An in-depth study of endangered language revitalisation, which assesses the implications of changing language attitudes for language campaigners and policy-makers.

An in-depth study of endangered language revitalisation, which assesses the implications of changing language attitudes for language campaigners and policy-makers.

Written by leading international scholars and activists, this guidebook provides ideas and strategies to support language revitalization.

It is generally agreed that about 7,000 languages are spoken across the world today and at least half may no longer be spoken by the end of this century. This state-of-the-art Handbook examines the reasons behind this dramatic loss of linguistic diversity, why it matters, and what can be done to document and support endangered languages. The volume is relevant not only to researchers in language endangerment, language shift and language death, but to anyone interested in the languages and cultures of the world. It is accessible both to specialists and non-specialists: researchers will find cutting-edge contributions from acknowledged experts in their fields, while students, activists and other interested readers will find a wealth of readable yet thorough and up-to-date information.

This book presents the first comprehensive survey of the languages of the Pacific rim, a vast region containing the greatest typological and genetic diversity in the world. It includes the littoral regions of North and South America, Australasia, east and south-east Asia, and Japan, as well as the Pacific itself. As its languages decline and disappear, sometimes without trace, this rich linguistic heritage is rapidly eroding. In The Vanishing Languages of the Pacific Rim distinguished scholars report on the current state of the region's languages and provides a critical survey of the current state of the region's languages. They show what is currently known and recorded and what remains to be examined and documented. They consider which languages are the most vulnerable to extinction and what steps that can be taken to save them. Their analyses range from the regional to the local and focus on languages in a wide variety of social and ecological settings. Together they make a compelling case for research throughout the region, and show how and where this needs to be done.

This timely volume constitutes the first book-length account of implicit as well as explicit language attitudes. It details the findings of a large-scale study, incorporating cutting-edge implicit and self-report instruments adapted from social psychology, investigating the evaluations of over 300 English nationals of the status and social attractiveness of Northern English and Southern English speech in England. The book is unique in its examination of implicit-explicit attitude divergence, across a range of social factors, to identify the direction of language attitude change in progress and the particular social groups leading attitude change. The volume provides a comprehensive understanding of language-based prejudice in England and the study paves the way for researchers to employ newly developed implicit and explicit measures to investigate language attitudes and language attitude change in a range of contexts. This book is invaluable for researchers in sociolinguistics and applied linguists interested in theoretical and methodological aspects of linguistic prejudice and language variation and change. It is also essential reading for social psychologists with an interest in attitudes, attitude change and prejudice.

Investigates the endangerment of languages and the loss of traditional cultural diversity, and how to respond.

An interdisciplinary guide to traditional as well as cutting-edge methods for the study of language attitudes.

This peer-reviewed collection brings together the latest research on language endangerment and language rights. It creates a vibrant, interdisciplinary platform for the discussion of the most pertinent and urgent topics central to vitality and equality of languages in today’s globalised world. The novelty of the volume lies in the multifaceted view on the variety of dangers that languages face today, such as extinction through dwindling speaker populations and lack of adequate preservation policies or inequality in different social contexts (e.g. access to justice, education and research resources). There are examples of both loss and survival, and discussion of multiple factors that condition these two different outcomes. We pose and answer difficult questions such as whether forced interventions in preventing loss are always warranted or indeed viable. The emerging shared perspective is that of hope to inspire action towards improving the position of different languages and their speakers through research of this kind.