Diversity of language ideologies in Spanish-speaking youth of different origins in Catalonia

Abstract

To explore language attitudes and ideologies in urban Catalonia, focus group structured interviews were conducted with two groups of adolescents of Spanish-speaking origins: the Autochthonous group, descendents of mid-late twentieth century immigrants from other parts of Spain, and the Immigrant group, who came from Latin America. The Autochthonous group displayed a clear spectrum of six sets of language ideologies. At one extreme was ‘linguistic parochialism’ in support for Catalan entailing rejection of compromise with Spanish or the Spanish state. At the other was linguistic parochialism favouring Spanish, which was dismissive of Catalan linguistic and national aspirations. In the middle were ‘linguistic cosmopolitan’ attitudes favouring accommodation, bilingualism and diversity. This spectrum was coherent and ordered in that it consisted of different responses to political and socioeconomic facts in Catalonia. By contrast, the Immigrant group, though equally ideologically diverse, was inconsistent and betrayed little engagement with local political or socioeconomic realities. Instead, immigrants seemed more interested in maintaining their linguistic identity by avoiding dialectal influence from Peninsular Spanish. The findings contribute to our understanding of the development of language ideologies and attitudes in bilingual contexts and in particular the impact of immigration on bilingual societies.