MODULE 1: Language Shift: Brief Introduction




Introduction Statement


            This module consists of a brief introduction of language shift and its definitions. Since there are two or more languages in contact (Sofu, 2009), language shift takes place and it is inevitable (Hurtado & Vega, 2004).  According to the literature, language shift is a phenomenon that happens over the course of several generations (Schmidt, 1990) and might be the consequence of unsuccessful inter-generational transmission of the heritage language and other cultural knowledge (Sulask, 2009). However, scholars have stated that even if a language shift has occurred across generations, individuals of the third or further generations might desire to recover their cultural and linguistic roots by reviving the language of their ethnic origins (Baker, 2006).

Historically, the United States has been a country where an uncountable number of immigrants arrive every day (Guardado, 2006). A notable phenomenon which has occurred among all the waves of immigrants that have come to this nation is the intergenerational language shift (Ishizawa, 2004) as a gauge for assimilation of the dominant culture (Hurtado & Vega, 2004). However, the linguistic and cultural heritages of those who are affected by the language shift seem to be dismissed. Additionally, some scholars have discussed that the United States is a widespread cemetery of foreign languages (Lieberson, Dalto,& Johnston, 1975; Portes & Hao, 1998). Language shift can be seen as the first step towards language death (Nawanz, Umer, Anjum, & Ramzan, 2012).

Definition of Language Shift

             What is the definition of language shift? Language shift has been defined as “the replacement of one language by another as the primary means of communication and socialization within a community” (Mesthrie, Swann, Deumert, & Leap, 2001, p. 253).  Also, it has been referred to as “the change from habitual use of one’s minority language to that of a more dominant language under pressures of assimilation from the dominant group” (Fishman, 1966, as cited in Donghui, 2010, p. 43).  In other words, language shift takes place when speakers of minority language give up their mother tongue in favor of the dominant language of the society where they reside (Sofu, 2009).
           
            According to Fishman, language shift presents a structure of a three-generation process which suggests that the immigrant generation learns as much English as is possible. They keep their native language at home. Then the second generation learns and uses English at school and workplace and may speak native language at home. By the third generation, English shifts to become the home language and knowledge of the heritage language disappears (as cited in Portes & Hao, 1998). See the video clip for a visual image of the three-generation process of language shift.

 Language Shift in the United States   

             In the United States, it is traditionally observed that millions of Americans never learned their parents’ native language (Stevens, 1985), because knowledge of their heritage language rarely lasted past the third generation (Portes & Hao, 1998). Therefore, it is common to see that children in this country, who come from a wide diversity of backgrounds most typically become English-dominant if not English monolingual by middle to late childhood (King & Fogle, 2006; Stoessel, 2002). This can be appreciated as one of the critical issues among the different generations of immigrant families caused by the language shift. Interactions between the first and third generation are often mediated by the second generation (Ishizawa, 2004; Portes & Rumbaut, 2001). This means that most of the time, grandparents need the parents’ intervention to communicate with their grandchildren because they do not share a common language (Whitbeck, Hoyt, & Huck, 1993).
            Previous studies suggested that language shift rates in the United States tend to be higher between native-born generations than among the foreign-born and first native-born generation (Stevens, 1985). Therefore, immigrant children and children of immigrant parents are much more likely than children of native-born parents to know and speak their parents’ native language (Lanza & Svendsen, 2007).
         
            Additionally, previous research showed that in current years, the three-generation process of language shift among Asian immigrants in the United States takes a similar pace as the European immigrants of the nineteenth century. They experienced a rapid intergenerational language shift where by the third generation, the individuals became English monolingual (Ishizawa, 2004).  On the contrary, it has been suggested that descendants of Hispanics are slower than others to shift their language use to only English (Alba, Logan, Lutz, & Stults, 2002), because Hispanics and more over Latinos tend to live in multigenerational households where their native language is always in place (Oropesa & Landale, 1997). However, as mentioned before, language shift always occurs, and cannot be avoided it (Hurtado & Vega, 2004).
           
            Intergenerational language shift can be perceived as a choice parents make, but the reality is that it is not always their decision (Lane, 2010; Schüpbach, 2009).  Innumerable factors influenced the disruption or loss of intergenerational language transmission, such as social networks, policies, demographic and cultural factors (Baker, 2006; Brown, 2008;  Matiki, 2009; Romaine, 2002). Continue with the following module to get more details about the factors that promote language shift across generations.  

