Note: This blog post was first published at Swansea University's Applied Linguistics and TESOL blog.

On 12 March 2026, researchers, policymakers, and practitioners gathered at Aberystwyth University, for the Welsh Language Policy Information Exchange Workshop, organised by the WISERD Language Network. The event brought together researchers and professionals working on Welsh language policy to exchange ideas, share research, and explore how academic work can inform the development and implementation of language policy in Wales.

The WISERD Language Network forms part of the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research and Data (WISERD), a national research institute which connects researchers across Wales’ universities and engages with policy stakeholders in Wales. The Language Network focusses particularly on research related to language policy, sociolinguistics, language revitalisation, and multilingualism. Workshops such as this provide an important forum for dialogue between researchers and practitioners, particularly at a time when Welsh language policy continues to evolve in response to changing social, demographic, and institutional contexts.

Against the backdrop of Wales’s Cymraeg 2050 strategy, which aims to increase the number of Welsh speakers to one million by the middle of the century, understanding how research can inform policy has become increasingly important. Many of the key challenges facing the Welsh language today—like patterns of use, intergenerational transmission, and the relationship between education and everyday practices—require meaningful collaboration amongst academics, policymakers, and community organisations. The day-long workshop was designed precisely with this goal in mind: to create a space where ideas, findings, and experiences could be shared across disciplinary and institutional boundaries.

The event began with an opportunity for informal discussion over tea and coffee before participants gathered in the Medrus Mawr room for the opening session. The day was formally opened by Professor Elin Royles (Aberystwyth University), who welcomed participants and attendees, and outlined the aims of the event. Royles emphasised the importance of strengthening connections between research and policy development, noting that meaningful language planning requires both evidence and sustained dialogue between different sectors working with the Welsh language.

Following this welcome, the workshop moved into its keynote session, delivered by Professor Bernadette O’Rourke (University of Glasgow). In her lecture, Cartographies of Change: Minority Languages in Motion, O’Rourke explored the concept of the ‘new speaker’. Emerging from research on minority language revitalisation—particularly in contexts such as Galicia, Catalonia, and the Basque Country—the term was originally developed to describe individuals who acquire and use a minoritised language outside the traditional family transmission context. O’Rourke traced how the concept has since been applied across a range of linguistic settings to examine shifting patterns of language competence, identity, and legitimacy. Rather than treating language communities as stable and bounded, the ‘new speaker’ perspective highlights the dynamic ways in which linguistic practices evolve across time, space, and social context, and how these shifts shape contemporary revitalisation efforts.

O’Rourke’s keynote invited the audience to think critically about how the notion of a ‘speaker’ and ‘language’ itself is conceptualised. Rather than viewing language communities as territorially fixed or socially stable, she emphasised the importance of recognising mobility, migration, and shifting patterns of use. In many contemporary minority language contexts, speakers move between linguistic environments and social networks in ways that challenge traditional assumptions about language communities. This perspective encourages both researchers and policymakers to reconsider how language policy can respond to increasingly complex sociolinguistic realities.

After the keynote lecture, the programme moved into a series of parallel panel sessions, each focusing on different aspects of Welsh language research and policy.

One presentation examined Gwynedd Council’s Welsh Language Use Survey in Frontline Services (Llywela Owain, Gwynedd Council). The research explored patterns of Welsh language use within frontline public services and provided insight into how language policies are implemented in everyday administrative contexts. Such work plays an important role in evaluating the effectiveness of institutional language policies and identifying the practical challenges faced by public service organisations seeking to operate bilingually.

In another panel, I presented research from my doctoral project at Swansea University, which investigates how young people’s relationship with Welsh changes after compulsory education. The presentation explored emerging findings from the project and considered how different social, educational, and institutional contexts shape young people’s opportunities and motivations to continue using Welsh as they transition into early adulthood. 

Other presentations in the same session explored the role of language in education and cultural transmission. A paper on resilience through language as a carrier of intangible cultural heritage (Elen Bonner, Bangor University) examined how linguistic practices contribute to the preservation and transmission of cultural knowledge. Another presentation investigated the impact of drama and arts-based teaching strategies on Welsh vocabulary and idiom acquisition among primary school learners (Mari Rhian Owen, Aberystwyth University), highlighting the potential of creative pedagogical approaches to support language learning in educational settings.

