Resumen de Tourism, transnationality and ethnolinguistic vitality: the Welsh in the Chubut Province, Argentina
This article aims to develop the concept of ethnolinguistic vitality by adopting a qualitative approach to vitality rather than the statistical approach traditionally used. Ten small-size focus group style interviews were held with members of the Welsh-Argentinean community in the Chubut Province in the south of Argentina in order to explore perceptions of their community's vitality. Recent research has shown that, using the quantitative methodology originally designed by Giles, Bourhis and Taylor, the community has a higher than predicted vitality due to a high status and medium institutional support which counteract the small population. However, these focus groups uncovered different facets of vitality not clearly identified in previous literature. These include the importance of heritage tourism and marketing to the local community. Also noted was the effect of transnational contact with a similar ethnic group upon language and cultural maintenance and, finally, the role of the wider linguistic economy, as opposed to the traditional ‘in-’ and ‘out-groups’ of the ethnolinguistic vitality paradigm. These are issues that are difficult to build into a simplistic quantitative model of vitality and therefore greater qualitative data from informants are required in order to arrive at conclusions regarding a community's vitality.
