'Is it really for talking?' : the implications of associating a minority language with the school

This paper examines how caregivers in a bilingual family discursively link Gaelic to a school context when interacting with Maggie, an eight year-old who is currently enrolled in Gaelic Medium Education on the Isle of Skye, Scotland. The paper argues that the caregivers achieve this discursive framing primarily through treating Gaelic as a performance language and through orienting to discourses that de-normatise Maggie s use of her minority language. The paper argues that although the caregivers believe they are encouraging Maggie s use of Gaelic, by framing the language in a school context, they link Gaelic to authority. It is further argued that this association of Gaelic with authority may be one of the many contributing factors to Maggie s low use of the language overall. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of this argument in terms of language policy and planning.