Language Choices
Conditions, constraints, and consequences
Published on 13. February 1997
Book
Hardback
430 pages
978-1-55619-850-2 (ISBN)
Description
This volume is about various aspects of the theory and application of language contact and language conflict phenomena seen from an interdisciplinary perspective. The focus is on the linguistic, social, psychological, and educational issues (conditions, constraints, and consequences) involved in the status and use of languages in multilingual settings.
The book is divided into four sections dealing with the following areas: Theoretical issues: This section addresses key issues such as the nature of the concepts of language maintenance, language loyalty and language identity, language shift, language loss and language death. It includes the search for models of the often contradictory theoretical issues involved in language contact.
Language policy and language planning: This section examines the various language policies carried out by official agencies and focuses on the two basic options available to a multilingual nation: assimilation or pluralism.
Attitudes towards languages: The section is geared towards research into determinants of language attitudes, the methods for the measurements of attitudes, as well as the relationship between language policy and attitude change.
Codeswitching and language choice: The linguistic, social, psychological, and anthropological implications of using two different codes will be examined from different perspectives. Relevant research topics include: the situational uses of code-switching, linguistic and social constraints on codeswitching, and code-switching vs. borrowing. A further research paradigm deals with the search for relativized constraints, resulting from the interaction of universal principles and aspects particular to each codeswitching situation.
The book is divided into four sections dealing with the following areas: Theoretical issues: This section addresses key issues such as the nature of the concepts of language maintenance, language loyalty and language identity, language shift, language loss and language death. It includes the search for models of the often contradictory theoretical issues involved in language contact.
Language policy and language planning: This section examines the various language policies carried out by official agencies and focuses on the two basic options available to a multilingual nation: assimilation or pluralism.
Attitudes towards languages: The section is geared towards research into determinants of language attitudes, the methods for the measurements of attitudes, as well as the relationship between language policy and attitude change.
Codeswitching and language choice: The linguistic, social, psychological, and anthropological implications of using two different codes will be examined from different perspectives. Relevant research topics include: the situational uses of code-switching, linguistic and social constraints on codeswitching, and code-switching vs. borrowing. A further research paradigm deals with the search for relativized constraints, resulting from the interaction of universal principles and aspects particular to each codeswitching situation.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Amsterdam/Philadelphia
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 245 mm
Width: 164 mm
Weight
690 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-55619-850-2 (9781556198502)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Content
1. Language choices: Contact and conflict? - Introduciton (by Putz, Martin); 2. Section I: Language contact and language choice: Sociolinguistic and linguistic issues; 3. Language ecology - contact without conflict (by Muhlhausler, Peter); 4. Towards a dynamic view of multlingualism (by Jessner, Ulrike); 5. A matter of choice (by Coulmas, Florian); 6. The choice of linguae francae in triglossic environments in Africa (by Pasch, Helma); 7. Towards an ethnography of language shift: Goals and methods (by Sommer, Gabriele); 8. Language shift and sentence processing in Moroccan Arabic (by Aissati, Abderrahman el); 9. Is airbagging hip or mega-out? A new dictionary of anglicisms (by Gorlach, Manfred); 10. Section II: Language policy and language planning; 11. Lessons for Europe from language policy in Australia (by Phillipson, Robert); 12. National-variety purism in the naional centers of the German language (by Ammon, Ulrich); 13. Towards a plurilingual urban environment: language policy and language planning in Brussels (by Willemyns, Roland); 14. Double allegiance between nationalism and Western modernization in language choice: The case of Botswana and Tanzania (by Batibo, Herman M.); 15. An evaluative account of Ethiopia's new language policy (by Brenzinger, Matthias); 16. Looking at means and ends in language policy in Namibia (by Harlech-Jones, Brian); 17. Section III: Language use and attitudes towards language(s); 18. Language assesment tools: Uses and limitations (by Casad, Eugene H.); 19. An ethnographic method for studying attitudes towards child language (by De Houwer, Annick); 20. Language attitudes in Switzerland: French and German along the language border (by Weil, Sonia); 21. Communication in the Alemannic area: Language use and attitudes in Colmar and Freiburg (by Bister-Broosen, Helga); 22. Language attitudes and the linguistic construction of ethnic identity: The case of Krio in Sierre Leone (by Ehret, Rebecca); 23. Section 4: code-switching - One speaker, two languages; 24. Contacts and conficts - perspective from code-switching research (by Pfaff, Carol W.); 25. Code-switching processes: Alternation, insertion, congruent lexicalization (by Muysken, Pieter); 26. 'I'll meet you halfway with language': Code-switching within a south African urban context (by Finlayson, Rosalie); 27. Subject index; 28. List of Contributors