LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Trends in Language Shift and Maintenance in
the Eranad Dialect of Malayalam

Saidalavi C., M.A. (Sociology), M.A. (Malayalam), M.A. (English)

On Defining Linguistic Identity

Identity refers to an individual's subjective feeling of belonging to a particular group. Language is of central importance to identity because through language we negotiate and share our identity with others. Multi-ethnic features of India deepen linguistic diversity with hundreds of regional dialects within the same language. These dialects reflect the everyday experience of individuals living in different parts of the country and strongly shape their cultural identity.

In a highly stratified society each stratum holds unique identity which is manifested in the speech behavior of the group. The awareness of the social, cultural and ethnic peculiarities among the members of the group can be termed as identity consciousness. The formation of the identity is found to be influenced by diverse social variables. These social factors undergoes tremendous changes in the contemporary social situations marked by urbanization, technological changes, industrialization, globalization etc,. The changes occurred in the social factors causes changes in the social variables that determine the identity.

Analysis of Identity

In linguistics, the identity is analyzed in terms of the linguistic data obtained from the specific linguistic group. It is determined according to the attitude of the group towards own language and the contact language, if the speech community is situated in a bi or multi lingual region. The concept of language attitude helps to analyze language use and change on a macro social level. (Landry and Allard, 1994:15) It comprises socio structural factors to explain the language maintenance and shift within the community.

Therefore, while finding out the degree of identity, the determination of language attitude and the study on the factors influencing the language shift and language maintenance is very important.

Language Shift and Language Maintenance

According to Hoffman (1991:186), "when a community does not maintain its language, but gradually adopts another one, we talk about language shift while 'language maintenance refers to a situation where members of a community try to keep the language they have always used". Hoffman also observed that under certain cultural, social and political conditions, a community might opt to change one set of linguistic tools for another.

One of the important factors that impact on shift and maintenance of language is attitude (Gardner, 1985, Holmes and Harlow, 1991). Attitude refers to "a hypothetical construct used to explain the direction and persistence of human behavior" (Baker, 1992:10). So, it represents internal thoughts, feelings and tendencies in behavior across a variety of contexts.

The Research Problem

The present study tries to explore the changing trends of Eranad dialect of Malayalam in terms of their language attitude. The research problem is, to investigate whether there is any language shift or language maintenance among the Mappilas using Eranad dialect of Malayalam and if so, what role attitude plays in the shift and maintenance of their language.

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