Introduction

The research findings reported in this volume stem from four studies carried out in the Republic of Ireland (RoI), Northern Ireland (NI) and Canada over a period of eight years. In this chapter, I set out the research design of the studies and the rationale underpinning them. The first two studies were corpus-based studies and aimed to obtain a broad picture of the linguistic features of all-Irish pupils' Irish. The third study sought to broaden the scope of the research beyond the Irish context. The attitudes of French immersion teachers in Toronto and Ottawa towards their pupils' proficiency in French were compared to those of Irish immersion teachers towards their pupils' proficiency in Irish. The fourth study investigated the attitude and motivation of all-Irish pupils to learning and using Irish. In particular, the use of Irish by the pupils outside the classroom and in the home was explored. The home language practices of parents were also examined.

Corpus-Based Studies

The purpose of the two corpus-based studies was to obtain a comprehensive picture of Irish-medium pupils' Irish language use and to examine the range and nature of the non-target-like linguistic forms encountered. A secondary aim was to investigate pupils' awareness of and attitudes to the features of their spoken Irish. The studies recruited 16 Irish-medium schools, 13 all-Irish schools and three Gaeltacht schools. The schools were located in the RoI (n = 12) and NI (n = 4). A key focus of the research was to investigate the broader communicative and sociolinguistic context within which the variety of Irish spoken by all-Irish pupils develops. The source of these non-target-like forms was also explored. Possible reasons for their occurrence include exposure to non-target-like forms used by other immersion pupils; the limited availability of good models of correct language use reflecting the situated nature of the learning environment; and the social stimulus to correct the errors that they were aware of.