Module 1: Goal & Objectives



Module Goal 


                The goal of this module is to briefly describe language shift and its definition through a literature review. 

 Module Objectives


Parents and potential visitors of this website will:

1.      Review the background of how language shift occurs across generations according to previous research.

2.      Recall the definition of language shift according to different scholars in the field of bilingual education and linguistics.

3.      Describe how the phenomenon of language shift is present in the United States according to different researchers.

Module 1: Activities


Activity 1: Defining language shift


               This video describes how language shift occurs. The purpose of showing this video is to provide a brief description of the process of language shift across generations.




Activity 2: Language shift: Three-generation process

 This video attempts to give the visitors of this website a visual image of the three-generation process of language shift. The video shows through different charts and pictures how language shift occurs across generations.




Activity 3: Questionnaire of language shift 

             This activity provides a few questions on language shift. Its purpose is to help visitors of the website to identify if they are going through the process of language shift.

Questions:
  1. Do you speak your native language in your informal gatherings?
  2. Are you able to communicate with your previous generations in your native language?
  3. Do you think that the use of your native language helps you to become part of the dominant culture?
  4. Are you able to communicate with the older generations without the necessity of using the meditation of someone else in your family?
  5. Do you consider that your native language is very necessary for transmitting your ethnic culture to the next generations?
  6. Do you believe that language shift has negative effects on your family interactions and your personal cultural identity?
  7. Would you like to be able to know more about your native language?

            If you respond No to the first four questions, you may be going through the process of language shift. Also, if your answers were yes to the last three questions, it may be possible that you might be considering revitalizing your native language to reverse the language shift that has occurred across generations.

Activity 4: What the experts say about language shift- 1 of 4 Joshua Fishman and Elliot Sperling video


With this video, the visitors of this website can see an important researcher, Joshua Fishman, in the field of linguistics expressing his opinion about language shift in minority communities. The goal of this activity is to provide information on a scholar’s point of view about combating language shift in order to help visitors of the website to get a better understanding on the topic.


Module 1: Ancillary Links, Resources and/or Materials


1. Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States.

            The purpose of this link is to provide information on the statistics of immigrants in the United States and the historical numbers of immigrants in the country.


          The purpose of providing this link is to show the current rates of non-English languages used at home in the United States.


           With this link, visitors of the website can see an example of how language shift occurs. This link provides a presentation on how Spanish language has been lost along the US-Mexico Border.


           The purpose of providing this link is to show a book that describes language shift and the factors that influence the intergenerational process of language shift.


           This purpose of this link is to offer information about how language shift currently is taking place in the United States, according to the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, Marty Abbott.


           This link provides a journal article that describes the geography of language shift in ethnic immigrant communities in Texas. The purpose of this link is to give an example of how the geographic patterns of language shift over time.

Module 1:Glossary




i. Dominant language: language used for communication in the public domain (media, government, educational institutions) (de Jong, 2011, p.259).

ii. Immigrants: people or individuals who have migrated voluntarily to another country, generally for permanent residence (Grant & Ladson-Billings, 1997).

iii. Intergenerational language transmission: language acquisition context where children acquire their native language from their parents (de Jong, 2011, p.256).

iv. Language death: “a process that occurs in unstable bilingual or multilingual speech communities as a result of language shift form regressive minority language to dominant majority language”. The final result of this process is when no one speaks the language any more (Nawaz et al., 2012, p. 73).

v. Language recovery: the process of providing native language and culture instruction to students who have lost their native language a through assimilation to English and American culture (Lemberger, 1997, p. 176).

vi. Language shift: the replacement of one language by another as the primary means of communication and socialization within a community (Mesthrie, Swann, Deumert, & Leap, 2001, p. 253).

vii. Minority language: language used by language groups who are politically and socially placed in a minority situation (de Jong, 2011, p.257).

viii. Monolingual: people who are able to speak or understand only one language (Grant & Ladson-Billings, 1997).

ix. Native language: the language (or languages) a child grows up speaking (de Jong, 2011, p.258).

x. Three generation process of linguist shift: process where a linguistic shift occurs three generations. Speakers discontinue the use of their native language across generations. The shift completes when most of the third generation are monolingual speakers (Baker, 2006, p. 61; Fishman in as cited in Portes & Hao, 1998, p.269).

