
Language Maintenance and Language Death
The decline of Texas Alsatian
Karen A. Roesch(Author)
John Benjamins Publishing Co
Published on 28. February 2012
Book
Hardback
253 pages
978-90-272-0288-8 (ISBN)
Description
This book provides the first extensive description of Texas Alsatian, a critically-endangered Texas German dialect, as spoken in Medina County in the 21st century. The dialect was brought to Texas in the 1840s by colonists recruited by French entrepreneur Henri Castro and has been preserved with minimal change for six generations. Texas Alsatian has maintained lexical, phonological, and morphosyntactic features which differentiate it from the prevalent standard-near varieties of Texas German. This study both describes its grammatical features and discusses extra-linguistic factors contributing to the dialect's preservation or accelerating its decline, e.g., social, historical, political, and economic factors, and speaker attitudes and ideologies linked to cultural identity. The work's multi-faceted approach makes its relevant to a broad range of scholars such as dialectologists, historical linguists, sociolinguists, ethnographers, and anthropologists interested in language variation and change, language and identity, immigrant dialects, and language maintenance and death.
Reviews / Votes
Language Maintenance and Language Death represents the culmination of Roesch's vital work to document a moribund language. This book is essential reading for every student or scholar of German varieties in the United States, and it will have a place on the bookshelf of scholars withmore general interests in German and American sociolinguistics. -- Christopher Sapp, University of Mississippi, in American Speech 88(2): 219-222, 2013
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Amsterdam
Netherlands
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
+ index
Dimensions
Height: 245 mm
Width: 164 mm
Weight
650 gr
ISBN-13
978-90-272-0288-8 (9789027202888)
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
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
02/2012
1st Edition
John Benjamins Publishing Company
€123.99
Available for download
Person
Content
1. List of tables; 2. List of figures; 3. List of illustrations; 4. Chapter One. Introduction; 5. Chapter Two. The sociohistorical context; 6. Chapter Three. The lexicon of Texas Alsatian; 7. Chapter Four. The phonology of Texas Alsatian; 8. Chapter Five. The morphosyntax of Texas Alsatian; 9. Chapter Six. Language attitudes; 10. Chapter Seven. Language maintenance and death; 11. Appendices; 12. References; 13. Index