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SOCIOLINGUISTICS:Language Maintenance, Shift and Death
This document discusses several topics related to language contact, borrowing, maintenance, shift, and death. It defines key terms like borrowing, language maintenance, and language shift. It also identifies several factors that can influence language shift, such as demographic, attitude/value, economic, social/political factors. Finally, it discusses different types of language death like gradual, sudden, radical, and bottom-to-top death and identifies several causes of rapid language loss and endangerment on a global scale, including natural/environmental causes, political/military causes, social causes, language policy causes, cultural/religious causes, and linguistic causes.
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SOCIOLINGUISTICS:Language Maintenance, Shift and Death
- 1. Jholy O. Quintan JobelleL. Peñano Bryan E. Novio
- 2. CONTACT and BORROWING Languagecontact has traditionally been a subfield of historical linguistics, concentrating on changes in language that are due to external contact with other languages, rather than with internal change. One concern of language-contact studies that overlaps with the discipline of historical linguistics is the nature of borrowing
- 3. • BORROWING –is a technical term for the incorporation of an item from one language into another
- 4. • Sociolinguistics aremore interested in the cultural aspect of borrowings, since the process of borrowing is alsoa process of learning and acculturation.
- 5. LANGUAGE MAINTENANCE denotes thecontinuing use of language in the face of competition from regionally and socially powerful language • Something refers to a situation when members of community attempt to keep the language they have always used.
- 6. LANGUAGE SHIFT denotes thereplacement of one language by another as the primary means of communication and socialization within the community
- 7. a. Demographic factor b.Attitude/Value factors c. Economic factor d. Social and political factor Factors affecting LanguageShift (Holmes, 1992: 65-70)
- 8. A factor playingrole in the process of language shift in which there is a community of language moving to a region whose a language is different from another language, thus presence of tendency to shift toward a new language. Let’s see the example at the following: 1. “ I was born in Lombok so, my mother toungue is Sasaknese which is used by the whole neighborhood of mine as well as a media of instructional chores in my school. Then, I move to Jakarta, since then I always talk in Bahasa Indonesia to my new neighbor, in which using Sasaknese only with my family at home. Finally, due to presence of high frequency of contact with people coming from different ethnic group using Bahsa Indonesia, gradually I shift my Sasaknese. “ Demographic factor
- 9. A.Negative attitudes (determinentaffecting to shift) A negative attitude toward the language can also accelerate language shift, it can be occuring when an ethnic language is not highly valued and it is not seen as a symbol of identity. Holmes stated that “young people are the fastest to shift languages (1992; 60). Attitudes/values
- 10. b. Possitive attitudes(factors to language maintenance) Possitive might support effects to use the minority language in variety of domains and also help people resist to pressure from the majority group to switch to their language (Holmes, 1992: 68). The language would not be shift in which the minority language is highly valued thus, when the language is seen as an important symbol of ethnic identity, it is generally maintained longer. There two examples of language maintenance through possitive attitude highly valued as : a. Frence maintenace in Canada as well as in U.S due to Frence internationally contribute to the possitive attitude as an national status so, it has been an international prestige. b. Most of the Greek immigrants to another country. Due to the contribution of Greek to Western Philosophy and Culture, thus this awareness helps them to resist their language from another language.
- 11. a. A teenagermoving to big city, gradually he tries to abondan his indigenous language in cese having various levels of formality. b. It is considered that the usage of ethnic language would be quitely difficult as well as inproper as a medium of instructional activities in school. c. They must be required to shoose an another language to talk with other people in formality. d. The speaker felt more prestigious when using other languages than using his ethnic language. e. The speaker does not have the need to show his identity with ethnic language rathen than by a new language he would like to part of the global economic, politic, social, and culture. Motivations of negative attitude to language shift
- 12. Main factor leadingtoward language shift from using one language to another language (abondaned), in which the most obvious factor is that the community sees an important reason for learning the second language is economic (Holmes, 1992: 65) Economic factor encouraging to language decline always results in billigualism where it is as a precursor of language shift. As Holmes says that “ Job seekers see the importance of learning a new language which is widely used in business. Economic Factor
- 13. Political factor imposeson language shift in multilingual country, the authority usually chooses one language as the lingua franca to unify the various kinds of ethnic groups, consequently most of the speakers having particular indigenous langauge decrease. “ The official languages of many African countries were determined by their former colonialists. Then, they replaced the tribal African languages so, they led to the langauge deplacement leading to language shift (Bayer: 2005).” Social Factor where the language shift occuring as most communities considering another language in predominantly monolingual society that dominated Political and social factors
- 14. LANGUAGE DEATH is usedwhen that community is the last one(in the world) to use that language • A language dies when nobody speaks it any more. (Crystal, 2003: 1) • When all the people who speak a language die, the language dies with them. (Holmes, 1992: 61)
- 15. 4 Types ofLanguage Death • GRADUAL DEATH – involves gradual replacement of one language by another Ex. Replacement of Gaelic by English in parts of Scotland • SUDDEN DEATH – rapid extinction of language, without an intervening period of bilingualism. The last speaker is monolingual in the dying language, as in the case os Tasmanian.