The afternoon sessions continued with further presentations exploring Welsh language use, community engagement, and language attitudes. One paper examined the role of Welsh in community action enterprises and community engagement (Emily-Louise Beech, Bangor University), demonstrating how language can function as a resource for community development initiatives and civic participation.

Another presentation introduced a project focussed on modelling attitudes towards the Welsh language (Dave Jenkins, Aberystwyth University). The project explores how language attitudes can be predicted using demographic and social data. By modelling these relationships and visualising them spatially, the research aims to map patterns of attitudes towards Welsh across different communities and population groups. This approach offers a way of identifying broader trends in public perceptions of the language.

Research focussing on families and education also featured prominently in the afternoon programme. A longitudinal study exploring parents’ and carers’ experiences of Welsh-medium education (Mirain Rhys, Cardiff Metropolitan University) highlighted the perspectives of families navigating Welsh-medium schooling and the broader social contexts shaping their educational decisions.

The panel sessions illustrated the methodological diversity that characterises contemporary Welsh language research. Quantitative surveys, sociolinguistic community studies, educational research, and computational modelling approaches were all represented across the sessions.

This diversity reflects the wide range of questions currently being asked about the Welsh language: how it is used in institutional contexts, how attitudes towards it are formed, how it is transmitted through education and family life, and how communities negotiate linguistic change. The discussions also highlighted the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration, as many of these questions require insights from sociolinguistics, education, policy studies, and computational modelling.

The final sessions of the day included a presentation on Prosiect Bro, a comprehensive sociolinguistic survey of contemporary Welsh-speaking communities (Elin Haf Gruffydd Jones, Richard Roberts, and Catrin Llwyd, University of Wales Trinity Saint David). The project aims to develop a detailed understanding of the social and linguistic dynamics shaping Welsh-speaking communities today.

Alongside this, an interactive workshop led by Siân Lloyd-Williams, Rhodri Evans, and Susan Chapman (Aberystwyth University) explored methods for helping young people reflect on their relationship with the Welsh language. The session introduced practical techniques designed to encourage learners to think about how their engagement with Welsh develops over time, and how experiences across different contexts—such as education, community, and personal identity—can shape that relationship. The workshop highlighted the value of reflective approaches for understanding the changing nature of learners’ connections to the language.

The workshop concluded with a closing discussion session reflecting on key themes emerging from the day and considering the future plans of the WISERD Language Network. Participants emphasised the importance of continued collaboration between researchers and policymakers, as well as the need for sustained research addressing the increasingly complex challenges facing the Welsh language.

One of the most striking aspects of the workshop was the breadth of perspectives brought together in a single space. Researchers working on sociolinguistic theory, language policy, education, and community engagement all contributed to discussions about the future of the Welsh language. At the same time, the presence of practitioners and policymakers ensured that the conversation remained grounded in the practical realities of language planning. This kind of exchange is particularly valuable in the Welsh context, where language policy operates across multiple domains. Ensuring that policy development remains informed by empirical research will be key if Wales is to meet its long-term language revitalisation goals.

Events such as the Welsh Language Policy Information Exchange Workshop demonstrate the value of creating spaces where research and policy intersect. By bringing together scholars, practitioners, and policymakers, workshops like this help ensure that discussions about the future of the Welsh language are informed by both empirical research and practical experience.

Want to know more?

If you would like to explore some of the themes discussed at the workshop further, the following resources may be of interest:

Welsh language policy

• Welsh Government – Cymraeg 2050: A Million Welsh Speakers
  https://www.gov.wales/cymraeg-2050-welsh-language-strategy

Research networks

• WISERD Language Network
  https://wiserd.ac.uk/research/research-networks/language 

• Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research and Data (WISERD)
  https://wiserd.ac.uk

Research on the Welsh language

• Bangor University Language Technologies Unit – Welsh language research and policy work
  https://bangor.ac.uk/canolfanbedwyr 

• Prosiect Bro – Sociolinguistic research on Welsh-speaking communities
  https://www.uwtsd.ac.uk/prosiect-bro/ 

Further reading on minority language revitalisation

• O’Rourke, B., Pujolar, J., & Ramallo, F. (2015). New Speakers of Minority Languages: The Challenging Opportunity.
  https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2015-0001