Language contact is one of the fundamental possible causes for language maintenance and language shift. When speakers of different language varieties interact closely, it is common for their languages to influence each other. This is known as language contact. There are two acknowledged types of language contact, intimate contact and cultural contact. It is evident that the contact between Popular Italian, the language of the Italian migrants in Australia, and English in its Australian form is characteristic of cultural contact. There are, however, a number of factors which influence whether language maintenance or language shift will arise from being in contact with the other language. Factors including assimilation, alienation and isolation all contribute to either language shift or language contact, as well as a variety of social, political and economic factors. The attitudes toward the ethnic language also have a profound impact upon whether language maintenance or language......
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