http://www.uni-due.de/japan/conferences_en.shtml
Language shift and attempts of language revitalization are manifestations of language ideological views. Language ideologies constitute thereby the basis from which support for as well as criticism against language revitalization is generated. Language death is not a new phenomenon. Novel is the speed with which languages are presently lost. To what extent language endangerment is an effect of changing communicative requirements and to which extent it is an effect of language ideology remains an unresolved question so far. There can be no doubt, however, that dominant language ideologies, shaped in the course of nation building processes, are detrimental to the preservation of local languages. Such language ideologies address elite interests and overlook the interests of everybody else. Indigenous language minorities are crucially affected. As self-fulfilling prophecies, language ideologies play a crucial role in rendering multilingual polities into the monolingual nations they imagine to exist. Modernist language ideologies threaten linguistic diversity and they do so irrespective of the communicative requirements of their speakers. The present conference addresses these issues by discussing language endangerment with a focus on language ideology.