Riassunto personale derivato dallo studio integrato del libro consigliato "An introduction to Sociolinguistics"

Attitudes to code-switching

-People are often unaware of the fact that they code-switch and when their attention is

drawn to this behaviour, most tend to be embarassed and to apologise for it.

-Among Mexican Americans this rapid switch between Spanish and English is called Tex

Mex; in Canada is named joual between French and English, In Hemnesberget, it is

called knot.

-Reactions to code-switching are negative especially in the majority of monolingual groups

like in North America and Britain, but in places with multlingualism it is much more

positively evaluated.

Language shift: migrant minorities

1) A Hindu woman living in Coventry (Great Bretain), at home and with her workmates she

speaks Gujerati; she had learned English at school but she didn't need it much at work;

after she got promoted at her job, she needed to use English more, but still uses some

Gujerati with her old workmates; now that she learnt how to operate a word-processor, she

works in the main office and she uses English all the time at work. She gradually shifted to

English over a period of ten years.

-The order of domains in which language shift occurs may differ for different individuals

and groups.

2) In countries like England, Australia, New Zealand and the United States, the first

domain of the children of migrant is the school, where they communicate in English with

the teacher and other children; soon it becomes the language for talking to other children,

including their brothers and sisters; in many families English infiltrates the home through

the children and their parents begin to use English to them, especially if they are working

in jobs where they use English.

-There is pressure from the wider society: immigrants are seen as different and thus

regarded as threatening by the majority group. In fact, speaking good English is regarded

as a sign of successful assimilation.

-This generally takes from two up to four generations to be completed: typically migrants

are monolingual in their mother tongue, their children are bilingual, and their grandchildren

are often monolingual in the language of the host country, where it is possible to observe

the shift expanding through the different domains over time.

Language shift: non-migrant communities

Language shift is not always the result of migration, but also political, economic and social

factors can result in linguistic shift.

-Before World War I the town of Oberwart was part of Hungary and most of people

used Hungarian for compatriots and, because the town had been surrounded by German

speaking villages, many also used some German with outsiders. After the war, Oberwart

became part of Austria, and German became the official language (H), expanding

its domains, the language of economic advancement, and also young people began to use

German with their friends; Hungarian (L) was banned in schools, its domains contracted:

this marked the beginning of a period of language shift.

Nowadays, Hungarian is used only between older people and peasants, while German is

used by younger people or those dealing with professional jobs. Probably German

will completely displace Hungarian in Oberwart, unless something unexpected happens.

Language death and langauge loss

-Language death: when all the people speaking a language die, the language dies with

them. For example:

1) Manx completely died out in the Isle of Man when the last native speaker died in 1974;

2) Cornish disappeared from Cornwall;

3) half of the 300 Australian Aboriginal languages disappeared due to the diseases and

massacres by Europeans;

4) in Tasmania, the idg language died with extermination of the whole idg population.

-Language loss only:

1) a community, such as the Turkish community in England, may shift to English

representing a loss of language for the individuals concerned, but Turkish continue to exist

in Turkey;

-Language loss and death: when a language dies gradually, the process is smilar

to language shift:

1) A young speaker of Dyirbal (an Australian Aboriginal language) becomes less and less

proficient in it, since the domains in which he can appropriately hear and speak it

increasingly shrink, since they are covered by English, which he learned at school: for

example, since he can't remember grammar, vocabulary and sound rules (which

get simplified), her Dyirbal is very different from traditional Dyirbal of her grandmother. Also

the domains shrink: they start to be limited to family and finally in personal activities as

counting, praying and dreaming.

2) Maori language as well, nowadays is mostly limited to rituals and ceremonial occasions.

Language shift: economic, social and political factors

-Economic, social and political factors are important reasons for learning the second

language, for example to get better jobs: this can result in bilingualism and finally in

language shift:

1) a Chilean family went to live in New Zealand: their daughter realised that her knowledge

of Spanish made her seem odd to her school friends and shifted from Spanish to English.

-Without some active language maintenance, shift is almost inevitable: for example

when a migrant minority group moves to a monolingual society with a dominant language

used in almost every domain. They do not perceive any threat for their language because

they will start with the consideration "we all speak it" among the minor community or

group.

