Language Choice of Shop Owners in Bangor and Caernarfon

Abstract

The aim of this thesis was to discover what language was used by shop owners in Bangor and Caernarfon when they were greeted in either English or Welsh by a customer. The question arised whether shop owners would converge to a customer by speaking the same language. Two hypotheses were formulated on the basis of the Accommodation Theory: when the customer greets the shop owners in English, the latter will respond in English because the shop owners have a tendency to converge to their customers, and when the customer greets the shop owners in Welsh, the latter will respond in Welsh because the shop owners have a tendency to converge to their customers. Another aim was to find out the motives behind the language choices. The method consisted of eliciting data on the language choices as an active participant observer and a follow-up interview. The interviews were conducted to find out the reasons behind the language choices. In total, 40 shop owners were greeted and interviewed: 20 in Bangor and 20 in Caernarfon. The results showed that when English was spoken in the greeting, the shop owners responded in English, and, when Welsh was used by the interviewer, the shop owners responded in English as well. The reasons for the language choices were diverse and ranged from the inability to speak Welsh to the interviewer’s accent . Hypothesis 1 turned out to be problematic. Although it seemed correct at first, it cannot be said that the shop owners’ use of English is convergence. Hypothesis 2 should be rejected since the majority of the participants used English to a Welsh greeting. Even when the shop owners responded in Welsh, the reasons for the language choice did not suggest that convergence was involved.