biology

Linguistic ecology

Linguistic ecology is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Linguistic ecology rather than just read about it. In short: Linguistic ecology or language ecology is the study of how languages interact with each other and the places they are spoken in, and frequently argues for the preservation of endangered languages as an analogy of the preservation of biological species. The term was first used in an article on the "language situation" in Arizona (Voegelin, Voegelin and Schutz, 1967).

Key takeaways

Linguistic ecology belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Linguistic ecology to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Linguistic ecology from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Linguistic ecology or language ecology is the study of how languages interact with each other and the places they are spoken in, and frequently argues for the preservation of endangered languages as an analogy of the preservation of biological species. The term was first used in an article on the "language situation" in Arizona (Voegelin, Voegelin and Schutz, 1967). It was taken up by Einar Haugen, who pioneered a form of linguistics which used the metaphor of an ecosystem to describe the relationships among the diverse forms of language found in the world, and the groups of people who speak them.

Description Linguistic ecology is represented by the journal Language Ecology, which describes the field as follows:

The ecology of language is a framework for the study of language as conceptualised primarily in Einar Haugen's 1971/72 work, where he defines language ecology as "the study of interactions between any given language and its environment". It was a reaction to the abstract notion of language – as a monolithic, decontextualised, static entity – propagated by Chomsky, and it was conceived as a broad and interdisciplinary framework. In his use of 'ecology' as a metaphor from biology in linguistics, Haugen formulated ten questions which together comprehensively address factors pertaining to the positioning of languages in their environment. Each of these relates to a traditional sub-field of the study of language – encompassing historical linguistics, linguistic demography, sociolinguistics, contact, variation, philology, planning and policy, politics of language, ethnolinguistics, and typology – and each of them intersects with one or more of the other sub-fields. Taken together, answering some or all of these questions is part of the enterprise of the ecology of language. Since then the notion of ecology in linguistics has evolved to address matters of social, educational, historical and developmental nature. With the development of ecology as a special branch of biology, and issues of the 20th and 21st centuries such as migration, hybridity and marginalisation coming to the fore, the notion of language ecology plays an important part in addressing broad issues of language and societal change, endangerment, human rights, as well as more theoretical questions of classification and perceptions of languages, as envisaged in Haugen's work. Linguistic ecology has sometimes been described as a form of ecolinguistics (e.g., in Fill and Mühlhäusler). However, some studies in language ecology refer only to language within a social context and disregard the ecological context of the living ecosystems and physical environment that life depends on, so could be considered to be more sociolinguistic in nature. Tove Skutnabb-Kangas and David Harmon (2018) write that "There has been a tendency of many sociolinguists to pay only lip service to the literal sense of ‘ecology’ and to focus only on social concerns. They see the ‘eco-’ in ecolinguistics/language ecology as a relationship within and between various languages, speakers of these languages and their sociocultural and economic contexts.". Other studies, however, are relevant to ecolinguistics because they describe the association of high linguistic diversity with high biological diversity (see Bastardas-Boada 2002). The relationship between linguistic diversity and biodiversity is claimed to arise since local ecological knowledge is built into local language varieties and threatened if the local language is threatened by a more dominant language (see Skutnabb-Kangas and Harmon 2017, Mühlhäusler 1995).

See also Language geography Language policy Linguistic rights Sociolinguistics

References

Literature Bastardas-Boada, Albert (1996) Ecologia de les llengües. Medi, contactes i dinàmica sociolingüística. Barcelona: Proa. [English translation: Ecology of languages. Sociolinguistic environment, contacts and dynamics, in Bastardas-Boada, A. (2019), From language shift to language revitalization and sustainability. A complexity approach to linguistic ecology. Barcelona: Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona]. Bastardas-Boada, Albert (2002) "Biological and linguistic diversity: Transdisciplinary explorations for a socioecology of languages" Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine Diverscité langues, vol. VII. Bastardas-Boada, Albert (2002) "The Ecological perspective: Benefits and risks for Sociolinguistics and Language Policy and Planning", in: Fill, Alwin, Hermine Penz, & W. Trampe (eds.), Colourful Green Ideas. Berna: Peter Lang, pp. 77–88. Bastardas-Boada, Albert (2007) "Linguistic sustainability for a multilingual humanity" Glossa. An Interdisciplinary Journal vol. 2, num. 2. Bastardas-Boada, Albert (2017). “The ecology of language contact: Minority and majority languages”, in: Alwin F. Fill, Hermine Penz (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Ecolinguistics, p. 26-39. Calvet, Jean-Louis (1999) Pour une écologie des langues du monde. Plon Fill, A. and Mühlhäusler, P., 2001. Ecolinguistics Reader: Language, Ecology and Environment. Bloomsbury Publishing. Hornberger, N.H., & Hult, F.M. (2008). Ecological language education policy. In B. Spolsky & F.M. Hult (Eds.), Handbook of educational linguistics (pp. 280-296). Malden, MA: Blackwell. Hult, F.M. (2009). Language ecology and linguistic landscape analysis. In E. Shohamy & D. Gorter (Eds.), Linguistic landscape: Expanding the scenery (pp. 88-104). London: Routledge. Hult, F.M. (2010). Analysis of language policy discourses across the scales of space and time. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 202, 7-24. Hult, F.M. (2012). Ecology and multilingual education. In C. Chapelle (Gen. Ed.), Encyclopedia of applied linguistics (Vol. 3, pp. 1835-1840). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Language Ecology 2016 [1] Mühlhäusler, Peter (1995) Linguistic Ecology; Language Change and Linguistic Imperialism in the Pacific Rim. London: Routledge. Sánchez Carrión, José María (1985). "La nueva sociolingüistica y la ecología de las lenguas". Eusko Ikaskuntza. Donostia-San Sebastián. Archived from the original on Mar 7, 2016. Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove and David Harmon (2017) Biological Diversity and Language Diversity. In Fill and Penz (eds) Routledge Handbook of Ecolinguistics. London Routledge.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Linguistic ecology

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Linguistic ecology claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Linguistic ecology before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Linguistic ecology ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Linguistic ecology

In research: Linguistic ecology appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Linguistic ecology in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Linguistic ecology is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Human communication, Linguistics, Sociolinguistics, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Linguistic ecology outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Linguistic ecology in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Linguistic ecology means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Linguistic ecology out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Linguistic ecology in simple terms?

Why does Linguistic ecology matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Linguistic ecology?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Linguistic ecology.