The Welsh Experience with a Living Language: Minoritised Language through the Lens of Phenomenology

There has been increased attention to the experience of marginalised groups and individuals in philosophy. Many have thematised race (Yancy 2008) and gender (Anzaldúa 1987). Less attention has been paid to the experience of the minoritised language-speaking community, which often intermesh with these other minoritised groups.

This PhD aims to traverse unchartered territory in the new subfield of 'minoritised language phenomenology' and linguistics while enriching research on the marginalised groups mentioned above. The final section of the project will involve gathering empirical data to influence policy on language revitalization and thus extend beyond theory or pure logic.

This project has 4-key points of emphasis. The first will chronicle the philosophy language debate (using the works of Charles Taylor) and arrive at Merleau-Ponty's conception of language as a synthesis. Merleau-Ponty's concept of language is simultaneously embodied and socially constructed as something more than mere code, but an entity we experience and interact with that can change our surroundings and our lived bodies.

Contrary to what we see in contemporary language revitalisation policies, this view extends beyond the Designative view of language.

The next section will place this full-body lived account of language into the concepts of 'worlds' described by Latina Feminist Phenomenologists (Lugones, Anzaldua and Ortega). Notions here of importance are 'worlds and world-travelling, in-betweenness, non-belonging and not-being-at-ease. Using these notions, I will develop versions of these centred on minoritised language speakers.

Ideas such as Language Borders, Language In-Betweenness and feelings of Linguistic Unease come to mind. These terms will bring minoritised language experiences from the abstract into the lived world.

The following section (which will be completed after chapter one) will focus on data collection. The deployment of Qualitative methods in Phenomenology has become well-established (Hoffding 2018; Klinke & Jonsdottir 2017; Martiny 2015) and has contributed towards substantial development in the human sciences (for example see, Hortborg & Ravn 2020; Legrand & Ravn 2020).

Phenomenological questionnaires have been deployed successfully regarding experiences of Depression (Ratcliffe 2014), and the COVID pandemic (James et al, 2020) and thus seem a suitable way of generating data on topics that require elucidation. The outcome of these questionnaires could highlight common structures in the experiences of minority language speakers that could aid policy suggestions for language revitalisation.

These questionnaires should be seen as a deployment of the conceptual groundwork of the previous chapters.

The fourth section will amalgamate the previous three in the context of Welsh minoritised language speakers (as a case study). By delving into the results of Phenomenological questionnaires (alongside extracts of Welsh contemporary thinkers), I aim to hear the lived experience of minoritised language speakers (with living languages) from their vantage point.

The aim is to surface new outlooks on what it is to traverse different linguistic worlds, and live with often contradictory languages. The goal is to provide a starting point for elucidating recommendations and inform and influence the Welsh Government's Language Revitalisation policies.