La transmissió lingüística intergeneracional en espais majoritàriament catalanòfons: el cas d'estudiants al·loglots al Berguedà i les terres de l'Ebre (original) (raw)
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One of the last phases of the processes of language shift is the interruption of intergenerational linguistic transmission, to a large extent caused by the educational programme of linguistic submersion, which pursues the elimination of a recessive language. The inverse phenomenon to language shift, that of revernacularization (or revitalization), is also related to another educational programme, that of linguistic immersion, aimed at the recovery of the minority language. Our research work inquires into the correlation between these educational programmes and the phenomena of language loss and retrieval as manifested in the Valencian Region through a recessive language, Catalan, and a dominant one, Spanish. We can observe that education in one or another language is decisive because many parents transmit to their children the same language of schooling. Revernacularization, however, is difficult because the previous process of language shift is older (since the nineteenth century) and the immersion programme (since the 1990s) has only managed to stop the historical loss of Catalan speakers, but not to regain new ones.
L'Alguer (It. Alghero), a north-western sea town in Sardinia, is a Catalan-speaking linguistic enclave. Nowadays the island belongs to Italy, but in medieval times it was part of the Arago-Catalan Crown. Three main codes coexist in Alghero: the traditional Catalan local variety, named Alguerès, Sardinian -as a result of successive waves of immigrants from the surrounding area or from the inner island-, and Italian -since it is the official language of the Republic. Both social and family multilingualism are common. Nowadays Alguerès is subject to overwhelming pressure towards language shift. Actually, the issue to be explained should be not shift but maintenance: why and how people in Alghero retained their language for so long? Immigrant Sardinians needed to learn Catalan in Alghero. At the same time they introduced Sardinian into the town. Permeability and cleavages, then, can be the focus of research on different dimensions: generational, socioeconomic, ethnolinguistic, language loyalties, among others.
Does school create new speakers of Catalan? The Catalan and Valencian cases compared
Since the recovery of democracy after Francoism, in the early 80s, the language policies implemented by the autonomous governments of Valencia and Catalonia (two Catalan-speaking regions in Spain) have focused mainly in the school milieu. Despite the differences in terms of design and of the weaker or stronger support to the minority language (i.e. Catalan), these language-in-education policies shared the main goals: to generalize the knowledge of Catalan and also to recover the social usage of Catalan (Arnau & Vila 2013). However, in the 90s the gap between knowledge and usage became clear: to be proficient in Catalan didn’t mean per se to start speaking it outside the classroom. As Galindo (2006) pointed out, it was needed a clear majority of Catalan L1 speakers in a school for Catalan to become the language of intergroup communication between Catalan L1 and Castilian L1 speakers. More recently, Bretxa (2014) has shown the influence of the demolinguistic composition of schools on the linguistic trajectories of pupils in the transition from primary to secondary school (namely, from Catalan as L1 to predominant uses of Castilian with school-mates, and inversely). Pujolar & González (2012) have also highlighted the centrality of these transitions, by which people gain access to new socialization spheres, for the "linguistic mudes" (the adoption of significant uses of a new language). The aim of the presentation is to provide an answer to the title’s question by means of the discourses of the main target of these language-in-education policies: the pupils themselves. The data comes from group interviews carried out in different secondary schools of Mataró (Catalonia) and Castelló de la Plana (Valencia) with students from different sociolinguistic backgrounds. I will focus, though, on the discourses provided by the Castilian L1 speakers, as they are the larger group (both in the demography of the cities and in the sample) and the ones who policy-makers expect to become new speakers of Catalan. I will base the analysis on the reported language choices and practices of these teenagers, with an emphasis on the continuities and changes in the transition from primary to secondary school, and on the links that may be established to different contextual elements, like the demolinguistic composition of their schools and neighbourhoods, or the different models of language-in-education policies and language policies at large implemented in each region. References Arnau, Joaquim and F. Xavier Vila (2013): “Language-in-education policies in the Catalan language area”, in J. Arnau (ed.): Reviving Catalan at School. Challenges and Instructional Approaches. Bristol: Multilingual Matters (1-28) Bretxa, Vanessa (2014): El salt a secundària. Els canvis en les tries lingüístiques i culturals dels preadolescents mataronins en la transició educativa. PhD dissertation. Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona Galindo, Mireia (2006): Les llengües a l’hora del pati. Usos lingüístics en les converses dels infants de Primària a Catalunya. PhD dissertation. Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona Pujolar, Joan & Isaac González (2012): “Linguistic ‘mudes’ and the de-ethnicization of language choice in Catalonia”, in International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 16(2) (138-152)
Transnational migration is a relatively new phenomenon in Spain. Starting in the first decade of the 21st century, the arrival of newcomers with different origins and first languages has transformed previous monolingual and bilingual societies into multilingual ones. Since then, a great deal of sociolinguistic inquiry has been devoted to the linguistic incorporation of migrant students in schools, especially in Madrid (Martín Rojo 2010) and Catalonia (Corona et al. 2013; Newman et al. 2013; Unamuno 2005). It has received less attention in the officially bilingual region of Valencia, where my on-going PhD research is focused. I have carried out several semi-structured group interviews with secondary school students in six schools in Castelló de la Plana, the main city in the north of Valencia. This paper focuses on a subset of interviews with migrant allophone students, who speak different languages at home and have acquired the lesser-used language (i.e. Catalan) through bilingual education and the dominant language (i.e. Castilian) both in school and through peer-group socialisation. By analysing their language practices in different social fields (school, family, and peer groups) and the ways they position themselves with respect to Catalan, Castilian and their family languages, I intend to grasp how the distribution of these languages within different social spaces and their association with different kinds of speakers load them with different values and indexicalities for these ‘new speakers’.
