Explores several models of cognitive and structural perspectives involving minority-language situations, and attempts to integrate them into a framework of predictive propositions that elaborate psychosocial climates of maintenance, majority-minority encounter, and interactive strategies. (65 references) (Author/CB)

Presents an overview of the geological and historical context of Catalan, explaining that today, Catalonia has both a political and cultural definition. Section 1 focuses on territory in political and cultural terms. Section 2 discusses Catalan and the Romance dialect continuum. Section 3 examines cultural centers and political allegiances. (SM)

Synthesizes work on research concerned with the influence of a second language on speaker's first language competence in late bilingualism. Research in the areas of phonology, morphosyntax, lexis, semantics, pragmatics, rhetoric, and conceptual representations suggests that borrowing, convergence, shift, restructuring, and loss result from the…

A study of the ethnic change experienced by 477 French Canadians in their contact with English Canadian influences demonstrated that ethnic affiliation and acculturative tendency were two key dimensions of ethnic change. Findings support the ethnic pluralism (multicultural) perspective in describing ethnic change. (SLD)

Discusses Ocracoke English as an endangered dialect, examining the social responsibility linguists and dialectologists should assume in documenting and disseminating information about the state of moribund dialects and describing a community-based, collaborative model involving the development of materials and programs that foster knowledge of and…

Discusses the Literacy Campaign in English, one of three native language extensions of the Nicaraguan Sandinistas' National Literacy Crusade, explaining how it highlights how state policy and grassroots initiatives interact in indigenous/ethnic language maintenance in Latin America. Analyzes literacy materials designed for the English-speaking…

Discusses the broadcast media in Irish in Ireland in relation to language planning and language maintenance. (Author/VWL)

Profiles four American Indians of Oklahoma who strove to preserve their languages and traditions and pass them on to future generations: Kiowa grandmother and educator Evalu Ware Russell, Cherokee minister Sam Hider, Kialegee (Muskogee Creek) elder James Wesley, and Choctaw leader Charley Jones. (SV)

Until about 20 years ago, the Navajo language was one of the most resilient American Indian languages in modern U.S. history. Today, at the dawn of the 21st century, that has all changed. Some changes can be attributed to the normal dynamics of cultural transmission that affect language use. Some others, such as the dramatic shift toward English…

What motivates adult language learners in the city of Belfast to enrol and remain in an Irish class in the first years of the twenty-first century is the subject of the research study reported here. The research is placed within the context of the long history of interest in Irish revival in the city as far back as the eighteenth century and is…

The overarching question in this article is: What contextual and individual-level factors influence the decision to maintain Spanish, or see to it that one's children learn and maintain it? I first model the configuration of area-specific circumstances that influence the degree to which Spanish-English bilingualism (as opposed to English…

Language socialization research has traditionally focused on how young children are socialized into the norms and patterns of their culture by and through language. Research in this tradition has typically conceived of the process as relatively static, bounded and relatively unidirectional. This article, based on a long-term ethnographic…

The paper investigates the perspectives of Greek origin people as regards their intention to maintain their ancestral culture within the Australian context of social values. This qualitative research study, influenced by Humanistic Sociology, analyses data collected through questionnaires from first and second generation parents and teachers of…

This paper examines the use of regional languages and dialects of Dutch in the Netherlands, and the relation of such to the Dutch language proficiency of primary school pupils. The data from the large-scale primary education PRIMA cohort study are analysed. A total of nearly 35,000 pupils participated in five measurement rounds covering the period…

Inuktitut, the Eskimo language spoken in Eastern Canada, is one of the few Canadian indigenous languages with a strong chance of long-term survival because over 90% of Inuit children still learn Inuktitut from birth. In this paper I review existing literature on bilingual Inuit children to explore the prospects for the survival of Inuktitut given…