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Key research themes
1. How do social and demographic factors influence large-scale language shift processes within communities?
This theme investigates the quantitative and statistical modeling of language shift in large populations, focusing on how social variables such as urbanization, ethnicity, economic development, gender, religion, and demographic factors correlate with the replacement of local or heritage languages by dominant national or global languages. It matters because understanding these macro-level patterns enables policymakers and linguists to identify at-risk languages beyond small populations, challenge assumptions about language vitality based on speaker numbers alone, and develop more effective language preservation strategies.
Key finding: Using census data from Indonesia involving millions of speakers, this study demonstrates that language shift from various local languages (e.g., Javanese, Sundanese) to Bahasa Indonesia correlates significantly with factors... Read more
Key finding: Synthesizing demographic and census-based studies primarily in immigrant contexts, this research outlines that language shift commonly follows a three-generation trajectory, with migrant first-generation maintaining heritage... Read more
Key finding: Through mixed methods including questionnaires and interviews, this study finds that the Sindhi community in Pakistan maintains strong usage of their heritage language across various domains such as education and cultural... Read more
Key finding: Employing qualitative data collection through interviews and group discussions in Ethiopia, this study presents that Diraytata speakers actively use and maintain their mother tongue in everyday communication, educational... Read more
2. What are the cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses to radical language change in organizational contexts, and how do they evolve over time?
This theme explores individual and group-level responses to enforced language change within institutions, particularly multinational corporations, focusing on how employees cognitively perceive, emotionally react, and behaviorally adapt to transition mandates such as shifting the working language. Understanding these dynamics can inform language policy implementation and change management in multilingual workplaces to optimize employee engagement, reduce resistance, and facilitate language acquisition.
Key finding: A longitudinal study of a Chilean subsidiary mandating a shift from Spanish to English over two years reveals that employees' negative affective responses precede cognitive reactions such as self-efficacy, and these affective... Read more
3. How does linguistic complexity manifest in language shift ecologies, particularly in relation to simplification and complexity trade-offs?
This line of research scrutinizes claims that language shift uniformly leads to linguistic simplification by analyzing morphological and syntactic patterns in shifting communities. It aims to delineate whether simplification is absolute or if changes involve trade-offs where reduced complexity in some grammatical domains corresponds to increased complexity in others. Clarifying these patterns contributes to theoretical understanding of language contact, grammar change, and the cognitive and social mechanisms governing language evolution during shift.
Key finding: Examining the northeastern Russian languages Chukchi and Even under shift to Russian demonstrates that although certain morphological domains show reduction (e.g., decrease of inflectional morphemes), these are frequently... Read more
4. What happens to figurative language and conceptual metaphorical representations during language shift and creolization?
This research area focuses on the extent to which linguistic figurative expressions (e.g., metaphors, trope usage) are retained, transformed, or lost in processes of language shift, particularly in creole formation contexts, and how these relate to underlying conceptual representations of meaning. Investigating the persistence of conceptual metaphors despite changes or loss in linguistic encoding informs cognitive linguistic theory and enriches understanding of cultural continuity and transmission in shifting linguistic ecologies.
Key finding: In the shift from Dalabon to Barunga Kriol, although prominent figurative associations between body and emotions in Dalabon largely diminish linguistically, the corresponding conceptual metaphors persist and resurface in... Read more
Key finding: Comparative lexical semantic analysis reveals that Barunga Kriol shares substantial semantic properties with Dalabon in the domain of emotion lexicon, enabling speakers of both languages to convey similar event meanings... Read more