19. Language Maintenance, Language Shift, and Reversing Language Shift
- Tej K. Bhatia,
- William C. Ritchie
Published Online: 3 OCT 2012
DOI: 10.1002/9781118332382.ch19
Copyright © 2013 Blackwell Publishing, Ltd
Book Title
The Handbook of Bilingualism and Multilingualism, Second Edition
Additional Information
How to Cite
Fishman, J. A. (2012) Language Maintenance, Language Shift, and Reversing Language Shift, in The Handbook of Bilingualism and Multilingualism, Second Edition (eds T. K. Bhatia and W. C. Ritchie), John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK. doi: 10.1002/9781118332382.ch19
Editor Information
Syracuse University, USA
Publication History
- Published Online: 3 OCT 2012
- Published Print: 7 NOV 2012
Book Series:
ISBN Information
Print ISBN: 9781444334906
Online ISBN: 9781118332382
- Summary
- Chapter
- References
Keywords:
- language defense;
- language maintenance;
- language shift;
- mother-tongue transmission;
- reversing language shift (RLS);
- sociolinguistic processes
Summary
This chapter discusses societal phenomena and sociolinguistic processes, first from an American and programmatic perspective and then from an international and theoretical perspective. The chapter discusses language defense, which is a possible focus within both the status-planning and the corpus-planning halves of any successful language-planning enterprise that genuinely aims at assisting contextually weaker or threatened languages. It also discusses the socio-functions of language use from the point of view of reversing language shift (RLS) efforts for the purpose of attaining and augmenting intergenerational mother-tongue transmission. The chapter finally discusses Graded Intergenerational Dislocation Scale (GIDS), which is a conceptually parsimonious approach to both describing the situation and prescribing the necessary ameliorative steps, as the needs of threatened languages are concerned after an intergenerational period of Western-impacted dislocation.