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In a number of minority groups men tend to be most resistant to language
shift, e.g the Tornedalians in Sweden and the Saami in Norway, Finland
and Sweden. This tendency is e.g. reflected in intermarriage patterns.
According to my own study women tend to be more inclined to marry a man
from a higher prestige language group, i. e. the national language in
most cases. Hence, Tornedalian women speaking Swedish and Tornedalen
Finnish marry with Swedish monolinguals more than the other way around.
No economic differences is perceptible. It was a common opinion earlier
that a marriage with a monolingual was one form of climbing the social
ladder. This tendency is also common in Canada, where the female is
French-speaking, and according to personal information this is also the
case in<i> </i>Ireland (Irish) and in Luxembourg (Letzeburgisch).
However, if the minority language has had high status and the majority
language has been low valued the situation may be reversed. In Finland
there are more women speaking Finnish in intermarriages with bilingual
Finland Swedes. This tendency in Finland has been observed for about one
century, as in the Torne valley<br><br>
<br>
Best<br>
Birger Winsa<br>
Department of Finnish<br>
Stockholm University<br><br>
At 10:12 2001-11-07 -0900, you wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>Dear Colleagues:<br><br>
I am working on a research project into the interaction between
traditional gender-based communication patterns and language shift. I
have had difficulty locating references through the usual
databases/channels and I was wondering if anyone was aware of work in
this area.<br><br>
Specifically, there may be evidence here in some Alaskan Athabascan
communities, that as language shift occurs, it may overlay traditional
male-female communication patterns such that men are more likely to
continue using the language with other men and speak English with women
who are themselves Native speakers, and vice versa.<br><br>
This research is only in its initial stages, and among other things, we
still have to investigate traditional Athabascan male-female patterns of
interaction (something else that doesn't appear to be in the
literature).<br><br>
Later this winter we will begin interviewing a few key Elders, with the
point being to begin to define/understand traditional gender-based
interaction patterns and to try and correlate those patterns with modern
language usage. In short, to try and understand the gender-based patterns
that language shift may be overlaying.<br><br>
From there we expect to move into schools and see how traditional
patterns of interaction are being undermined/reinforced/??? in the
school.<br><br>
From there we hope to figure out how to work with existing patterns
(rather than against them) in order to improve language teaching
specifically and education in general.<br><br>
Any help/references people can provide would be greatly
appreciated.<br><br>
Sincerely,<br>
************************************************************************<br>
Patrick E. Marlow<br>
Assistant Professor<br>
Alaska Native Language Center<br>
University of Alaska Fairbanks<br>
PO Box 757680<br>
Fairbanks, AK 99775-7680<br>
(907) 474-7446<br>
ffpem@uaf.edu<br>
************************************************************************<br><br>
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</blockquote>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
Birger Winsa<br>
Finska institutionen<br>
Stockholms universitet<br>
106 91 Stockholm<br>
Fax: 08-158871<br>
Tel: 08-162359</html>