This thesis is a survey of the work in poetry and prose of William Livingston or Uilleam Mac Dhunl`eibhe, the Islay bard (1808-70). The version of his English surname without final `e' has been preferred because it is used in the definitive, 1882 edition of his poems and throughout the text (but not in the title) of the section of his own clan in the Vindication. The first chapter, `Biography and Background', gathers the available information on the poet's life, and attempts to set him in the context of the cultural, social and economic situation of Islay during the century preceding his birth. The second chapter, `The Intellectual Background', investigates Livingston's reading and his knowledge and use of historical and antiquarian texts. His familiarity with the traditionary version of the origins of the Scottish monarchy, elaborated by patriotic historians before the Union, is especially interesting. Chapter Three, `Polemicist and Historian', looks in detail at a work Livingston edited for publication, MacNichol's remarks on Dr Johnson's account of his journey through Gaelic Scotland, before turning to the poet's longest prose work, the Vindication of the Celtic Character. His shorter pamphlets and the incomplete History of Scotland are also examined. The fourth and fifth chapters explore Livingston's attitude to James Macpherson and to the Gaelic version of his Ossian, and attempt to decide to what extent and in what way he was influenced by the earlier poet. Explicit references to Macpherson in the poetry and prose are surveyed before the triangular relationship between Livingston the poet, Macpherson's work, and ballad material of various degrees of genuineness is discussed. The next two chapters offer close readings of the two major battle poems, `Na Lochalannaich an Ile' and `Bl`ar Shunadail', while Chapters Eight and Nine look at the shorter battle poems, ranging from Mons Graupius, in the first century of the Christian era, to the battle at Gruinard Bay on Islay, which took place just before the union of the crowns, and the battles of Alma and Balaclava in the Crimean War. Chapter Ten is devoted to Livingston's poetry of the Clearances. Its two main focuses are `Cuimhneachan Bhraid-Alba' and `Fios thun a' Bh`aird', and the thesis ends with a close reading of this, perhaps his most famous poem.

This thesis examines the language shift, maintenance, and code-switching of three generations of a bilingual family on the Isles of Skye and Harris, Scotland. Based on ten hours of recorded conversations among family members in the home environment, this thesis focuses particularly on the speakers’ alternation between Gaelic and English and uses a microinteractional approach in looking at how code-switching is used in the meaning-making process of this family’s interactions. It concludes that although speakers vary in terms of both ability and use of the minority language, code-switching is nonetheless a powerful communicative tool within this family. Additionally, speakers within the three generations have different ways of code-switching for effect as well as various ways of ‘doing being bilingual’ (cf. Auer, 1984). In looking at the family’s overall use of both languages, the study finds that the first generation proportionally uses more Gaelic than the second and third generations, confirming that language shift is occurring within the family. Analysis of the first generation speakers’ intragenerational language use demonstrates that speakers use code-switching in concert with reifying certain stances and in modulating between different stances in the conversation. It also examines how code-switching is used in congruence with rendering constructed dialogue, and argues that these instances of language alternation are related to the narrator’s indexical and discourse organisational goals. The discussion of the first generation concludes by arguing that these speakers use code-switching primarily as a strategy to mitigate communicative trouble, a theme which is carried forward in focusing on the use of one first generation speaker’s code-switching in two lengthy narratives. This section argues that the use of code-switching is integral to the speaker’s success in the storytelling process, and demonstrates how the speaker uses code-switching in oscillating between the storyworld and the real-world interaction, as well uses code-switching in navigating different temporal frames within the narrative. Although the second generation evidence language shift by their overall low use of Gaelic, they are nonetheless trying to maintain the use of Gaelic with the third generation. An examination of the second generation’s language use focuses primarily on their use of the minority language in creating a child-centred context. It also further looks at how the parents of the third generation speakers use Gaelic when taking up authoritative stances towards their children. Discussion of the third generation’s language use centres on how the children in turn pereceive and use Gaelic as a ‘strategy for gain’ and focuses in particular on their occasional use of Gaelic in constructing argumentative stances vis-à-vis their parents’ displays of authority. The section concludes by examining an interaction where the youngest speaker in the study uses an increased amount of Gaelic on the telephone, arguing that the use of Gaelic in this context is one of the ways this third generation speaker enacts a first generation identity. This study demonstrates that although language shift is occurring, the family is nonetheless trying to maintain their minority language. Code-switching is a powerful communicative strategy within the family and all members, and even family members with only passive bilingual skills ‘do being part of a bilingual family.’

