Search results for "Language shift"

Language shifts in the language biographies of immigrants from Upper Silesia residing in Germany

2020

Abstract The main objective of the article is to illustrate how language ideologies and language management at the macro-level (state language policy), micro-level (in families) and meso-level (local communities) influence language change and the conceptualization of multilingualism of immigrants from Upper Silesia residing in Germany. Language biographies of persons from Silesia demonstrate the significant influence of historical and political events on sociolinguistic processes. Original fragments of biographical interviews of the people surveyed constitute an integral part of the text.

Language Policy and Ethnic Tensions in Quebec and Latvia

2004

Introduction Concern for the French language in Quebec in the 1960s and 1970s and the Latvian language in the then Soviet Union in the late 1980s and in the new Latvian state in the 1990s were ignited by some of the same demographic and assimilative forces in the two societies. Both Quebec and Latvia had lost their independence to larger powers. The birth rate and population declined abruptly in the two subnations. Schools in English (in Quebec) and Russian (in Latvia) attracted most immigrants. The elites were disproportionately drawn from outside the majority ethnic groups. To counter these trends, language policies were drafted, restricting access to English and Russian languages in scho…

Social Simulation Based on Cellular Automata: Modeling Language Shifts

2011

Nowadays, language shifts (i.e., a community of speakers stops using their traditional language and speaks a new one in all communication settings) may produce a massive extinction of languages throughout the world. In this context, an important task for social sciences research should therefore be to achieve a deep comprehension of language shifts. However, modeling the social and behavioral variables that guide the social behavior of individuals and groups has traditionally been tricky in all the social sciences. In this situation, social simulation provides a tool for testing hypotheses and building models of social phenomena (see, for example, Gilbert, 1996; Gilbert & Toitzsch, 2005; an…

The Spread of English

2013

English descends from a set of Germanic dialects spoken 4,000 years or so ago in a small area of the far south of Scandinavia. The arrival of Germanic speakers on the island of Britain a millennium and a half ago led to the growth of the language we now call English. This language remained confined to this island for most of its history and, indeed, was not spoken in all parts of the island until extremely recently. During the last five centuries native-speaker English also spread to the Western Hemisphere and then to the Southern Hemisphere, leading to the development of new varieties of the language in the colonised areas, but also to the massive loss of indigenous languages in the Americ…

Salvador Beltran, F., Herrando, S., Estreder, V., Ferreres, D., Adell, M. A., i Ruiz-Soler, M. (2011). A language shift simulation based on cellular …

2016

A Language Shift Simulation Based on Cellular Automata

2011

Language extinction is a widespread social phenomenon affecting several million people throughout the world today. By the end of this century, more than 5100 of the approximately 6000 languages currently spoken around the world will have disappeared. This is mainly because of language shifts, i.e., because a community of speakers stops using their traditional language and speaks a new one in all communication settings. In this study, the authors present the properties of a cellular automaton that incorporates some assumptions from the Gaelic-Arvanitika model of language shifts and the findings on the dynamics of social impacts in the field of social psychology. To assess the cellular automa…

Sobre substitució lingüística i autòmats cel.lulars (SLAC): decurs de la investigació

2010

Hem optat per focalitzar la nostra investigació, tot i l'ampla aplicabilitat de la recerca, en la detecció del futur de la nostra llengua a partir dels pressupòsits de la Psicologia Social Computacional. I això mitjançant la utilització de la simulació informàtica, basada en els autòmats cel·lulars, que ha donat els primers resultats que presentem i explicitem en la nostra aportació a l'ANUARI. Així, hi abordem el futur de la llengua pròpia a partir de la conducta referida als parlants del País Valencià i amb la intenció d'esbrinar la reversió de la substitució lingüística.