An Examination Of Irish Language Policy And Planning From The Circumstance Of Irish

Language policy and planning, as a new field, has attracted increasing attentionsfrom scholars and governments in recent years. It is often considered to solve languageproblem as its goal. Since the Republic of Ireland gained its independence, thegovernment has begun to make policies to promote the Irish language. They desired toget rid of the colonial rule from the ideology. They wanted to prove their independenceby speaking their national language. Although the government do a great of efforts, theconsequence is not so satisfying. The current situation of the Irish language shows thatit does not become a communicational language in people’s life; conversely, it is rarelyused by people in their daily communication.Therefore, the questions the thesis focuses on are as follows:1) What the situation of Irish is;2) What specific policies the government makes to promote Irish;3) Why the government constantly insists on Irish promotion;4) What factors lead to the failure of Irish promotion?First of all, this thesis describes the current situation of the Irish language. Andthen, it summarizes the related theory of the language policy and planning. Next, itanalyzes the strategies of the Irish language promotion adopted by the government.The thesis shows that status planning and corpus planning of the Irish languageplanning are both well in place in the Republic Ireland. The government made the Irishlanguage the national and the first official language; meanwhile, a standard Irishlanguage was chosen and an Irish dictionary was published. The government set severallanguage–related agencies. Additionally, to save the Irish language, the governmentmade micro-planning in the Gaeltacht area, educational language policy and bilingualpolicy.Thus, the author explains the significance of the Irish promotion from three aspects:the language and national identity, the language and cultural heritage, and languagediversity. Finally, on the basis of the Irish language policy and the previous study, theauthor tries to explore the reasons that result in the failure of the Irish promotion. Generally speaking, the consequence results from the ignorance of the practical use ofthe Irish language. The government itself should take the primary responsibility; they donot make language policy and planning based on the practical use. Additionally, withoutproper educational policy, the education can not take effect in language acquisition.Without positive attitude to speak the Irish language, people are not willing to use it intheir daily life. Therefore, the Irish language promotion is not successful.The Republic of Ireland will never stop promoting the Irish language, becausespeaking the Irish language shows that it is an independent country from the ideology.Meanwhile, the Irish language is central to their cultural heritage. Preserving the Irishlanguage is helpful to transmit the Irish historical culture. Additionally, from a broadsense, preserving the Irish language is one part to maintain the language diversity of thewhole world. Thus, promoting the Irish language is beneficial not only to the republic ofIreland, but also to the whole world.