The Scottish Gael is objectified in an un-modified ‘Tourist Gaze’; a condition that is best understood from a post-colonial perspective. John Urry showed that cultures are objectified by the gaze of a global tourist industry. The unequal power relations in that gaze can be mediated through resistance and the production of staged touristic events. The process leads to commoditisation and in-authenticity and this is the current discourse on Scottish tourism icons. An ethnographic study of tour guiding shows a pattern of (re)-presentation of a silenced and near invisible Gaeldom. By building upon Foucauldian theories of power, Said’s critique of Orientalism’s discourse and Spivak on agency, this unmodified gaze can be explained from a postcolonial perspective. Six related aspects of Gaeldom’s (re)-presentation are revealed ; the discourse of the Victorian invention of Scottish cultural icons, and, by metonymic extension, Gaelic culture; the commoditisation of Gaelic culture in the image of the Highland Warrior; the re-naming of landscape and invention of new place narratives; historical presence by invitation; elision with Irish culture; and, the mute Gael. Combined, the elements of (re)-presentation result in the distancing and the rendering opaque of Gaelic culture. The absence of informed mediators, either tourist authorities or individuals, the lack of an oppositional narrative and the pervasive discourse of invention reduces the Gael to a silenced subaltern ‘other’. Thus the unmediated tourist ‘gaze’ continues. This exceptionally singular condition of Scottish Gaeldom is comprehensible through analysis of Scottish tourism from a postcolonial perspective.

The supernatural is a recurrent element in the fiction of Naomi Mitchison. This thesis examines four novels and a selection of short stories from a period in her career, approximately 1935-1960, when she was based mostly in Scotland, had rediscovered her Scottish identity, and was using Scottish themes and settings in her work. It considers Mitchison’s attitude to ‘the irrational’ and her perception of a connection between this and her gift of creativity. Mitchison’s interest in the supernatural was combined with an interest in science and an extreme practicality and pragmatism in everyday life, one of many contradictions which can be found in her life and writing. The thesis goes on to examine the influence on her thinking and writing of Sir James Frazer’s The Golden Bough, Jessie Weston’s From Ritual to Romance and Margaret Murray’s The Witch-Cult in Western Europe. Chapter 1 examines the recurrence of apparently supernatural experiences in her life, noting parallel experiences recorded by other writers, and suggesting a possible explanation for her childhood terrors. Chapter 2 traces the influence of these experiences on her writing, and also considers influences from her extensive reading, such as the ballads and the works of George MacDonald. The mythical element in Mitchison’s work is linked to that in the work of other novelists of the Scottish Literary Renaissance. Her poem ‘The House of the Hare’ is examined and the connections that Mitchison found between creativity, sexuality and fertility are described and discussed. Chapters 3-6 consider her novels, We Have Been Warned (1935), The Bull Calves (1947), The Big House (1950) and Lobsters on the Agenda (1952), with reference to the supernatural and mythical elements in each, noting that Mitchison apparently subscribed to Margaret Murray’s view of witchcraft as a surviving pagan religion. Chapter 7 surveys the recurrence of supernatural themes in Mitchison’s short stories. Chapter 8 considers the recurrent concepts of the fairy hill and the swan maiden, suggesting that these concepts were seen by Mitchison as relevant to her own life.

