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Language Maintenance and Language Shift among Four Immigrant Minorities in the Nordic Region: A Re-evaluation of Fishman's Theory of Diglossia and Bilingualism?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 December 2008

Sally Boyd  and
Sirkku Latomaa
Sally Boyd
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, Göteborg University, S-412 98 Göteborg. E-mail: Sally@ling.gu.se.
Sirkku Latomaa
Affiliation:
Department of Scandinavian Studies, University of Washington, PO Box 353420, Seattle, WA 98198, USA E-mail: sirkku@u.washington.edu
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Abstract

In his (1972) book, The Sociology of Language, Joshua Fishman presents his often-cited typology of language contact situations in the form of a four-cell table: + or − diglossia and + or − bilingualism. Although criticism has been made of this typology and particularly of the predictions based on it, in this paper we operationalize Fishman's concepts of diglossia and bilingualism as presented in this book. We then examine results from a comparative study of language contact among four immigrant minorities in the Nordic region – North Americans, Finns, Turks and Vietnamese. Each of these groups was studied in at least two locations in the region, making a total of nine informant groups. By comparing the results for the generations, it is possible to see if there is evidence to support Fishman's predictions in the cases studied. The relatively stable levels of bilingualism found among the Americans and the Turks are not predicted by Fishman's typology, at least as we have operationalized it. The “stability” would seem to result more from the way these minorities have been received by the host societies than from the pattern of language use within the groups.

Type
Research Article
Information
Nordic Journal of Linguistics , Volume 19 , Special Issue 2: Special issue on LANGUAGE CONTACT AND LANGUAGE CHANGE , December 1996 , pp. 155 - 182
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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