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New Speakers, Familiar Concepts?

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New Speakers of Minority Languages

Abstract

This chapter introduces the reader to the concept of the new speaker. The new speaker paradigm is presented firstly as a development on previous paradigms that often considered so-called non-native speech and its users within a deficit framework, and which did not fully acknowledge the full sociolinguistic competence of non-traditional language users. The late modern sociolinguistic landscape in which new speakers function is briefly sketched before focusing on the immediacy associated with research on new speakers of minority languages. Following a discussion of the role of new speakers for the continued vitality of minority languages, the structure of the volume is outlined.

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Ó Murchadha, N.P., Hornsby, M., Smith-Christmas, C., Moriarty, M. (2018). New Speakers, Familiar Concepts?. In: Smith-Christmas, C., Ó Murchadha, N., Hornsby, M., Moriarty, M. (eds) New Speakers of Minority Languages. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57558-6_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57558-6_1

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