Ideologies and Trajectories of "New Speakers" in Bilingual Families in Catalonia
Languages not only inspire loyalty, they also provoke fear, hatred, resentment, jealousy, love, euphoria the entire gamut of human emotion " (Pérez Firmat 2003, quoted by Pavlenko 2005: 22). " [Catalan] Un idioma que nunca será como mi piel, pero sin cuya existencia no puedo sentirme a gusto en mi piel " (Maruja Torres (1997: 39) Un calor tan cercano. Madrid: Alfaguara) " A language that may never feel like my second skin but makes me comfortable in my first ". Abstract This article first evaluates the scope and limits of family language planning. Secondly, it assesses the intermingling of factors intervening in language ideologies and language trajectories. It then engages in a brief description of new speakers of Catalan. There follows a presentation of data on identification languages and L1 languages in contemporary Catalonia. Fourteen interviews with Spanish L1 partners in Spanish/Catalan and Spanish/French couples are then analyzed in detail. Lastly, the paper discusses the data and offers some conclusions. Resum Aquest article comença avaluant l'àmbit i els límits de la planificació lingüística familiar. Després, passa a examinar la barreja de factors que intervenen en les ideologies i trajectòries de les llengües. A continuació, dóna una breu de-scripció dels nous parlants del català i presenta dades sobre les llengües d'identificació i les llengües L1 a la Catalunya contemporània. S'analitzen detalladament catorze entrevistes amb membres L1 castellà/català i castellà/francès. El treball conclou comentant les dades i oferint algunes conclusions. 1 This research has been funded by the project FF-I 2012-35-502, «Globalisation and family language transmission in medium-sized linguistic communities», (Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Spanish Government). We would like to thank as well the suggestions sent by the anonymous reviewers. The writing of the article also benefited from discussions with members of the EU-funded COST network IS1306 «New Speakers in a Multilingual Europe: Opportunities and Challenges». We would like to thank as well those students (Universitat de Barcelona, 2013 and 2015), who have contributed with their interviews.
Language and Intercultural Communication, 2016
The effect of the generational cohort on language attitudes has hardly ever been studied. However, especially in the bilingual territories in Spain, literature stresses the importance of being Spanish-speakers or non-Spanishspeakers in the construction of these attitudes. Focusing on the case of Catalonia (Spain), this paper is intended to analyze the impact of the family language and the generational cohort on the language attitudes towards Catalan and Spanish that is built by immigrant children (aged 14-16). The nature of the analysis carried out as a result of an attitude questionnaire answered by 527 young people, allows differentiating the effect of both variables individually when included in the same explanatory model. Results indicate that being Spanishspeaking or non-Spanish-speaking is influential in the construction of attitudes towards Spanish and towards Catalan. Moreover, the generational cohort is only influential for attitudes towards Catalan and when a migratory transit has been experienced or not. Since both variables are included in the same model, it is suggested that the effect of the generational cohort is moderated by being Spanish-speaking or not. The new perspectives opened up by these results are discussed as regards the promotion of intercultural communication and a common project of coexistence.
Evolution and determinants of language attitudes among Catalan adolescents
International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 2017
This paper analyzes language integration from an intergroup-relations' perspective, using the social identity approach and socio-contextual model of second language acquisition. It focuses on the evolution of language attitudes in adolescents as an indicator of cultural integration between the two major language groups in Catalonia. The distinctive features of the Catalan case − the similar ethnolinguistic vitality enjoyed by the two official languages and the widespread bilingualism that common schooling has fostered − make it of great sociolinguistic interest. The empirical study focuses on the development of language attitudes towards Catalan and Spanish by using a panel sample of Catalan students (N = 1050) followed for a period of five years (three waves). Joint trajectory clustering was used to make a longitudinal analysis that shows the main patterns of coevolution. Logistic regression relates changes to other linguistic, identity and sociodemographic variables. Results show that there are three main types of change in attitudes: a majority one, whith a profile of integration, and two others, which tend to separation. The direct effects of language confidence and ethnonational identity are found to explain the likelihood of individuals following one of these types of change.