-The speed of shift can also vary according to the opportunities: in some contexts women

are the ones taking advantages of certain new jobs offered, or in other contexts (es New

Zealand), women have less education than their husbands (who find professional jobs)

and tend to stay home and maintain the minority language.

Language shift: demographic factors

Demographic factors are also relevant for the speed of language shift.

-Resistance to language shift tends to last longer in rural than in urban areas: rural groups

tend to be isolated from the centers and their minority language can cover all of their

needs:

1) in New Zealand Maori survived in relatively inaccessible rural areas, populated almost

entirely by Maori people; before television, the school was the only domain where English

was used.

-The size of the groups is another important factor: Spanish has survived well in the

United States due to the large numbers of speakers, because to maintain a language

speakers must have contexts and other speakers they can you use their language with.

-Intermarriages between groups can accelerate language shift: there's always one

language that tends to predominate in the home:

1) Despite its multicultural composition, Australia is predominantly a monlingual language

based on English: when a German man marries an English speaking Australian woman,

English is usually the dominant language at home. However, parents may slow down the

process of shift to English by using the language to the children. In particular some more

patriarchal populations like Greek and Italians in Australia, encourage the use of their

language at home, but once children start school, it will be even more complicate to

maintain the minority language.

Language shift: attitudes and values

Some features or parameteres contribute to the preservation of a langauge:

-value: Language shift tends to be slower among communities where the minority

language is highly valued, and seen as an important symbol of ethnic identity.

-international recongnized status: French in Canada; Greeks are product of the

contribution to philosophy.

Minority language maintainance

A minority language can be maintained according to certain factors:

1) value: where language is considered an important symbol of a minority group identity it

tends to be maintained.

2) internal contact: families from a miniority group live near each other and interact with

each other frequently (Chinese people living in Chinatown areas in America).

3) regular stream (external contact) of migrants and regular trips back home: this will

keep the need for using the language alive; in addition, Greek migrants living in New

Zealand, for example, aim of securing a good Greek husband and often have some

regular trips to their contry.

4) active steps to protect language: Greek and Chinese communities living in extended

families with grandparents, and discouraging intermarriages with the other communities.

5) institutional support: institutional support by government in education, law,

administration, religion and media is probably determinant in maintaining a minority

language.

-The concept of ethnolinguistc vitality, which is supposed to predict the destiny of

languages, focuses on three components: the status of language (as official), the size of

the groups of speakers and the institutional support.

Language revival

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

and takes steps to revitalise it, such as in Ireland, Wales, Scotland and New Zealand with

Maori.

-The success also depends on how far language loss has occurred, when there is a point

of no return, and on how strongly people want to revive the language:

1) Hebrew was revived in Israel after being dead for 1700 years.

2) Welsh was a flourishing language in the nineteenth century, an L language along

English as H language used for administration by the elite class. The work available

in mines and iron works attracted English immigrants and Welsh was overwhelmed; in

addition many Welsh-speaking people left their Welsh valleys during the depression,

reducing to 20 per cent the population speaking it. Thanks to certain active

steps (obtaining a Welsh language television channel and establishing a bilingual

education programm based on immersion [not teaching the language but teaching the

subjects with Welsh as mean of education]), the number of Welsh speaking people

increased in 2004. Now, it seems that, due to the positive economic situation, poor and

unemployed families, and also richer people looking for larger houses and land are moving

to Wales, are putting in danger the language again.

-Economic factors are very influential and they are often introduced by groups using a

majority language (suach as English, Spanish or French).

-Plus, the pressures towards language shift occur mainly in countries

where monolingualism is regarded as normal and bilingualism is considered unusual: in

fact, most of the world is bilingual or mulitlingual, and for them the idea that they should

stop speaking a language to learn another is inconceivable.

Linguistic varieties: vernacular languages

Over half the world's population is bilingual or multilingual; they use different varieties for

different purposes, just as in Bukavu or Singapore.

-There are various definitions and features attributed to the term vernacular:

1) is uncodified and unstandardised

2) has no official status (Buang in Papua New Guinea, Hindustani in India...)

3) many have never been written down or a written form is uncommon

4) are the first languages learned by people in multilingual