SOCIOLINGUISTICS

LESSON 3

INSTRUCTOR: LE NGUYEN NHU ANH

 LESSON 3
LANGUAGE
MAINTENANCE AND
SHIFT
Lesson Contents
Key takeaways:

Language shift in different communities

Language death and language loss

Factors contributing to language shift

How can a minority language be maintained?

Language revival
Language shift in different communities
Migrant minorities
Example 1

Gujerati: English:
home with family parents and language at workplace, office
grandparents, workmates of
same origin in shop floor

Maniben
10 years
Language shift in different communities
Migrant minorities
Language shift: gradually over time the language of the wider society displaces the
minority language mother tongue.
• from using one language for most purposes to using a different language
• from using two distinct codes in different domains, to using different varieties of just
one language
Language shift in different communities
Migrant minorities

English: talking to brothers or sisters

English: language at school for
-> talking to parents
instructions, talking to teachers and
-> parents talking to children
friends
Language shift in different communities
Migrant minorities

Immigrant = threat

Pressure from wider society => shifts can take from 2 to 4 generations
Language shift in different communities
Non-migrant minorities
Example 2

Farsi: Azeri:
official language of Iran, used Armeen's native language, not
in street signs taught to read and write, rich
literature in the language

Armeen
Language shift in different communities
Non-migrant minorities Before World War I: Hungarian: official language
Example 3 After World War I: German: official language, Hungarian
banned in schools
In the 1920s:
- Hungarian: peasants talking to each other -> low (L)
language, interactions with townspeople
- Functions of German expanded -> high (H) language,
language of school, official transactions, economic
advancement -> young people began to use German ->

City Hall of Oberwart, parents to children

Austria By the 1970s: little use for Hungarian

Language shift in different communities
Non-migrant minorities
Example 3
Language shift in different communities
Non-migrant minorities
Political, economic and social changes can occur within a community, and this may result
in linguistic changes too.
Language shift in different communities
Migrant majorities
speaks and
Example 4 understands
understand Maori, not fluent
best speaker English, only
speakers
of Maori know some
Maori phrases go to Maori
pre-school

Tamati
Language shift in different communities
Migrant majorities
Example 4

Monolingualism in Bilingualism in Maori Monolingualism in

Maori & English English

Late 19th century 1950s

Language shift in different communities
Migrant majorities
• When colonial powers invade other countries
their languages often become dominant.
• When multilingualism was not widespread in
an area, or where just one indigenous
language had been used before the
colonisers arrived, languages were often
under threat.

Colonial
Africa (1913)
Language shift in different communities
Migrant majorities
• When language shift occurs, it is almost always shift towards the language of the
dominant powerful group.
• A dominant group has little incentive to adopt the language of a minority.
• The dominant language is associated with status, prestige and social success.

Minority Minority
Dominant
group
Minority
Language death and language loss
Example 5
Language death and language loss
• Ayapaneco: name given by outsider
Example 5
• True name of language: Nuumte Oote
(True Voice)
• They finally spoke to each other in 2014!
• True reasons for disappearance of
Ayapaneco:
• Increasing urbanisation of the
population
• Compulsory education in Spanish
(political)
Language death and language loss
Example 6

Dyirbal: English:
no reading material, fewer school language
contexts

=> Vocabulary shrunk

=> Grammar affected by English
=> Competence erodes
Annie
=> Language death (gradually)
Language death and language loss

Language death: when all the people who speak a language die, the language dies with them.
When a language dies gradually, the process is similar to that of language shift.
=> domains taken over one after another
=> speakers become less proficient
=> language gradually dies Time
to go
Factors contributing to language shift
Economic, social and political factors
• The community sees an important reason for learning the second language:
Economic/Political reasons => bilingualism
• Bilingualism may or may not lead language shift (eg. stable diglossa)
• The community sees no reason to take active steps to maintain their ethnic language.
(not see any advantage/not realise danger of disappearing)
• The social and economic goals of individuals => speed of shift
• Young people: fastest shift
• Led by women or men depending on new jobs and gender roles
Factors contributing to language shift
Demographic factors
Example 7

