Who am I? Pwy ydw i?

It’s not a question I ordinarily find productive—especially in the context of academic research, in which I’ve often been encouraged to remain objective. Yet it was a question that surfaced unexpectedly as I listened to Professor Bernadette O’Rourke deliver her keynote lecture at the thirty-fifth conference of the European Second Language Acquisition Research Association (EuroSLA). Professor O’Rourke, an eminent researcher in the sociolinguistics of minoritised languages, spoke with striking clarity and force about recent developments in the study of the ‘new speaker’, taking a critical view of how the term is used and how it shapes policy.

I've observed that the best moments in research are like those in reading more generally. When you come across something—a thought, a feeling, a hunch—that you’d previously thought particular to yourself. And there it is, written down or made explicit by someone else. O’Rourke’s discussion resonated with a question I’ve long carried but rarely voiced: what do I call myself? I am a Welsh learner, certainly, but also someone who uses the language in daily life, however imperfectly. I don’t quite feel like a fluent speaker, nor entirely like a beginner. I participate, but cautiously. I belong, perhaps, but not always securely. O’Rourke’s discussion gave shape to this 'in-betweenness'—it made visible the uncertainty I’ve carried about what kind of speaker I am, and whether the categories available to me are enough.

The term ‘new speaker’ is itself relatively recent. Though only systematically studied since around 2012, its roots lie not in academia but in grassroots contexts of language minoritisation and revitalisation. It refers to individuals who acquire a minoritised language outside traditional intergenerational transmission—typically through formal education—without significant exposure at home. In effect, they are ‘new’ to the language community, even if they are not new to the broader cultural. O'Rourke noted that the term has been used alongside others—semi-speakers, rememberers, non-fluent, semilinguals, imperfect speakers—though many of these are built upon a discourse of deficiency, positioning such speakers in contrast to an idealised ‘native’ norm.

In the Welsh context, the concept has particular relevance. Since 1999, some form of Welsh learning has been compulsory in schools across Wales. In Welsh-medium schools, the language is the primary medium of instruction; in English-medium schools, it is typically taught for a few hours a week. Consequently, young people in Wales leave school with highly variable proficiencies—and equally variable relationships, from pride to resentment—with the language. Crucially, for many, this relationship shifts again after school, often marked by a decline in usage and confidence.

I am one of those young people. Raised in an English-speaking household and educated in an English-medium school, I encountered Welsh primarily in the classroom, as a subject to be learned rather than a language to be lived. Like many of my peers, I left school with a modest grasp of the language and little sense of ownership over it. It wasn’t until adulthood—through a mixture of personal curiosity and workplace need—that I found myself returning to Welsh with commitment. Yet this return has brought with it a persistent unease: what kind of speaker am I now? My Welsh is still marked by hesitation and error, but I use it, seek it out, and feel it taking root. In this sense, I am not quite a beginner, not quite fluent, and not quite sure where I fit—an uncertainty to which O’Rourke’s lecture spoke directly.

Am I a new speaker? On paper, I meet the criteria. I had little or no Welsh at home, and I learned it primarily through the formal education system. But the category is far from clear-cut. Some researchers focus on the social pathway—how the language is acquired and used—while others emphasise questions of proficiency. On that front, I remain uncertain. I left school at what might generously be called an intermediate level, but I lacked confidence, fluency, and spontaneity. Even now, though my abilities have improved, I hesitate to call myself fluent. Others draw a different distinction—between learners and new speakers—not on the basis of skill, but on emotional identification. 

A learner learns; a new speaker lives the language. But to what extent do I feel that? To be honest, I don’t know. Welshness, after all, is only one part of my identity and heritage. If I took a nationalistic view, I could say family is also English, Irish, German, and Eastern European. Sometimes I feel a quiet pull, a sense that the language is something I want to grow into. At other times, it feels external—something I reach for, admire, even respect, but don’t yet have. There are moments of pride, yes, but also moments of distance, where Welsh still feels like someone else’s possession. And perhaps this is the crux of it: I’m still negotiating what the language means to me, and whether I feel I have the right to say it is mine.

