No description available.

Gaelic Language Maintenance Process(es) is a contemporary ethnographic study of seventeen isolated Gaelic language users. The seventeen individuals in the study, ages three to seventy-two, were selected from Ontario, Canada and Central Scotland to identify and illustrate the perceptions and processes involved in isolated Gaelic language maintenance. Each subject was interviewed, and subsequently shadowed, for a period of nine days. During the period of active observation, the subjects recorded their thoughts about and experiences of their Gaelic language maintenance within a personal journal. The interviews, observations, and personal diaries of the subjects' Gaelic lives were then collated by the researcher into seventeen individual narratives. Through close reading, each narrative illuminated the interwoven threads and constructs which provided additional insight into the 'quilt' of isolated Gaelic language maintenance. The seven, common-sense typologies and constructs drawn from the individuals' experience of the Gaelic language world revealed a shared, inner universe of meaning where some of the major categories in the (experience of) their social language world centred upon their recognition of Gaelic ability, maintenance, community roles, and "special" identity to form a tapestry for maintenance outside of the bloc. Peigi, Pàdruig, Catriona, Cairistiona, Chlair, Cormac, Colla, Tomasina, Tara, Teàrlag, Treasaididh, Tollaidh, Aileas, Artair, Aigneas, Anna, and Aonghas generously allow readers an opportunity to share in their thoughts and feelings and [the researcher's] observations about what it is like to maintain the Gaelic language in isolation from Cape Breton and the Western Isles.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Aberdeen University, 2006. / Title from web page (viewed on Mar. 22, 2010). Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis examines the phenomenon of Sir Walter Scott's extraordinary Victorian popularity. Focussing on criticism of his Waverley Novels between 1832 - the year of his death - and the end of the century, the thesis plots the development and terms of Scott's eminence. An introductory chapter sets out principal areas of study, being followed by a section leading up to 1832. Then follow analyses of critical work on Scott by, respectively, Harriet Martineau, Thomas Carlyle, Walter Bagehot, John Ruskin, Leslie Stephen, Richard Hutton and Julia Wedgwood. The thesis concludes with an epilogic section covering critics of the late nineteenth century, including Frederic Harrison and Andrew Lang. In each instance the context of each critic's wider work figures prominently. The thesis contends that large elements of Scott's achievement received relatively little attention in Victorian criticism. These are Scotti,s Enlightenment interests in speculative history and detailed, almost sociological, methods of composition, as well as the 'experimental' character of his work. By contrast, much was made in criticism of what may be summarised as his 'health' and 'beneficial effects'. It is claimed that the construction of such consensual critical notions about the merits of Scott's very popular work had a great deal to do with the buttressing and underpinning of some Victorian attitudes. While these varied with critics' own preoccupations - and Scott's 'malleability' is remarkable - Scott's role was so significant in Victorian culture that his employment, within what was still a relatively eclectic and formally undisciplined critical practice, constituted significant ideological manoeuvring. Specifically, Scott's remit in Victorian criticism was most usually to represent and validate some kind of opposition to the present. This both excluded much of his achievement, and also narrowed the terms of his appraisal so as to permit a revealing coalescence of literary with social, political and even racial arguments. This thesis traces the increasing definition of such a pattern within Victorian criticism of the Waverley Novels.

This thesis investigates the standardisation of Modern Scottish Gaelic orthography from the mid-eighteenth century to the twenty-first. It presents the results of the first corpus-based analysis of Modern Scottish Gaelic orthographic development combined with an analytic approach that places orthographic choices in their sociolinguistic context. The theoretical framework behind the analysis centres on discussion of how the language ideologies of the phonographic ideal, historicism, autonomy, vernacularism and the ideology of the standard itself have shaped orthographic conventions and debates. It argues that current spelling norms reflect an orthography that is the result of compromise, historical factors and pragmatic function. The research uses a digital corpus to examine how three particular features have been used over time: the dialect variation between < eu > and < ia >; variation in s + stop consonant clusters (sd/st, sg/sc, sb/sp); and the use of the grave and acute accents. Evidence is drawn from the Corpas na Gàidhlig electronic corpus created at the University of Glasgow: the sub-corpus used in this study includes 117 published texts representing a period of over 250 years from 1750 to 2007, and a total size of over four and a quarter million words. The results confirm a key period of reform between 1750 and the early nineteenth century, and thereafter a settled norm being established in the early nineteenth century. Since then, some variation has been acceptable although changes and reform of some features have centred on increasing uniformity and regularisation.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Anthropology, Aug. 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

No description available.

The thesis is a detailed descriptive survey of the society of the Anglo-Scottish borders in the second half of the fifteenth century. The survey is divided into three sections, the first providing a background to border society, the second examining the structure of that society, and the third describing how the society was governed. As an introduction to the study of border society, the geography and economy of the frontier region are briefly described; a short survey of border towns is attempted; and the role of the Church in border society is examined, although this is mainly confined to a description of the ecclesiastical institutions in the area. In analysing the structure of border society in the later fifteenth century a division is made between, on the one hand, the levels of society, and, on the other, the interconnections which bound the border population together. The lower ranks of border society, both urban and rural, are examined in as uuch detail as is permitted by the scarcity of surviving evidence. The leading families on each side of the frontier are described and their role in border society is examined. Interconnections within border society are investigated from three aspects: the bond of kinship; connections and ties of dependency among leading border families; and relationships across the frontier. The topic of kinship bonds raises the question of the origin of border surnames, and an attempt is made to contribute to this controversy by examining the state of development of the surnames by the mid-fifteenth century. Connections between leading border families are examined under the categories of land-holding relationships, connections formed through marriage, and bonds based on employment or the more formal contracts of retainer manrent. Interconnections, so far as they existed, between English and Scottish borderers are described as a conclusion to the survey of the ways in which border society was knit together. The final section of the thesis is concerned with the government of border society. As a means of introduction, the background of the political relations between the kingdoms of England and Scotland is established by a detailed analysis of events during the half-century. Following this survey of how the two countries alternated between truce and open war during the period, an analysis is made or the terms of the truces signed between 1455 and 1502. This examination of truce terms, which were mainly concerned with frontier control, leads on to a survey of the operation of law-enforcement on the borders. The machine of law-enforcement, involving the imposition of both the international frontier law control and the national laws of the respective countries is described, and standards of efficiency among judicial officers are touched upon. Aspects of law-enforcement on the borders which are of particular interest are subsequently exanined, and both the general character and the causes of border lawlessness are discussed. In the examination of law-enforcement machinery the function of officials are described, but as a conclusion to the survey of law and order on the borders the holders of the various offices are investigated. In the conclusion to the thesis a brief generalised description is attempted of the characteristics of border people and their society in the later fifteenth century.