Linguistic ecology

Linguistic ecology is the study of languages in relation to one another and to

various social factors. Also known as language ecology or ecolinguistics.

This branch of linguistics was pioneered by Professor Einar Haugen in his

book The Ecology of Language (Stanford University Press, 1972). Haugen
defined language ecology as "the study of interactions between any given
language and its environment."

Examples and Observations

 "The term 'language ecology,' like 'language family,' is

a metaphor derived from the study of living beings. The view that one can
study languages as one studies the interrelationship of organisms with and
within their environments presupposes a number of subsidiary metaphors
and assumptions, most notably that languages can be regarded as entities,
that they can be located in time and space and that the ecology of
languages is at least in part different from that of their speakers. . . .
"The ecological metaphor in my view is action oriented. It shifts the
attention from linguists being players of academic language games to
becoming shop stewards for linguistic diversity, and to addressing moral,
economic and other 'non-linguistic' issues."
(Peter Mühlhäusler, Linguistic Ecology: Language Change and Linguistic
Imperialism in the Pacific Region. Routledge, 1996)
 "Language is not an object that can be considered in isolation,
and communication does not simply occur by means of sequences of
sounds. . . . Language . . . is a social practice within social life, one practice
among others, inseparable from its environment. . . .
"The basic idea is thus that the practices which constitute languages, on the
one hand, and their environment, on the other, form an ecolinguistic
system, in which languages multiply, interbreed, vary, influence each other
mutually, compete or converge. This system is in interrelation with
the environment. At every moment language is subject to external stimuli
to which it adapts. Regulation, which I will define as the reaction to an
external stimulus by an internal change which tends to neutralize its
effects, is thus a response to the environment. This response is first and
foremost the mere addition of individual responses—variants that, over
time, lead to the selection of certain forms, certain characteristics. In other
words, there is a selective action of the environment on the evolution of
language . . .."
(Louis Jean Calvet, Towards an Ecology of World Languages, translated
by Andrew Brown. Polity Press, 2006)
 "The biological analogy may be the most pertinent—'linguistic
ecology' is now a recognized field of study, not just a figure of speech.
What dialects are to languages, subspecies are to species. Chainsaws and
invaders menace them indiscriminately. . . .
"What the survival of threatened languages means, perhaps, is the
endurance of dozens, hundreds, thousands of subtly different notions of
truth. With our astonishing powers of technology, it's easy for us in the
West to believe we have all the answers. Perhaps we do--to the questions,
we have asked. But what if some questions elude our capacity to ask? What
if certain ideas cannot be fully articulated in our words? 'There are amazing
things about Aboriginal languages,' Michael Christie told me when I visited
his office at Northern Territory University in Darwin. 'Their concepts of
time and agency, for example. They go right against our ideology of linear
time—past, present, and future. I reckon they'd completely revolutionize
Western philosophy, if only we knew more about them.'"
(Mark Abley, Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages.
Houghton Mifflin, 2003)