Sara Kashefian-Naeeini - Department of English Language, Faculty of Paramedical Sciences, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz 7134814336, Iran
Sanaz Mojarrad - Persian Literature Department, Faculty of Paramedical Sciences, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz 7134814336, Iran

Language shift and language maintenance are two universal sociolinguistic phenomena the effects of which are overarching. They do not take place in leaps and bounds rather they usually go through a very gradual process. Many would ask what language shift is and which factors may lead to it or hinder it. Others are apt to know what language maintenance is, which trends may impede it and which ones would stimulate it. Language shift and language maintenance would both have wide-scale impacts on different communities throughout the world. While language shift seems a very natural and often inevitable phenomenon, language maintenance would demand more conscious and dedicated efforts to take place. Although it is a very demanding task to maintain a minority language which is on its way to disappearance, it is completely feasible. While Hulsen (2000) defines language shift as the gradually decreasing use of the first language, which eventually results in the monolingual use of the first language, language maintenance can be defined as the dedicated efforts of a community to preserve their language. This study aims at giving definitions, instances and most fundamental causes of language shift and language maintenance in different communities.

language shift, language maintenance, sociolinguistics