3) Government vs. Market.