On population and community-based approaches to heritage language shift: a case study of 4 Wisconsin communities

Joshua Bousquette, University of Georgia (Saturday 13:30-14:00)

Previous research on language shift in Wisconsin shows a high degree of heritage language (HL) monolingualism as recently as 1910. However, within two generations, the community shifts to English dominant, or monolingual. Population studies on Creoles suggest that bilingual communities would maintain at least a stable bilingualism when considering comparable ratios of HL/L1 to L2 speakers within the community. Correlating self-reported language proficiency with relevant data on demographics (immigration, household composition) and social structures (churches, schools), the shift to English dominance and eventual monolingualism in HLs has been accounted for through the increased orientation of these communities to community-external or verticalized institutions (Warren, 1963; Salmons 2005a, b). This community theoretic model accounts for a shift in the orientation from community-internal to community-external, which precedes the language shift itself. This presentation first provides an expanded, descriptive and comparative overview of heritage language use over the period 1900-1940 in four previously-studied communities; and second, derives an early 20th-century timeline in which paradigmatic shifts in social institutions result in a shift away from HLs, even in communities where more than half the population was proficient in the HL.

Research on Creole formation suggests that a more equitable division of Creole/African vs. European (target language) speakers promotes more or less stable bilingualism, while a more lopsided ratio leads to a higher degree of emergent (i.e. Creole) phenomena. For instance, a 2:1 ratio of African slaves to European-born individuals, as seen in Surinam in 1665, would allow for an 'absolute' acquisition of the European-origin L2 among slaves (Chaudenssen 1995); the 20:1 ratio of Africans to Europeans following the 1667 Dutch coup calls into question whether slaves would have any exposure to the European L2 at all, let alone sufficient input and frequency of use to acquire any more than a creolized version of primary lexemes from the L2 (Arends 1992). And while Satterfield (2007) does not emergent phenomena within the first generations in an agent-based computer model of this population, the model i) assumes a uniform population with equal access to speakers of the target variable, without any internal hierarchy; and ii) does not account for birthrates and child language acquisition in a mixed input situation.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Wisconsin and the Upper Midwest saw a large influx of immigration from Europe, including notably large numbers of settlers from German(ic)-speaking lands. In both urban and rural areas, immigrants established locally-oriented communities in which a majority language other than English could be maintained across multiple generations in the domains of Church (Wilkerson & Salmons 2012), School (Petty 2013), and Press (Lucht, Salmons & Frey 2011). Self-reported monolingualism in 1910 was as high as 28% in Kiel, WI (Frey, 2013), and 24% in Hustisford, WI (Wilkerson & Salmons, 2012). In Lebanon, WI, 13.6% (171 of 1254 individuals) were foreign-born, from German-speaking countries; 89 individuals – including 12 who were born in Wisconsin – reported German monolingualism (Lucht 2007: 17, 25). Within the home domain, extrapolated language proficiency is even more striking. In Hustisford in 1910, 13% of households were exclusively monolingual, where all members were monolingual speakers; fully 58% of all households contained at least one monolingual speaker, suggesting that German was the medium of communication at least some of the time, and between some members of the household (Wilkerson, Salmons & Livengood, 2014). In the Frisian community of Randolph, WI, this same diagnostic reveals 272 individuals as 'demonstrably proficient' (DP), including 102 monolinguals. In Randolph, WI, DP speakers account for approximately 24.9% of the entire population, which included also Germans and Welsh; but within the geographically-centred, socially-linked West Frisian community, this accounted for 69% of speakers (Bousquette & Ehresmann 2010).

Assuming maintenance of the social networks and institutions of these communities, a language shift would not be expected. Shift to English, however, would be a logical outcome in even the agent-based models, if the HL communities were increasingly integrated into the English-speaking community at large, such that the ratio of HL speakers to English monolinguals was less balanced. Within social networks, this shift occurs over time, as second- and third-generation immigrants move off the farm, to work wage labour positions – often derived as secondary agricultural industries – e.g. in canning factories, cheese factories, furniture factories, or breweries (Lucht 2007, Frey 2013); or as acculturation to American farming practice aligned German farmers with their English-speaking neighbours (Townley 2006). These effects compound as decisions regarding language use were increasingly affected by economic factors, such as the overhead cost of printing German-language newspapers with lower circulation than their English-language counterparts; or increasingly limited access to German-proficient teachers, pastors, and printed liturgical and educational materials.

References

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