- 16. • RADICAL DEATH– due to severe political repression, a community may opt, out of self- defence, to stop speaking their language. The last speakers are thus fluent in the dying language, but don’t actually use it or transmit it to their children • BOTTOM-TO-TOP’ DEATH – a language ceases to be used as a medium of conversation, but may survive in special use like a religion or folk songs
- 17. RAPID LOSE ANDENDANGERMENT OF LANGUAGES IS OCCURING ON A GLOBAL SCALE. WHAT ARE SOME OF THE CAUSES OF THIS? • Tsunoda (2006, p. 57) claims that a language may be endangered due to language shift. He further divides the causes of language endangerment into: 1.natural/environmental 2.political, military 3.social 4.language policy 5.cultural/religious 6.linguistic
- 18. Tsunoda (2006,pp. 58-61) CausesExplanation Natural/ Environmental Decline or loss of population.: natural catastrophes (volcanic eruption, earthquake, droughts, floods and famine), diseases, in particular imported or epidemic diseases, such as sexual transmitted disease, smallpox, measles, influenza, common cold, leprosy, malaria, violent acts by humans such as warfare, slavery, massacres, and genocide Political/ Military Dispossession of the land: Due to invasion, conquest, colonization, settlement or grazing. Relocation of the people: People may be relocated to an unfamiliar-and often inhospitable- environment for settlement. Relocation may be voluntary as in the case of migration but in most cases relocation is often executed by force, for example, as prisoners. (In Tokuyama-mura, Japan, in a deep valley north of Nagoya, was well known of its unique features of its dialect. The government decided to build a dam there, to secure water supplies and for human consumption and irrigation. The villagers were forced to leave their home village, and were dispersed, losing contact with their fellow villagers.
- 19. Tsunoda (2006,pp. 58-61) CausesExplanation Social Mixing of speakers of different languages. This may be caused by boarding schools, reservations/settlements, intermarriage. Improved communication and mass media in the dominant language (TV, radio broadcast, films, videos, CDs, printing press such as newspapers, magazines and books) Indifferent attitude: Language apathy and language negligence. Some people do not care but it is too late when a language is gone. Language Policy Assimilation policy and language policy. a.The education of children: this has promoted the dominant language. It has drastic negative effects on the minority language. b.Imposition of the dominant language: prohibition of the use of the indigenous language in education, punishment and humiliation for the use of indigenous language.
- 20. Tsunoda (2006,pp. 58-61) CausesExplanation Linguistic Relative lack of indigenous language literature. Tsunado states that Schmidt (1990, p.17) notes that aboriginal language literature, if it is available, is usually limited to the spheres of religion (hymn books, Bible translations), linguistic work (grammar and translation), school curriculum materials (basic readers, elementary storybooks). Moreover, the format and quality of production of aboriginal language literature is very limited to basic black and white photocopied materials which compare very poorly to the glossy, colour illustrated and often elaborated presentation of dominant languages such as the English literature. This creates a rather poor impression of the worth of the aboriginal language as against English.
- 21. Tsunoda (2006,pp. 58-61) CausesExplanation Linguistic Language purism: Some people may choose to retain their language in its “pure form”. It may seems strange but according to Tsunado, Fishman (1964,p.64) reports that “language purism can lead to language loss”. a.The younger generation of a community refrains from speaking their traditional language because they know or think that their language is incorrect or wrong and/or because they are criticized for speaking that way. b.In return, the older generation may prefer not to teach the language to the younger generation at all, rather than to have it “corrupted” by the younger generation which does not speak it well or does not treasure their ancestral language.
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