‘Language dominance’ in historical immigrant communities

Abstract

The notion of ‘dominance’ is ubiquitous in research on bilingualism and heritage language linguistics, but it is used in a remarkably wide range of very different meanings and contexts. I first briefly lay out a few of these and begin to explore how they can fit together. I outline how they can be applied to historical settings, looking at how these patterns are dynamic over time. Finally, I sketch one kind of trajectory of change in the course of historical immigrant language shift, drawing on the verticalization model, and suggest how it may contrast with the situations of many contemporary immigrants and refugees. This programmatic paper is thus aimed at setting the stage for a panel planned for WILA15 on the topic of ‘language dominance’.