31 2. Overall framework of contact phenomena the picture of any society and causes language changes. He gives the example of Norway, which accepted the Danish language after a political merger with Denmark. De Saussure claims that language should be treated as an autonomous entity. However, he also underlines that in order to see the language as a whole, a linguist must examine the mutual relations of language and the other fields that a language has influence on, and vice versa. The socio-historical concept of “the ecology of language” takes into account “the structural features of the base and substrate languages, the ethnolinguistic make-ups of the populations that came into contact, how regularly they interacted across class and ethnic boundaries, and the rates and modes of population growth” (Mufwene 2008: 558). 2.3.1.1. On the concept of the ecology of language The term ecology stems from the Greek words oikos ‘living area’ and logos ‘word.’ It was first introduced into science in 1866 by the German zoologist Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919) to describe the mutual relations between living organisms and the place they live in the biological sciences (1866, Vol. 2: 286). The term further developed to cover other areas, e.g. ecogenetics, ecosphere, ecotoxics, etc. (Misiak 2006: 17). It was Einar Haugen (1972) who first introduced the term ‘language ecology’ to the linguistic world. According to Haugen, language interacts with the environment: Language ecology may be defined as the study of interactions between any given language and its environment. The definition of environment might lead one’s thoughts first of all to the referential world to which language provides an index. However, this is the environment not of a language but of its lexicon and grammar. The true environment of a language is the society that uses it as one of its codes. Language exists only in the minds of its users, and it only functions in relating these users to one another and nature, i.e. their social and natural environment. (Haugen 1972: 325) Haugen’s view underlines the relation between the environment and the language that is spoken in it. The environment here is understood as a certain speech community (society) which uses the language. A language serves as a tool of communication and at the same time is a part of human society. The psychological aspect is also highlighted, which Zdzisław Wąsik (1993: 19) finds relevant in stating that some part of the notion of ecology constitutes human minds, for a language first exists in the brains of human entities, be it monolingual, bilingual or multilingual, and then it takes part in interactions
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTE5NDY5MQ==