A Study Of Endangered Languages From The Perspective Of Ecolinguistics

Language endangerment or language extinction has been present since ancienttimes, but globalization has greatly accelerated the demise speed of some languages.Nowadays, one language will disappear every two weeks in the whole world.According to UNESCO’s2001report, some half of the world’s remaining6,000languages is at risk or in danger of disappearing. Language endangerment, emergingas a worldwide prominent phenomenon, has issued a severe challenge to linguisticconstruction and cultural diversity, thus arousing an increasing attention of languageand culture sections at home and abroad in recent years.Since1990s, significant progress has been made in the introduction of theoutcome about endangered languages, the investigation and documentation, casestudies, and the rescue and protection of specific actions. The study of endangeredlanguages has not only hit the spot in current linguistic research field, but also inpolitical sections.The important theoretical basis of ecolinguistics lies in linguistic diversity. At theturn of the century, the study on language diversity has sparkled mounting concernunder such background as language endangerment crisis is ubiquitous in the world’slanguages. To solve this problem, scholars studying human language and culture haveintroduced the concept of ecology, the core of which is that the more abundant thespecies, the more robust the ecosystem is, and its structure will also be more stable.On the contrary, the singularity of species can cause species extinction, evendamaging the ecosystem. By this analogy, if humans use only one language, ourworld will live on simply one global culture, ultimately leading to a vicious cycle ofecosystem and human social and cultural destruction.Based on the theories of ecolinguistics, this paper starts from the status quo of language endangerment, analyses the factors causing language endangerment,explores the value of endangered languages, and suggests some summative measuresand protection strategies. Finally in the last chapter, some comprehensive reflectionsand prospects for the study of endangered languages have been elaborated.Moreover, this study has its limitations because the issue this study hasexplored is still in an exploratory stage. From the perspective of theory, drawingan analogy between the biological diversity and language diversity is still lacking insufficient basis. And it is controversial to seek the equivalence between linguisticdiversity and cultural diversity. After all, language is a social phenomenon which isdifferent from bio-social ones. It is inextricably linked with its users, and it has manyaspects of cultural background which is much more complex than that of biology.However, there is no doubt that the research field of linguistics has been greatlybroadened to study language from the ecological point of view. Besides, bothecologists and biologists are involved in the study of this field, together with thelinguists, on the basis of ecology and biology, to study the ecological problems ofhuman language cultures. It can be predicted that under the great efforts made bysocial scientists and natural scientists, this cross-discipline can effectively promote thedevelopment of language science.