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Ní Saoirse go Saoirse na mBan: Gender and the Irish language in the linguistic landscape of Ireland's 2018 abortion referendum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2022

Louis Strange Open the ORCID record for Louis Strange [Opens in a new window]
Louis Strange*
Affiliation:
Queen Mary University of London, UK
*
Address for correspondence: Louis Strange Department of Linguistics Queen Mary University of London Mile End Road London E1 4NS, United Kingdom l.strange@qmul.ac.uk
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Abstract

In a 2018 referendum, the Irish public voted to lift the Irish state's near-total constitutional ban on abortion, bucking a recent global trend towards restrictions on reproductive rights. While abortion rights have long been a major concern of Irish feminists, appeals to national identity have often been viewed with suspicion by the women's rights movement in Ireland due to the historic role of national identity construction in perpetuating gender-based inequalities. This article explores the way(s) in which discourses of Irish identity and gender were mediated by the use of Irish in the linguistic landscape (LL) at the time of the vote. Proposing a modified version of Du Bois’ (2007) stance triangle, I argue that signs use Irish as both a means of stancetaking and as an object of stance in itself, thus effectively taking a stance on both the referendum and on Irish national identity, indexed by the language. (Stancetaking, Irish (language), national identity, gender, abortion, Eighth Amendment)

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Article
Information
Language in Society , Volume 52 , Issue 2 , April 2023 , pp. 215 - 239
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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