This document discusses language maintenance and shift that can occur when speakers are exposed to a second language. There are three main outcomes: 1) language maintenance, where speakers maintain their mother tongue, 2) language shift, where speakers shift to the new second language as their main or only language, or 3) bilingualism. Typically, a full language shift takes around three generations, though it can be slower or faster depending on factors like the use of a standardized written language or arranged marriages keeping the original language alive. Studies have found language shift can occur through five stages from monolingualism in the minority language to monolingualism in the majority language over multiple generations.

1. Language Maintenance and Shift
Muhammad Azam
Research Scholar
COMSATS Institute of Information
Technology Lahore, Pakistan

2. Introduction
• What happens when people with different mother
tongues meet each others?
• 1. They simply maintained their mother tongue.
That’s called “Language Maintenance”
• 2. They shift to the new L2 as their main (or only)
language. It is “ Language Shift”

3. Introduction
• There are three main possible outcomes when
speakers are exposed to a second language:

4. Introduction
• How much time is required for language shift?

5. Introduction
• However, a ‘three generation shift‘ is not the only
possible pattern. Paulston (1994) cites the Greeks in
Pittsburgh as experiencing a four generation shift.
She attributes this slower shift to the use of a
standardized, prestigious written language; access to
an institution teaching Greek language and literacy
(i.e. Greek churches in Pittsburgh); and arranged
marriages with one partner being a monolingual
Greek speaker from Greece.

6. Introduction
• A five stage shift from minority language
monolingualism to majority language monolingualism
was found by Von Gleich and Wölck (1994) in Peru:
– (1) mono-lingualism in Quechua (Quichua),
– (2) bilingualism but Quechua stronger than Spanish,
– (3) bilingualism with Quechua and Spanish approximately
balanced,
– (4)bilingualism but Spanish dominant over Quechua,
– (5) mono-lingualism in Spanish.

7. Introduction
• Amongst Panjabi, Italian, Gaelic and Welsh
communities in Britain, there are occasional ‘fourth
generation’ individuals who sometimes wish to
revive the language of their ethnic origins.
• The pressure to become part of a larger whole seems
to result in a counter-balancing need to have secure
roots within a smaller and more domestic
community.

8. Political, Social and Demographic
Factors

9. Political, Social and Demographic
Factors

10. Cultural Factors

11. Cultural Factors

12. Linguistic Factors