Theorizing the decline of linguistic diversity
-
Christopher Scanlon
Abstract
This article advances a theory of language declining linguistic diversity drawing on the notion of constitutive abstraction developed by the writers Geo Sharp (1985) and the notion of levels of social integration developed by Paul James (1996). It argues that declining linguistic diversity can be understood in terms of the dominance of constitutively more abstract forms of social integration, which increasingly bypass and reframe those forms, such as face-to-face social integration, that are less abstract in form. Where languages are unable, or prevented from working across different levels of social integration, through technologies of abstract extension like print, they will be vulnerable to decline. This claim is elaborated through an examination of four threats to linguistic diversity (colonialism, the rise of the nation-state, processes of globalization and environmental destruction) which, it is contended, can be seen to be underpinned by more abstract forms of social integration.
© Walter de Gruyter
Articles in the same Issue
- Theorizing the decline of linguistic diversity
- Native language and Internet usage
- The problems of efficiency and linguistic discrimination in the coordination of firms
- Minorization and the process of (de)minoritization: the case of Kali'na in French Guiana
- A tale of two cities: Japanese ethnolinguistic landscapes in Canada
- Language maintenance and language shift among Arabized Malays (Makkawiyiin)
- Language planning in Botswana and Malawi: a comparative study
- Problems in the study of contact-induced extensive linguistic shift
- Small languages and school: the case of Catalonia and the Basque Country
Articles in the same Issue
- Theorizing the decline of linguistic diversity
- Native language and Internet usage
- The problems of efficiency and linguistic discrimination in the coordination of firms
- Minorization and the process of (de)minoritization: the case of Kali'na in French Guiana
- A tale of two cities: Japanese ethnolinguistic landscapes in Canada
- Language maintenance and language shift among Arabized Malays (Makkawiyiin)
- Language planning in Botswana and Malawi: a comparative study
- Problems in the study of contact-induced extensive linguistic shift
- Small languages and school: the case of Catalonia and the Basque Country
