ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the various constraints on language choice faced by different communities, as well as the potential longer-term effects of the choices – language shift or language death. Migrant families provide an obvious example of the process of language shift. Demographic factors are also relevant in accounting for the speed of language shift. The concept of ethnolinguistic vitality is clearly very useful in studying language maintenance and shift, though devising satisfactory ways to measure the components is often a challenge. The social and economic goals of individuals in a community are very important in accounting for the speed of shift. Economic factors are very influential and rarely work in favour of maintaining small minority group languages. Positive attitudes support efforts to use the minority language in a variety of domains, and this helps people resist the pressure from the majority group to switch to their language.
