Lecture | Sociolinguistics & Discourse Studies Series
Delimiting ‘language maintenance’ – what is it, and what is it not?
- Date
- Friday 12 September 2025
- Time
- Serie
- Sociolinguistics & Discourse Studies Series
- Address
-
Herta Mohr
Witte Singel 27A
2311 BG Leiden - Room
- 0.24
Abstract
With this talk, I hope to initiate a joint discussion on the sociolinguistic notion of ‘language maintenance’, which Mesthrie and Leap (2000, p. 253) define as “the continuing use of a language in the face of competition from a regionally and socially more powerful language”. This definition can be applied to language communities as well as individuals’ multilingual experiences – two perspectives which are typically kept separate in the research literature, where language maintenance is often either understood as a language contact phenomenon or as one of intergenerational transmission.
I will try to bridge this divide into societal and individual vantage points and show how the different perspectives are interwoven and complement one another. Furthermore, I will evaluate and compare different definitions and meta-theoretical conceptions of ‘language maintenance’. As the terms ‘competition’ and ‘powerful’ in above definition indicate, the discussion revolves around more than purely linguistic aspects. Linguistic rights, language endangerment, and revitalisation are considered, together with how language use is steered and managed by those in power – as also reflected in our educational systems and their actors – and what attitudes and ideologies can be found in mainstream societies and beyond. Implications for individuals are also brought into the discussion, in particular in relation to their affective positioning and well-being. Last but not least, as language maintenance is about the continued use of a language, I reflect on multilingual practices of speakers in their day-to-day lives.
As this is work in progress, I am very interested in your reactions to the ‘model’ I propose and how you delimit ‘language maintenance’, as well as in your perspectives of ‘language maintenance’ from different societies you may be able to share, in particular from those outside of WEIRD (western, educated, industrialised, rich, democratic) contexts, about which we still have much to learn. I look forward to discussing what ‘language maintenance’ entails, and what it does not entail!