Reinvigorating scholarly publishing in Scottish Gaelic: language, community and impact
School: Celtic and Scottish Studies
Supervisors:Professor Rob Dunbar and Peadar Ó Muircheartaigh
About Grace’s Research:
This project will examine the nature and extent of scholarly publishing in Scottish Gaelic, and why scholars choose to publish in this endangered language despite the national and international incentives to publish in English.
Scholarly publishing can strengthen higher education and teacher development, create cultural capital and raise the status of the language. Since education through the medium of Scottish Gaelic is now offered up to and including at post-graduate level, scholarly resources in the language are increasingly essential. Modest growth in the genre after the year 2000 has slowed substantially since the mid-2010s.
With the aim of regaining that lost momentum, my research will examine scholarly publishing as a collaborative, socially situated practice. This will involve:
– A review of how Scottish Gaelic, as a minority Celtic language, fits into the academic research and publishing landscape;
– A survey of researchers and academics to identify the factors, both positive and negative, that affect their choice of publishing language;
– Follow-up interviews to investigate in depth how knowledge, skills and publishing practices are developed, maintained and passed on;
– Case studies of the publishing process from initial plans through to dissemination and use, to identify ways to facilitate the process and increase impact.
By encouraging the community of writers to reflect on their own professional experience, the objective is to find potential ways to re-energise the scholarly publishing system for Scottish Gaelic, and to help influence institutional and governmental policy in relation to the genre.