Module 1: References

References
Alba, R.,  Logan, J., Lutz, A., & Stults, B. (2002). Only English by the third generation? Loss and preservation of the mother tongue among the grandchildren of contemporary immigrants. Demography, 39, 467–84.
Baker, C. (2006). Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism (4th Ed.). Buffalo: Multilingual Matters.
Brown, N. (2008). Language shift or maintenance? An examination of language usage across four generations as self-reported by university age students in Belarus. Journal of Multilingual & Multicultural Development, 29(1), 1-15.
De Jong, E. J. (2011). Foundations for multilingualism in education: From principles to practice. Philadelphia: Caslon Publishing.
Donghui, Z. (2010). Language maintenance and language shift among Chinese immigrant parents and their second-generation children in the U.S. Bilingual Research Journal, 33(1), 42-60. doi:10.1080/15235881003733258
Grant, C. A., & Ladson-Billings, G. (eds.). (1997). Dictionary of multicultural education. Arizona:Orix.
Guardado, M. (2006). Engaging language and cultural spaces: Latin American parents' reflections on language loss and maintenance in Vancouver. Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 9(1), 51-72.
Hurtado, A., & Vega, L. A. (2004). Shift happens: Spanish and English transmission between parents and their children. Journal of Social Issues, 60(1), 137-155. doi:10.1111/j.0022-4537.2004.00103
Ishizawa, H. (2004). Minority language use among grandchildren in multigenerational households. Sociological Perspectives, 47(4), 465-483.
King, K., & Fogle, L. (2006). Bilingual parenting as good parenting: Parents’ perspectives on family language policy for additive bilingualism. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 9(6), 695-712.
Lane, P. (2010). We did what we thought was best for our children: A nexus analysis of language shift in a Kven community. International Journal of the Sociology Of Language, 2010(202), 63-78. doi:10.1515/IJSL.2010.014
Lanza, E., & Svendsen, B. (2007). Tell me who your friends are and I might be able to tell you what language(s) you speak: Social network analysis, multilingualism, and identity. International Journal of Bilingualism, 11(3), 275-300.
Lemberger, N. (1997). Bilingual education: Teachers’ narratives. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
Lieberson, S., Dalto, G., & Johnston, M. E. (1975). The course of mother tongue diversity in nations. American Journal of Sociology,  81, 34-61.
Matiki, A. J. (2009). Re-examining language shift cases in Malawi in the context of Fishman’s GIDS. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 30(6), 535-546. doi:10.1080/01434630903215117.
Mesthrie, R., Swann, J., Deumert, A., & Leap, W.L. (2001). Introducing sociolinguistics. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.
Nawaz, S., Umer, A., Anjum, F., & Ramzan, M. (2012). Language shift: An analysis of factors involved in language shift. Global Journal of Human Social Science, Linguistics & Education, 12(10), 73-80.
Oropesa, R. S., & Landale, N. S. (1997). In search of the new second generation: Alternative strategies for identifying second generation children and understanding their acquisition of English.  Sociological Perspectives, 40, 429–55.
Portes, A., & Hao, L. (1998). E Pluribus Unum: Bilingualism and loss of language in the second generation. Sociology of Education, 71(4), 269-294.
Portes, A., & Rumbaut, R. (2001). Legacies: The story of the immigrant second generation. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press and Russell Sage Foundation.
 Romaine, S. (2002). The impact of language policy on endangered languages. International Journal on Multicultural Societies, 4(2), 1-28.
Schmidt, A. (1990). The loss of Australia’s aboriginal language heritage. Canberra., Australia: Aboriginal Studies Press.
Schüpbach, D. (2009). Language transmission revisited: Family type, linguistic environment and language attitudes. International Journal of Bilingual Education & Bilingualism, 12(1), 15-30. doi:10.1080/13670050802149499
Sofu, H. (2009). Language shift or maintenance within three generations: Examples from three Turkish-Arabic-speaking families. International Journal of Multilingualism, 6(3), 246-257. doi:10.1080/14790710902878684
Stevens, G. (1985). Nativity, intermarriage, and mother-tongue shift. American Sociological Review, 50(1), 74-83.
Stoessel, S. (2002). Investigating the role of social networks in language maintenance and shift. International Journal of The Sociology Of Language, 2002(153), 93-131.
Suslak, D. F. (2009). The sociolinguistic problem of generations. Language & Communication, 29(3), 199-209. doi:10.1016/j.langcom.2009.02.003

Whitbeck, L. B., Hoyt, D. R., & Huck, S. M. (1993). Family relationship history, contemporary parent-grandparent relationship quality, and the grandparent- grandchild relationship. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 55, 1025–35.