Studies on Language Maintenance and Language Change

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 23520505
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Linguistics
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo (2013-2014); Kyoto University (2011-2012)
• Principal Investigator: MITANI Keiko 東京大学, 人文社会系研究科, 教授 (10229726)
• Project Period (FY): 2011-04-28 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 社会言語学 / 少数言語 / 言語接触 / ブルゲンラント・クロアチア語 / ソルブ語 / ルシン語

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study focused on the languages and societies of the Slavic minorities in the central Europe, such as Burgenland Croats in Austria, Sorbs in Germany, and Rusyns in Serbia and Croatia. Those people have maintained their ethnic identity and the native language in the centuries of contact situation with the majority people surrounding them. This study revealed that for those minority groups the awareness of religious belonging is often crucial to keep their identity and language.
The study also examined how the effect of language contact emerges in the languages of the minorities, and revealed that (1) the features incorporated by the language contact are various, but the degree of contact-induced change are mostly correlated with the duration of the contact setting and the frequency of communication with the surrounding majority people; (2) the emergence of such features is not arbitrary, but apt to be in hierarchical order in relation to the grammatical structure.

Free Research Field

スラヴ語学