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Christopher Scanlon, Michael Singh

Theorizing the decline of linguistic diversity

This article advances a theory of language declining linguistic diversity drawing on the notion of constitutive abstraction developed by the writers Geo Sharp (1985) and the notion of levels of social integration developed by Paul James (1996). It argues that declining linguistic diversity can be understood in terms of the dominance of constitutively more abstract forms of social integration, which increasingly bypass and reframe those forms, such as face-to-face social integration, that are less abstract in form. Where languages are unable, or prevented from working across different levels of social integration, through technologies of abstract extension like print, they will be vulnerable to decline. This claim is elaborated through an examination of four threats to linguistic diversity (colonialism, the rise of the nation-state, processes of globalization and environmental destruction) which, it is contended, can be seen to be underpinned by more abstract forms of social integration.

International Journal of the Sociology of Language, Walter de Gruyter

Print ISSN: 0165-2516
Volume: 2006, 11/2006
Pages: 1 - 24

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