“Do you speak Welsh?” people ask me. My answer depends on who’s asking. It depends on how safe I feel, how much room I’m given to be unsure. With fluent speakers—those who move easily between registers, who grew up with the language—I hesitate. I’m more likely to say, “Ydw, ond fi’n dal yn dysgu.” Yes, but I’m still learning. It’s a way of qualifying myself, of lowering expectations, of signalling that I don’t quite belong. And, as a linguist, I know it's something I probably shouldn't say. With non-fluent speakers, though, I say simply, “Ydw.” And I speak with them. There’s less pressure, less fear of judgement, and more space to be imperfect. It’s not that my ability changes—it’s the same Welsh—but my willingness to inhabit it does. In those moments, I feel like the language can be something shared, rather than something performed or proven.

The setting of the conference—Tromsø, in the far north of Norway—felt apt for these reflections. It is a place where questions of language, identity, and belonging are not abstract matters, but lived realities. Tromsø is located within Sápmi, the traditional homeland of the Sámi people, whose languages and cultures have long endured processes of marginalisation, erasure, and revival. Walking through the city, where signage appeared in both Norwegian and Sámi, I was reminded that these tensions—between visibility and vulnerability, inclusion and exclusion—are not unique to Welsh. They are echoed in the experience of many minoritised language communities. The Sámi context, like the Welsh one, raises powerful questions: who counts as a speaker? Who gets to claim a language? And what does it mean to carry a language that others once tried to take away?

Attending EuroSLA this year made these questions feel less isolating. In fact, one of the most striking things about the conference was the openness with which identity, affect, and subjectivity were discussed. Professor O’Rourke’s keynote wasn’t the only moment where the social and emotional dimensions of language learning came to the fore, but it was, for me, the most resonant. Her talk not only challenged the stability of the ‘new speaker’ category but also invited us to consider how naming ourselves—and being named by others—shapes our access to legitimacy, belonging, and participation in language communities.

These questions feel especially urgent in the Welsh context, where so much hope has been placed in the educational system as a driver of language revitalisation. Since devolution, policy has consistently positioned schools—particularly Welsh-medium education—as the cornerstone of Welsh language transmission. And yet, despite these efforts, we see a persistent pattern: many young people, after leaving school, disengage from Welsh. They stop speaking it. They stop identifying with it. And we are left with a difficult question: what is preventing these generations of young people from becoming active users of the language?

There is some evidence to suggest that the issue is partly acquisitional. Especially in English-medium schools, learners often leave with low levels of proficiency, making continued use difficult and discouraging. But my instinct—and increasingly, my research—tells me the story is more complex than that, particularly for those emerging from Welsh-medium education, where language input is rich. For these young people, the barriers may be less about grammar and more about opportunity, identity, confidence, legitimacy, appropriateness, and belonging. Young people in Wales may learn Welsh in school, yet feel inauthentic using it elsewhere. They may be, as O’Rourke suggested in her talk, potential new speakers: not quite learners, not quite users, suspended somewhere in between.

What happens to these potential new speakers after they leave school? Why do so many fall away from the language, and what might help them to stay? These are the questions at the heart of my research. I want to understand the post-school period—this strange, often unexamined liminal space—and what it reveals about language ideologies, speaker identity, and the emotional terrain of minoritised language use. O’Rourke’s keynote gave me the language for something I’d been sensing but struggling to articulate. It reminded me that what looks like individual failure—someone ‘giving up’ on Welsh—might actually be a systemic issue, shaped by how we imagine speakers, how we assess value, and how we make space for those who do not fit neatly into existing categories. As I continue my research, I hope that understanding these fragile in-between spaces might help make them a little more visible—and perhaps, in time, a little more secure.

Want to know more?

• Bernadette O’Rourke’s research on new speakers: https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/mlc/staff/bernadetteorourke/

• Sámi languages and revitalisation: https://sametinget.no

• University of Tromsø – The Arctic University of Norway:  https://uit.no/startsida

• García, O., & Kleifgen, J. A. (2011). Educating Emergent Bilinguals: Policies, Programs and Practices for English Language Learners.

• Kramsch, C. (2009). The Multilingual Subject. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

• O’Rourke, B., & Walsh, J. (2020). New Speakers of Irish in the Global Context: New Revival? London: Routledge.