Theoretical approaches and frameworks to language maintenance and shift research

A critical review

Abstract

This article presents a critical overview of theoretical approaches and frameworks to language maintenance and shift research in the area of immigrant languages. It covers the underlying principles of these frameworks and assesses their advantages and shortcomings. The article argues that the field’s theoretical orientations have shifted recently, with a greater emphasis on understanding language maintenance and shift as a dynamic process involving complex interrelationships between space and time. These new trends and new areas of research in relation to language maintenance and shift are highlighted and discussed in different parts of the article. The article concludes by calling on the significance of refining established language maintenance and shift models in ways that correspond to current developments in communities and in migration itself.