This thesis examines language variation and change in a context of minority language revitalisation. In particular, I concentrate on young fluent speakers of Scottish Gaelic, a minority language of Scotland that is currently undergoing revitalisation. Data from three groups of speakers are presented: older speakers in the Isle of Lewis, a Gaelic heartland area in north-west Scotland; adolescent Gaelic-speakers in Lewis learning the language in immersion schooling; and adolescent Gaelic-speakers in immersion schooling in Glasgow, an urban centre where Gaelic has not traditionally been spoken as a widespread community language. The sociolinguistic analysis examines potential language changes, explores patterns of linguistic variation, and uncovers the role that Gaelic plays in identity formation for each of the participants. In order to gain an insight into the role of Gaelic in different speakers’ lives, I report on ethnographic studies carried out in Lewis and in Glasgow. The phonetic analysis then explores patterns of variation in the production of laterals, vowels, and tone and intonation. The results indicate large differences between the speech of older and adolescent speakers in Lewis, while differences between young speakers in Lewis and Glasgow suggest that Glasgow Gaelic is developing as a phonetically and socially distinct variety of the language. For example, older speakers in Lewis speak Gaelic as a partial tone language, unlike young people in Lewis and in Glasgow. Differences are also present between young people in Lewis and in Glasgow, such as in the acoustics of the vowel [ʉ], the production of the lateral system, and intonation patterns. The developments detailed in this thesis are the result of a complex interaction between the internal sound structure of Gaelic, language contact with varieties of English, identity construction, and differing conceptions of the self. All of these factors are conditioned by the status of Gaelic as a minority endangered and revitalised language. In exploring these avenues, I advance an account of language variation and change and apply it to a context of minority language revitalisation.

This thesis illustrates that place-names are an essential resource for our understanding of Scottish medieval rural society, with a particular emphasis on Menteith. Place-names are an under-utilised resource in historical studies, and yet have much to inform the historian or archaeologist of how people used and viewed the medieval landscape. We know a great deal of the upper echelons of Scottish medieval society, especially the politics, battles, and lives of significant figures, such as various kings and great barons. However, we know next to nothing of the people from whom the nobility derived their power. The thesis is divided into two parts. Part 1 begins by defining the extent and geography of the medieval earldom of Menteith. The source material is analysed, highlighting the advantages and pitfalls of different sources that can be used for place-name studies. The different languages spoken in Menteith in the Middle Ages, ranging from P-Celtic to Scottish Gaelic to Scots, can be seen in the onomastic evidence. A crucial question that is explored, if not fully answered, is ‘what P-Celtic language was spoken in Menteith: British or Pictish?’. This is followed by an exploration of what we know of the Gaelic language in Menteith. Documents and place-names allow us to pinpoint the beginnings of the change from Gaelic to Scots as the naming language in the area to the later 15th C. A brief survey of the historical background shows the influence the earls of Menteith and other nobles may have had on the languages of the earldom. The final two chapters of Part 1 look at the issue of using place-names as a historical resource; Chapter 5 explores secular activities, such as hunting and agriculture. Chapter 6 is a case study examining how place-names can inform us of the medieval church. Part 2 is a survey of the place-names of the six parishes that consisted of the medieval earldom of Mentieth, including early forms and analysis of the names.

Recent interest in the ‘disappearance’ of languages has been accompanied by increased revitalisation efforts in many minority language settings, often considered to be experiencing obsolescence due to pressures of globalisation and modernity. Many of these revival movements aim to ‘recreate’ an idealised (or ‘authentic’) form of the language in question, through reference to traditional or standardised language practices. Simultaneously, however, ‘unanticipated results of language management’ (Spolsky 2006: 87) have produced non‐traditional and hybrid linguistic forms which are very often contested by the community in which the language revival is taking place. Taking Breton as a case study, this thesis examines the phenomenon of ‘new’ or ‘neo’ speakers in Brittany at the start of the twenty‐first century and the implications their appearance has for the survival of the only Celtic language still extant in continental Europe. The tensions between traditional and neo‐speakers are examined in the context of the theoretical framework of critical sociolinguistics (Heller 2002). Current language practices in Brittany are analysed through the anthropological linguistic concept of language ideology, which is used to explain and critique seemingly contradictory linguistic behaviour in this particular setting of linguistic minoritisation. Parallels are also drawn with neo‐speakers of other minority languages, most particularly Scottish Gaelic. While both languages show increasing transformation and hybridisation due to the non‐traditional nature of their methods of transmission, they are not, of course, alone in the changes they are experiencing; indeed, they can act as good indicators of what the future holds for many minority languages over the course of the twenty‐first century.