Assessing 40 Years of Group Vitality Research and Future Directions

Abstract

This article provides key group vitality concepts followed by a selective overview of four decades of research on vitality issues. Group vitality is what makes language communities behave as distinctive and active collective entities within multilingual settings. Three structural factors combine to foster strong to weak group vitality: demographic factors, institutional support, and status. The objective vitality framework uses available census and sociolinguistic indicators to measure the relative vitality of minority and majority language communities in contact. Two case studies show the crucial role of language policies in improving or undermining the vitality of language minorities in Canada. Studies of subjective perceptions of group vitality are reviewed as they relate to language and communicative outcomes. Key vitality models are noted along with future research directions highlighting the need for a theoretical integration of the vitality framework.