Case studies: textual analysis

For the third and last chapter of the dissertation I'm going to analyse two sets of texts with plenty of help from secondary sources. The first set will be some poetry in Ulster Scots. I have not quite decided yet which poems exactly but I think I will read one or two Rhyming Weaver poems and a modern one, probably by James Fenton. The second set will be official translations of government documents into Ulster Scots. Dr John Kirk has written at least two articles with close readings of what he calls "Ullans" texts (with a somewhat unusual definition of "Ullans", namely that it is a constructed, inauthentic language based on Ulster Scots but not spoken by anyone). I'd like to discuss those articles and 're-read' the texts he analyses.

Where Ulster Scots poetry and literature belong to the few registers that have continued to be written throughout the history of the language, official translations of government documents into Ulster-Scots are a prime example of an attempt to forge a new register, or at least to write in a genre that the language has not since long been used for.

Still from a Shutterstock video of a researcher measuring an Eastern Spiny Softshell.

For all of the texts I will consider the following questions:

1(a) Why was this text created?
  (b) What motivations does the author have for his style choices? (Extent of distinctive Scots vocabulary and grammatical aspects; neologisms and other innovative language use; spelling; distinctive form; imagery.)
Analysis of individual texts may not be the most obvious choice for tracking language change; what can you really say about the language as a whole from its usage by some individuals? Indeed the results may not be generalised carelessly. Yet textual analysis does give an opportunity to take a closer look at the micro-dynamics of language use. Ulster Scots lends itself particularly well to this endeavour. As not much has been written or standardised, an author has to make choices about every aspect of a text including aspects that are very common-sense in the more dominant languages. The consideration of how "English" to make your text would be a tad absurd if you are writing in English. Through looking at the historical and political context of a text, its purpose, and what we know about the author, we may gain insight into why they made the choices that they made. This in turn will tell us something about what effect external factors can have upon language use.

Moreover, because not much has been written in Ulster Scots, every text that is written now may have a big impact upon the language and its speaker community. Not everyone who writes in English will have heard of Carol Ann Duffy, but it is likely that everyone who takes enough of an interest in Ulster Scots to be writing in it will know of James Fenton. The findings of textual analysis of Ulster Scots texts may therefore be reasonably fruitful in saying something about the direction of change in the language as a whole.

Still from a Shutterstock video of a woman looking through a microscope.

2 How successful was this text in reaching its audience?
Language innovations contained in the texts (innovative choices made by the authors) can have an impact on wider language use if many people look at them as an inspiring and/or authoritative source. Robert Burns'  work is a good example of a source that reached many people and inspired a good deal of them to try their own hand at writing in the Scots language. However there is a clear sentiment that if the language is "pushed too far" in a source it will alienate its speakers. Faced with a text written in a spelling they cannot read and archaic or uncommon words that they do not recognise, people may figure that they are not competent speakers of the language the text purports to be written in. A consideration of the success of a source is therefore necessary in asking what impact on the language as a whole it may have. To 'measure' the success, good indications of the work reaching a wide audience would be sales statistics, reviews, numbers of references or citations and reprints in collections and such. The reviews should also give a good impression of whether the work was positively or negatively received.

(Conclusion)
3(a) To what extent is the language used in the analysed sources a result of revival policy and efforts as described in c (is there anything you can say about that based on the findings)? 

  (b) What does this tell us about the result of language policy on the language as a whole?

Following the conclusions of chapter 1 and 2, we should see evidence both of language deterioration and influence of the language contact with English, and of language innovation to patch the gaps left by deterioration.