1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9911007457103321

Autore

Mufwene Salikoko S

Titolo

Ecological Perspectives on Language Endangerment and Loss / / by Salikoko S. Mufwene

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cham : , : Springer Nature Switzerland : , : Imprint : Springer, , 2025

ISBN

3-031-91034-6

Edizione

[1st ed. 2025.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (XX, 252 p. 14 illus., 12 illus. in color.)

Collana

Education Series

Disciplina

418

Soggetti

Applied linguistics

Language and languages - Study and teaching

Sociolinguistics

Applied Linguistics

Language Education

Lingüística aplicada

Pèrdua de les llengües

Sociolingüística

Llenguatge i llengües

Llibres electrònics

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di contenuto

1. What is a language? -- 2. The meaning of language endangerment and loss -- 3. A history of the world from the point of view of language vitality -- 4. Language diversification vs. language loss -- 5. Education in mother tongue but not necessarily in one’s heritage language.

Sommario/riassunto

This book discusses various issues arising from the dominant discourse on language endangerment and loss in linguistics. Are the terms mother tongue, heritage language, and ancestral language interchangeable? Does a child receiving formal education in a mother tongue different from that or those of his/her parents lose a culture that he/she “should” otherwise inherit? Is a language separate from the culture in which its speakers evolve and it is being practiced? Thus, is a population shifting to a dominant language necessarily abandoning its traditional culture ipso facto or is it also reshaping it along with that



associated with the new language into a new, mixed culture? Are cultures intended to be static? Must speakers of particular languages be wedded to them in the same way they are to their genes? What can we learn about language shift, language vitality, and human adaptiveness from the protracted history of mankind? These and a host of other issues regarding the intertwining of colonization, globalization, language, and culture are discussed in this book, inviting linguists and other interested scholars to be critical participants in the current debate. .