Language revitalization discourses as metaculture: Gaelic in Scotland from the 18th to 20th centuries

Discourses of Gaelic language revitalization in Scotland are analyzed as examples of Greg Urban’s ‘metaculture’ in order to gain a better understanding of how people attempt sociolinguistic change through minority language revitalization efforts. After describing the 18th-century emergence of ‘discourses of revitalization and redemption’ about Gaelic, this paper analyzes seven different themes or predications about Gaelic made in the 18th through 20th centuries to justify its salvation. I demonstrate how the discourses constitute metacultural and meta-linguistic commentaries on cultural and linguistic practices, and how previously circulating elements of culture, including language ideologies and affective stances, are dialogically contained within each creative revitalizing response and facilitate its circulation.