Testing is increasingly recognized as a vital part of language revitalization. I demonstrate here that assessment of linguistic knowledge should also be part of the planning process that precedes the creation of a revitalization program. I take as an example Jejueo, the language of Korea's Jeju Island. Whereas previously published work…

The present study is concerned with language contact between Creole English and Spanish spoken by bilingual West Indians who live in Panama City, Panama. The goal of this study is to examine the speech patterns of monolinguals of Creole English and Spanish and Spanish-Creole English bilinguals in the local communities of this region, by employing…

Studies the English-speaking and French-speaking populations of the Gaspe, focusing on socioeconomic status, mother tongue retention and bilingualism rates. This is followed by a detailed study of a small, linguistically mixed community in Gaspe East, reconstructing the community as it was in 1925 and describing it as it was in 1970. (Author/RM)

Brule and Isleno dialects of Spanish came to Louisiana from the Canary Islands simultaneously in the 18th century but have remained relatively isolated from each other and face extinction. Although they show common evidence of their origin, each has distinctive lexical, phonological, and syntactic features, some from contact with Acadian French or…

Language choice (LC) for literacy must consider mother tongue, language of first sight, local lingua francas, and any readily accessible world language. Common but false assumptions regarding LC are noted: multilingualism as a barrier to development, the necessity of a world language, and the permanance of language patterns. (Contains four…

Describes the high Italian speech variety commonly used by Italian Americans, based on a study of 39 Italian Americans that included interviews and questionnaires. Dialectal characteristics, convergence with English, and language maintenance and language shift in the Italian-American community are discussed. (CB)

Investigates whether speakers of standard German and Dutch maintain their language variety better than speakers of German and Dutch dialects. Also investigates the phenomenon of diglossia in immigrant societies and shows that the type of diglossia prevalent in the immigrant's home country significantly affects the language situation in the new…

A non-structural model is proposed for quantifying and analyzing the dynamics of language attrition, particularly among immigrants in a second language environment, based on examination of disfluencies (hesitations, errors, and repairs). The first chapter discusses limitations of the conventional synchronic textual approach to analyzing language…

A communicativity index (Index I) is described that measures the potential communication function performed by a given language in a designated communication situation. Significant sociolinguistic contrasts between the language situations of West Malaysia and Singapore are revealed by applying this index. (PMJ)

Findings about black language and speaking behavior may help increase understanding and accommodation of black students in education. While something is known about Black English as a medium of communication, little is known about the language itself. The teacher must learn to recognize basic linguistic and performance features of black English,…

Language attrition research usually attempts to elicit all types of usage from speakers of all fluency levels in a dying language in order to abstract changing linguistic patterns from situational variation. Informants adept at hiding their vernacular and improvising in an obsolescing variety are reluctant to admit to such scrutiny. In a…

It is proposed that a process of "chiquitafication" has diminished the complexity of the languages and cultures of over 22 million Latinos living in the United States, and that this process has repercussions for their linguistic security, language maintenance, and ultimately, their hopes for a good life. Focus is on three aspects of this…

Sociolinguistically oriented studies of the Chicano speech community cluster around two subject areas: (1) conversational code-switching, and (2) language loyalty and maintenance. Research representative of each of these areas is reviewed. It is felt that the large body of findings regarding the language use of the Chicanos have failed to take the…

This is a study of three contiguous generations of the extended families of Olivo and Atilano that emigrated from Central Mexico to Illinois. The general purpose of the investigation is to describe the development of the home language (Spanish) in an emigrant environment by concentrating on the generation as a transitional stage. In particular,…

A comparison of the linguistic contexts of Scotland and Taiwan focuses on three aspects: (1) existence of two linguistic codes belonging to the same language family; (2) the status of one of those languages as the standard set by a larger, more powerful neighbor from whose perspective any other variety is likely to look like a dialect; and (3) the…