This study investigates the reported language use of one bilingual Semai community, a linguistic minority in Peninsular Malaysia. The Semai is the largest indigenous group in the peninsular and the language, Semai, is generally an oral language. Semai bilingual speakers are faced with choices in language behavior that will determine whether or not the Semai language will be maintained. Given the fact that the future of the Semai language depends on its actual use, this study was undertaken to examine the reported language use patterns and the factors that contribute to maintenance or shift in one Semai community. The reported language use patterns in the sample population appear to suggest a trend towards maintenance.This study concludes by positing that demographic factors, the values and attitudes of the people and religious homogeneity found in the community play an important role in the maintenance of the Semai language.

This monograph presents an ecological perspective to the study of language maintenance and shift in immigrant contexts. The ecology incorporates past, present and future and treats spatial and temporal dimensions as the main organizing frames in which everyday language use and identity development can be explored. The methods combine a quantitative domain-based sociolinguistic survey with discourse analytic approaches. The novel approach is valuable for fellow researchers working in interdisciplinary fields of language maintenance, language shift, multilingualism andlanguage planning in migration contexts. The ecological perspective adds to sociolinguistic theories of globalization and responds to current dynamics of translocality in modern immigrant contexts. The research presents language use and language planning efforts in the Sudanese community of Australia. Language, culture, race and ethnic identity are explored in unique sociolinguistic contexts using an emic research lens and giving voice to the participants.