Spanish: English:
no opportunity to use in her Language shift to English
place, seem odd to friends of completed by age 13 (no longer
school, refuse to use at home speaking Spanish)

Crystal
Factors contributing to language shift
Demographic factors
• Resistance to language shift tends to last longer in rural
than in urban areas.
• Rural: isolated from centers of political power for longer
• Examples: Ukrainians in Canada who live out of town on
farms, Maori in inaccessible rural areas
• Size of group: bigger => lower rates of shift
• Intermarriage between group => faster shift.
• Unless multilingualism is normal in a community, one
language tends to predominate in the home
Factors contributing to language shift
Demographic factors

Chinatown in
Manhattan
Factors contributing to language shift
Attitudes and values
Example 8
• Ione’s Family proud of Samoan culture
• Part of an active Samoan community
• Samoan used for church services and social events
• Samoan Youth Club (of church): play sports, dances, sing and
write songs, go on trips
• Ione is proud to be Samoan and is pleased his family taught
him his language. For him, being Samoan means knowing how
to speak Samoan.
How can a minority language be maintained?

‘. . . nothing benefits a country more than to treasure the languages and

cultures of its various peoples because in doing so, it fosters intergroup
understanding and realizes greater dividends in the form of originality,
creativity and versatility.’
Gao Hong-na (2011),
School of Chinese Language and Literature
Shaanxi Normal University
How can a minority language be maintained?

• Language is considered an important symbol of a minority group’s identity

• Families from a minority group live near each other and see each other frequently
• The degree and frequency of contact with the homeland.
How can a minority language be maintained?

• Social factors:
• extended family with grandparents and
unmarried relatives living in the same
house,
• discourage intermarriage
• language used in schools, places of
worship
• Institutional support: Education, law and
administration, religion and the media
How can a minority language be maintained?

• Ethnolinguistic vitality (EV): For predicting the likelihood that a language will be
maintained
• Three components:
• The status of the language as indicated by attitudes towards it;
• The size of the group who uses the language and their distribution (e.g.
concentrated or scattered);
• The extent to which the language enjoys institutional support.
Language revival
The history and revival of the Hebrew language
Language revival

• Sometimes a community becomes aware that its language is in danger of disappearing

and takes deliberate steps to revitalise it.
• Economic factors are likely to be important in assessing the long-term outcomes of
efforts at language maintenance and revival.
• Languages can be maintained, and even revived, when a group values their distinct
identity highly and regards language as an important symbol of that identity.
• Pressures towards language shift occur mainly in countries where monolingualism is
regarded as normal, and bilingualism is considered unusual.
 References
• Appel and Müysken (1987: 35) on Cherokee
• Appel and Müysken (1987), Baker (1992), Lewis (1978), www.statistics.gov.uk-
/census2001/profiles/commentaries/ethnicity.asp on Wales
• Bell, David and Starks (2000), Fairbairn-Dunlop (1984), Hirsh (1987),
Jamieson (1980), Roberts (1991, 2001), Verivaki (1991) for New Zealand
minority groups
• Benton (1991, 2001), Survey of the Health of the Māori Language (2001)

Resources • Bialystok (2007) on bilingualism and dementia

• Cenoz (2003) for an overview of the benefits of bilingualism
• Clyne (1982, 1985) on Australian ethnic minorities
• Email circulated by AILA Research Network on Language Policy 1 December
2006 on Yoruba
• Evans (2010) on Ubykh
• Gal (1979), Fenyvesi (2005) for Oberwart
• Giles (1977), Giles and Johnston (1987) on ethnolinguistic vitality
• Gorter (2006), Shohamy and Gorter (2009) on linguistic landscapes
• Leith (1983) on EnglishLinguistic Minorities Project (1985) on England
• Māori Language Commission/Te Taura Whiri for information on the health
of the Māori language: www.tetaurawhiri.govt.nz/english/issues_e/reo/
• Mirvahedi and Nasjian (2010) on Farsi and Azeri in Iran
• Schmidt (1985, 1990), Dixon (2002) on Aboriginal languages, including
Dyirbal
• Spolsky (1978, 2003) on Māori www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/13/me-
xico-language-ayapaneco-dying-out on Ayapaneco or Nuumte Oote