Language Shift is one of the research topics that is recognized as a field of methodical question among the professional students of language behavior. Particularly, the study of the language shift and maintenance focus on the relationship between change or stability regarding habitual language utilization. According to Fishman that the language maintenance involves the intergenerational language transmission. It implies that when the intergenerational language transmission stops, then it means that the speakers shift to another language. For example, an intergenerational transmission of a language from parents to their children and a successive utilization of a certain language in the society. The language shift and maintenance are necessarily be understood by an individual and the society because through communication behavior, a language will be maintained or vanished in a family and the society as a whole.
As per definition, language shift is the replacement of a language from another language as the primary means of communication and socialization in the community. In addition, the factors that attribute to language shift and maintenance in the community are the impact in interaction with others, the stages of the language shift process, the relationship of the factors to one another, and effectiveness of these factors. Similarly, as suggested in a study that there are major factors in the language shift and maintenance: (1) habitual language utilization within the intergroup; (2) psychological, social and cultural processes and stability or change in the relationship with the habitual language use, and (3) language behavior in the contact setting, directed maintenance, and shift efforts. Consequently, the respective community is distinguished through their interactions and the demonstrable consequences of the communication in accordance with the habitual language use.
Moreover, there is a precise organization of the habitual language utilization in the communication within the community. It requires different instruments to measure the degree of bilingualism and its location with the relevant dimensions sociologically. Evidently, the degree of bilingualism is recognized automatically, proficiently, and intact level of the grammatical levels while the location of bilingualism required investigation with its functionality. It demonstrates that it has an appropriate designation of the domains of language with patterns of role-relations, encounters, social occasions, topics, and other order of occurrences. The language shift and maintenance have its significant processes, psychologically, socially and culturally. It is highly associated with certain changes in the habitual language used. Thus, in every interaction needs further refinement in the cross-cultural view. Finally, the language shift and maintenance pertain to the behavior towards its language that includes, but not limited to its focus and the conscious behaviors as represented in the shift or maintenance.
In conclusion, the language shift and maintenance involve the interrelation of the habitual language use, the processes and stability or change in the relationship with the habitual language use, and the language behavior in the contact setting, directed maintenance and shift efforts. Therefore, every individual involved in the intergroup should understand the concepts of the language shift and maintenance in order to maintain the language or avoid from losing it in the family or society. Fishman insisted that the significance of the intergenerational language transmission in the language maintenance with the understanding of the sociocultural conditions and the combination of the processes and experiences highlighted the instability of the minority languages, the possibility of the shift, and the challenges to maintenance.
Works Cited
Borbély, Anna. "The Process and the Factors of Language Shift and Maintenance: A
Sociolinguistic Research in the Romanian Minority Community in Hungary." Research Support Scheme (2000): 1-77.
Fishman, Joshua A. "Language Maintenance and Language Shift as a Filed of Inquiry: A
Definition of the Field and Suggestions for its Further Development." TCS (2013): 32-70.
