Language endangerment: a multidimensional analysis of risk factors

IF 2.1 0 LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS Journal of Language Evolution Pub Date : 2020-01-01 DOI:10.1093/jole/lzaa002
L. Bromham, Xia Hua, C. Algy, F. Meakins
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引用次数: 14

Abstract

The world is facing a crisis of language loss that rivals, or exceeds, the rate of loss of biodiversity. There is an increasing urgency to understand the drivers of language change in order to try and stem the catastrophic rate of language loss globally and to improve language vitality. Here we present a unique case study of language shift in an endangered Indigenous language, with a dataset of unprecedented scale. We employ a novel multidimensional analysis, which allows the strength of a quantitative approach without sacrificing the detail of individual speakers and specific language variables, to identify social, cultural, and demographic factors that influence language shift in this community. We develop the concept of the ‘linguatype’, a sample of an individual’s language variants, analogous to the geneticists’ concept of ‘genotype’ as a sample of an individual’s genetic variants. We use multidimensional clustering to show that while family and household have significant effects on language patterns, peer group is the most significant factor for predicting language variation. Generalized linear models demonstrate that the strongest factor promoting individual use of the Indigenous language is living with members of the older generation who speak the heritage language fluently. Wright–Fisher analysis indicates that production of heritage language is lost at a significantly faster rate than perception, but there is no significant difference in rate of loss of verbs vs nouns, or lexicon vs grammar. Notably, we show that formal education has a negative relationship with Indigenous language retention in this community, with decreased use of the Indigenous language significantly associated with more years of monolingual schooling in English. These results suggest practical strategies for strengthening Indigenous language retention and demonstrate a new analytical approach to identifying risk factors for language loss in Indigenous communities that may be applicable to many languages globally.
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语言危害:风险因素的多维分析
世界正面临着一场语言丧失危机,这场危机与生物多样性的丧失速度不相上下,甚至超过了这一速度。人们越来越迫切需要了解语言变化的驱动因素,以试图遏制全球语言损失的灾难性速度,提高语言活力。在这里,我们展示了一个关于濒危土著语言语言转变的独特案例研究,其数据集规模空前。我们采用了一种新颖的多维分析方法,在不牺牲个别说话者和特定语言变量的细节的情况下,利用定量方法的优势,来确定影响这个社区语言转变的社会、文化和人口因素。我们发展了“语言类型”的概念,即个人语言变体的样本,类似于遗传学家将“基因型”作为个人基因变体的样本的概念。我们使用多维聚类来表明,虽然家庭和家庭对语言模式有显著影响,但同伴群体是预测语言变异的最重要因素。广义线性模型表明,促进个人使用土著语言的最有力因素是与能流利地说传统语言的老一辈成员生活在一起。Wright–Fisher分析表明,传统语言的产出损失速度明显快于感知,但动词与名词、词汇与语法的损失速度没有显著差异。值得注意的是,我们发现正规教育与该社区的土著语言保留率呈负相关,土著语言使用率的降低与英语单语教育年限的增加显著相关。这些结果为加强土著语言保留提出了切实可行的战略,并展示了一种新的分析方法,用于识别土著社区语言损失的风险因素,该方法可能适用于全球许多语言。
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来源期刊
Journal of Language Evolution
Journal of Language Evolution Social Sciences-Linguistics and Language
CiteScore
4.50
自引率
7.70%
发文量
8
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