LANGUAGE MAINTENANCE AND SHIFT

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

The study of language shift and maintenance constitutes a central focus of

contemporary linguistic anthropology and sociolinguistics. Even though some of
its central aspects have a rather long history in the field of study known as
language, culture, and society, in the most recent research agenda interest in
linguistic shift and maintenance has touched on almost all crucial areas of the
study of dynamic language phenomena. It engages a focus on both linguistic
structure and linguistic praxis, including language ideologies, discourse and
interaction, micro-as well as macro-sociological parameters, issues relating the
self and society to global concerns, and a feedback between what communities
understand as their sociolinguistic condition and what scholars, academics, and
various institutional sources of authority perceive as shift and maintenance.
In general, we consider the language or languages of a community as
undergoing shift when the codes under scrutiny are being either progressively or
more suddenly replaced by other languages in speakers’ repertoires, with
structural consequences for the receding codes, and sociocultural repercussions for
the communities involved. Conscious efforts centered around various attempts to
reverse the shift and retain or regain the structural and functional integrity of a
threatened language fall within the social dynamic that is called language
maintenance. Shift and maintenance are two poles in a complex dialectic since any
social or intellectual movement voicing an advocacy for maintenance would be
meaningless without the existence of historical contingencies that threaten to
push languages in the direction of shift.
To view language shift and maintenance as unilineal phenomena obeying
rules of a mechanistic nature where by the language of a politically dominant
community pushes, so to speak, out of use the expressive means of a subordinate
community and later forces come upon the scene to save the minority language,
even though true to some extent, would constitute an oversimplified perspective
on a rather complex process. Crucial questions are: what specific conditions
determine the shifting of a language, which kinds of agency are involved, and
which particular aspects of language structure and use are affected.
CHAPTER II
DISCUSSION
· LANGUAGE SHIFT
Language shift Language shift is language transfer or language
replacement where by a speech community of a language shifts to speaking
another language. It’s happens when the language of the wider society (majority)
displaces the minority mother tongue language over time in migrant communities
or in communities under military occupation. Therefore, when language shift
occurs, it shifts most of the time towards the language of the dominant group, and
the result could be the eradication of the local language.
Language shift in different communities.
o Migrant minorities. People usually switch rapidly from phrase to phrase for
instance. Reactions to code-switching styles are negative in many communities,
despite the fact that proficiency in intra sentential code-switching requires good
control of both codes. This may reflect the attitudes of the majority the
monolingual group in places like in North America and Britain. In places such as
New Guinea and East Africa where multilingualism is the norm, attitudes to
proficient code-switching are much more positive. The order of domains in which
language shift occurs may differ for different individuals and different groups, but
gradually over time the language of the wider society displaces the minority
language mother tongue. This may take three or four generations but sometimes
language shift can be complemented in just two generations. Typically, migrants
are virtually monolingual in their mother tongue, their children are bilingual, and
their grandchildren are often monolingual in the language of the ‘host’ country.
o Non-migrant communities. Language shift is not always the result of migration.
For this community, the home is the one most under any family’s control, language
may be maintained in more domains than just the home.
o Migrant majorities When language shift occurs, it is always shift towards the
language of the domain powerful group. A domain group has no incentive to adopt
the language of minority. The domain language is associated with status, prestige,
and social success. When a language dies gradually, as opposed to all its speakers
being wiped out by a massacre or epidemic, and the function of the language are
taken over in one domain after another by another.
o Attitudes and values. Positive attitudes support efforts to use the minority
language in a variety of domains, and this helps people resist the pressure from
the majority group to switch their language. There are certain social factors which
seem to retard wholesale language shift for a minority language group, at least for
a time. First, where language is considered an important symbol of a minority
group’s identity. Second, if families a minority group live near each other
frequently. Another factor which may contribute to language maintenance for
those who emigrate is the degree and frequency of contact with the homeland.
Factors contributing to language shift, those are economic, social, and political
factors. The most obvious factor is that the community sees an important reason
for learning the second language. The second important factor is their ethnic
language. Demographic factor is also relevant in accounting for the speed of
language shift. Resistance to language shift tends to last longer in rural than in
urban areas. Shift tends to occur faster in some groups than in other. The size of
the group is sometimes a critical factor. Although the pressures to shift are strong,
members of a minority community can take active steps to protect its language.
Where a language is rated as high in status by its users, and yet also regarded as
a language of solidarity to be used between minority group members. Different
factors combine in different ways in each social context, and the result are rarely
predictable. Monolingualism is regarded as normal, bilingualism is considered
unusual. Bilingualism and multilingulism which is normal.