Another case of language death? The intergenerational transmission of Catalan in Alghero
2012
This thesis is a study of linguistic contact in Alghero, a multilingual town on the northwest coast of Sardinia characterised by the presence of three main language varieties: Italian, Catalan, and Sardinian. By looking mainly at the contact between Catalan and Italian, I aim to analyse and explain the language shift process in favour of Italian, the dominant language. Attention is focused on the family domain-and intergenerational language transmission in particular-as a clear indicator of the state of affairs of language contact in Alghero. I propose to establish what is happening (i.e., what are the dominant norms of linguistic behaviour within the family domain), and to determine which socio-psychological factors lie at the root of behavioural patterns among family members. The study is therefore both descriptive and explanatory. The description is made possible by a quantitative study, by means of which the interactions are quantified and discussed in terms of percentages of Alguerès being used between different family members. By contrast, the explanation emerges from the analysis of the reasons and motives behind the language choice in the qualitative study, and aims to answer the question 'why do parents choose one language rather than the other(s)? Two main instruments have been used to collect the data: a self-administered questionnaire completed by eleven-to fifteen-year-old children, and a semi-structured interview conducted with a small sample of selected parents. This thesis has been funded in part by a one-year grant (Beca Batista i Roca) from the Anglo-Catalan society. I would like to thank the staff in the School of Languages, Linguistics and Film of Queen Mary, University of London. I am particularly grateful to my supervisor, Prof. Ralph Penny, for his invaluable guidance. Working with him has been to me highly rewarding and fulfilling: I have learnt a great deal about language contact and language shift. I also owe a special debt of gratitude to my friend, Dr. Josep-Anton Fernàndez, for his advice, suggestions and support. I would also like to express my gratitude to Dr. Emili Boix and Dr. Albert Bastardas, who first whetted my appetite for sociolinguistics while I was a BA student in the Universitat Central of Barcelona. Both of them have been of great help whenever I needed 'technical' support for my PhD thesis. I am particularly indebted to Dr. Joan Albert Argenter, for his generous help and encouragement: his support has contributed a great deal to the completion of this thesis. I would also like to thank Prof. Peter Trudgill who found time to look at parts of my work. The contribution of my friend, Dr. David Barnett, has been crucial for making this thesis both readable and legible. I am also enormously grateful to him for the encouragement and support he has given me in the last stage of completion. The historian Tonino Budruni has contributed a great deal to clear all my doubts about historical information; Giovannangela Floris has helped me with maps, figures and tables; the staff in Computing Services at Queen Mary, University of London, have also been very useful in assisting with the preparation of the first draft of chapter 6 on quantitative data: many thanks to all of them. I would like to thank the children who completed the questionnaire and those informants who have spared me a couple of hours for the semi-structured interviews; those people (headmasters, teachers, educators, priests, etc.) who have made the fieldwork possible; my aunt Assunta Piras and my cousin Giusy Pascalis for providing me with the right contacts in schools and churches; my father, Ignazietto, my mother, Doloretta Piras, my nephews Gino and Fabio, my friends Luigi Spanedda and Luca Feniello for helping me to find informants. Many other friends and relatives contributed in various ways to the completion of this thesis; my apologies for not mentioning all of them. Special thanks go to Fregenet Mengesha, my partner, to whom this thesis is dedicated, for encouraging me not to give up on my PhD, despite all the time this thesis has taken away from her and our children Christian Elias and Angelina Zewede: all credit to her. My family and friends have supported and encouraged me throughout. Special thanks go to my mother, my father, and my brothers. They have always been there for me during such a tortuous path.
THE USE OF CATALAN BY MILLENNIALS IN CATALONIA: LESS INFLUENCE OF LINGUISTIC ORIGIN
The purpose of this study is to shed light, by analysing demolinguistic data from the Enquesta d'usos lingüístics de la població (Survey on language use of the population) of Catalonia in 2013, on the factors that condition the use of Catalan by young people in Catalonia. The overall results indicate that Catalan millennials (or Generation Y) use Catalan similarly to the population of Catalonia as a whole, that is to say at a rate of around 40%. The results of a multivariate analysis (multiple regression and path analysis) show that the language of identification is the explanatory variable most closely associated with language used by young people in Catalonia. The analysis highlights the explanatory importance of this attitudinal and affective dimension, which is greater than more structural variables, such as first language or declared oral proficiency of Catalan. The article concludes with some comments on the implications of results for policies promoting the use of Catalan in Catalonia. Resum L'objectiu d'aquest treball és dilucidar, mitjançant l'anàlisi de dades demolingüístiques, quins factors condicionen l'ús del català entre la població jove de Catalunya a partir de dades de l'Enquesta d'usos lingüístics de la població a Catalunya de 2013. Els resultats generals indiquen que els membres de la generació Y o millennials catalans fan un ús del català similar al del conjunt de la població de Catalunya, a l'entorn de 0,4 sobre un total d'1. Per la seua banda, els resultats d'una anàlisi multivariable (regressió múltiple i anàlisi de camins) mostren que la llengua d'identificacióés la variable més associada amb l'ús lingüístic dels jóvens de Catalunya. L'anàlisi subratlla, doncs, la importància explicativa de la dimensió actitudinal i afectiva per damunt de variables més estructurals com la llengua inicial o el coneixement oral declarat del català. Clouen l'article algunes reflexionssobre les implicacions dels resultats per a les polítiques de promoció del català a Catalunya.