Resumen de The relevance of thresholds in language maintenance and shift: A theoretical examination
The decline of many minority languages, and the associated shift towards majority languages, raises the question of whether there is a point of no return, or ‘threshold’ in the process. This paper develops a formal model of language vitality as a function of preferences for conducting activities in one or the other language, percentage of minority‐language speakers, and expectations‐based adjustment to the observed change in language vitality. It shows that long‐term survival with low demolinguistic figures is possible if they are compensated for by a clear preference for minority‐language activities, and that insufficient preferences still allow for sustainable vitality if the public can be persuaded that language authorities are strongly committed to the protection of the language. Critical (threshold) values distinguish combinations of the independent variables leading to decline from those leading to survival. Formal expressions are provided for these critical values, suggesting that the concept of threshold is relevant to the analysis of language survival, but that it must be seen as a function of several variables rather than some unidimensional value. The concept of threshold developed here is then used to propose guidelines for policy measures aimed at reversing language shift.