Factors contributing to language shift:

1. Economic, social and political factor
1-The dominant language is associated with social status and prestige
2-Obtaining work is the obvious economic reason for learning another language
3-The pressure of institutional domains such as schools and the media

2. Demographic factors
1-Language shift is faster in urban areas than rural
2-The size of the group is sometimes a critical factor
3-Intermarriage between groups can accelerate language shift
3. Attitudes and values
Language shift is slower among communities where the minority language is
highly valued, therefore when the language is seen as an important symbol of
ethnic identity its generally maintained longer, and vice versa.

· LANGUAGE MAINTENANCE
Language maintenance is the degree to which an individual or groups
continues to use their language, particularly in bilingual or multilingual area or
among immigrant group whereas language shift is the process by which a new
language is acquired by new community usually resulting with the loss of the
community’s first language.
Language maintenance refers to the situation where speech community
continues to use its traditional language in the face of a host of condition that
might foster a shift to another language.
If language maintenance does not occur, there can be several results. One
is language death; speakers become bilingual, younger speakers become dominant
in another language, and the language is said to die. The speakers or the
community does not die, of course, they just become a subset of speakers of another
language. The end result is language shift for the population, and if the language
isn't spoken elsewhere, it dies.

How can a minority language be maintained?

1) A language can be maintained and preserved, when it's highly valued as an
important symbol of ethnic identity for the minority group.
2) If families from a minority group live near each other and see each other
frequently, their interactions will help to maintain the language.
3) For emigrate individuals from a minority group, the degree and frequency of
contact with the homeland can contribute to language maintenance.
4) Intermarriage within the same minority group is helpful to maintain the native
language.
5) Ensuring that the minority group language is used at formal settings such as
schools or worship places will increase language maintenance.
6) An extended normal family in which parents, children and grandchildren live
together and use the same minority language can help to maintain it.
7) Institutional support from domains such as education, law, administration,
religion and the media can make a difference between the success and failure of
maintaining a minority group language.

· LANGUAGE DEATH AND LANGUAGE LOSS

When all the people who speak a language die, the language dies with
them. Sometimes this fact is crystal clear. When a language dies gradually, as
opposed to all its speakers being wiped out by a massacre or epidemic, the process
is similar to that of language shift. The functions of the language are taken over
in one domain after another by another language. As the domains in which
speakers use the language shrink, the speakers of the dying language become
gradually less proficient in it. With the spread of a majority group language into
more and more domains, the number of contexts in which individuals use the
ethnic language diminishes. The stylistic range that people acquire when they use
a language in a wider range of domains disappeared.
With the spread of a majority group language into more and more domains,
the number of contexts in which individuals use the ethnic language diminishes.
The language usually retreats till it is used only in the home, and finally it is
restricted to such personal activities as counting, praying and dreaming.

Example of language loss:

Annie at 20 is a young speaker of Dyirbal, an Australian Aboriginal language. He
also speaks English which she learned at school. There is no written Dyirbal
material for her to read, and there are fewer and fewer contexts in which she can
appropriately hear and speak the language. So, she is steadily becoming less
proficient in it. She can understand the Dyirbal she hears used by older people in
her community, and she uses it to speak to her grandmother. But her grandmother
is scathing about her ability in Dyirbal, saying Annie doesn’t speak the language
properly.

· LANGUAGE REVIVAL
Sometimes a community becomes aware that its language is in danger of
disappearing and takes steps to revitalizes it.
Example:
In 1840, two thirds of the Welsh people spoke Welsh, but by 1980, only 20% of the
population spoke Welsh, therefore the Welsh people began a revival process
of Welsh language by using a Welsh-language TV channel and bilingual education
programs that used Welsh as medium of instruction at schools.