According to Your Textbook, Preserving Endangered Languages Is an Important

question 40

Essay

According to your textbook, preserving endangered languages is an important goal of linguistic anthropologists. Discuss the potentially ambiguous role that information technology and the digital divide may play in language preservation. Using examples from the text, assess the potential benefits that may accrue as members of less-prominent languages gain access to community technology and cross over the "digital divide." Consider how the tendency of prominent languages to crowd out speakers of lesser-spoken languages may be accelerated with increased cultural contact and exposure to global languages. How is the digital divide related to issues of language extinction?

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Definitions:

Disjuncts

The separate elements or options in a disjunctive proposition, any of which can make the entire proposition true.

Disjunction

A logical operation yielding a true value if at least one of its propositions is true.

Biconditional

A logical relationship between two statements where both or neither are true; often phrased as "if and only if".

Component

A part or element of a larger whole, especially a part of a machine or system.