The sociocultural ecology of language

Definition: Language exists in a sociocultural ecology: this approach investigates how language relates to the social and cultural forces that shape the conditions of speakers and speech communities (Steffensen and Fill 2014:7)

Steffensen and Fill also elaborate, that “when one focuses on the sociocultural ecology of language, one sees human (linguistic) interaction that both constitutes and is constituted by larger social and societal structures that include institutions, economic processes and sociocultural resources” (2014:12).

Institutions

Institutions impact language in multiple ways, direct and indirect.

• All institutions standardise and form language by using it in official documents.
• Institutions specialised on language actively shape it through language planning and policies.
• The financial resources of an institution decide which languages are used.
• The implementation of formal and informal education by institutions impacts which language and how it is used in education.
• Language revitalization is often governed and thus influenced by institutions.
• Majority language speakers in institutions can impact if and how much minority languages are used.

Economic processes

The economic processes of the environment in which a language is spoken has diverse impacts on this language. Some are more direct while others have less obvious, indirect effects.

Financial means in education and revitalization:

• Financing of language programs determines if to what degree a language is revitalized or maintained.
• Financing of education generally has a complex influence on e.g. the time, energy and interest people can spare to learn/maintain a language.
• The creation and availability of materials for language programs and education are dependent on funds and determine the success of the measures.

Employment and politics:

• The economic position of minorities has an impact on the prospects of their language (e.g. lower resources for language teaching).
• The job market defines requirements which need to be met to raise employability. Language can be one of those requirements which often leads to a disadvantage for minorities (e.g. exclusion from the job market, poverty).
• Money flow can influence politics and therefore policy making. Languages which are spoken by groups with higher capital might be favoured.
• Minority speakers might experience less political representation due to economic disadvantage.

Sociocultural resources

Society, in which a certain language is spoken, can play a large part in maintaining the language.

• Creating and sustaining domains where the language could be used (e.g. in everyday settings such as school, home, texting etc.).
• Language as an important tool for identity-building, which can act as a unifying (inclusive) as well as a dividing (isolating) force.
• Certain cultures may have multilingualism ‘built-in’, e.g. when various languages are taught to children as part of certain traditions.
• Other communities might have multilingualism forced upon them (in the form of learning a dominant language), but have no measures in place to support their own language transmission (e.g. because of stigmas or stereotypes related to speakers of a certain language in a given society).
• Speakers of various languages are unique in their social and cultural backgrounds, and utilising these as resources in educational settings is considered to be beneficial.

Related subfields of linguistics

• Language policy and development
• Historical linguistics
• Decolonial linguistics
• Anthropological linguistics
• Sociolinguistics
• Citizen sociolinguistics
• Interactional linguistics
• Ecolinguistics
• Applied linguistics
• Psycholinguistics

Suggested research questions

• What impact does your culture have on acquiring minority language?
• How strong is the correlation between economic profitability and the language skills?
• Which factors do contribute to stigmatization of languages?

References

Steffensen, S. V. and A. Fill (2014, jan). Ecolinguistics: the state of the art and future horizons. Language Sciences 41, 6–25.