'Anne Pauwels' work serves as a welcome addition to the fields of language contact and sociolinguistics. … This is the first of its kind, with all other treatises on LM and LS being included as a subdiscussion in some other general work (the author providing a sample list of such works in her introductory chapter). The main purpose of the book is to introduce the reader to the field and discuss the reasons why some linguistic minorities are able to maintain their language(s), while others shift quite rapidly to the dominant language. The author adeptly takes the reader through these topics and encourages further investigation along the way.' Tyler K. Anderson, The Linguist List (linguistlist.org)
Introduction; Part I. History, Concepts, Contexts and Approaches: 1. Pioneers in the study of language maintenance and language shift; 2. Concepts, contexts and approaches to the study of language maintenance and shift; Part II. Investigating Language Maintenance and Shift: Collecting and Analysing Data: 3. Linguistic demography: census surveys; 4. Reporting language use and exploring language attitudes: questionnaires; 5. Beyond surveys: interviews, participant observation and experiments; Part III. Identifying and Understanding Trends and Patterns in the Dynamics of Language Maintenance and Shift: 6. Trends and patterns in language maintenance and shift; 7. Understanding the dynamics of language maintenance and shift; Part IV. Language Maintenance Efforts and Reversing Language Shift: 8. Efforts, agencies and institutions for language maintenance; 9. Reversing language shift; Part V. Future Developments in the Study of Language Maintenance and Shift: 10. Opportunities and challenges for the future study of language maintenance and shift.