Welsh Journals

WELSH LANGUAGE PRODUCTION AND REPRODUCTION. GLYN WILLIAMS As a student of Welsh society and culture E.G. Bowen took a deep interest in Welsh. His work involved tracing temporal variation in the distribution of Welsh speakers and drawing upon spatial analysis to explain the change in distribution. This approach can be criticised for the tendency to emphasise the link between geography and culture in such a way that a consensus and sometimes derogatory perspective vis a vis the minority group, emerges. The concepts of modernisation and diffusion are often applied to language change and are typical among such perspectives. Bowen was also subject to the limitations imposed by the nature of the published census material. In this paper an attempt is made to discuss changes in the incidence of the ability to speak Welsh by resorting to a conflict perspective, emphasising struggles which emanate from the economic order. This is facilitated by drawing upon unpublished census data concerning social class/socio-economic groups and language ability and in-migration. Additional data used in the study derives from family structure and language ability. Glyn Williams, Department of Social Theory and Institutions, University College of Northern Wales, Bangor, Gwynydd, Wales, U.K. LL57 2DG. Glyn Williams (1987) Bilingualism, Class Dialect and Social Reproduction. In: Williams, Glyn (ed) The Sociology of Welsh. Mouton, The Hague. Glyn Williams (1983) Language, Education and Reproduction inWales. In: Bain, B. (ed) The Sociogenesis of Language and Human Conduct. Plenum, New York, pp. 497-517.