Linguistically "Mixed" Families in Catalonia: Coexistence and Conflict  

Oleh:

O'Donnell, Paul E.

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Language Problems and Language Planning vol. 15 no. 2 (1991), page 177-190.

Ketersediaan

Perpustakaan PKBB Nomor Panggil: 405/LPL/15 Non-tandon: tidak ada Tandon: 1

Lihat Detail Induk

Isi artikel

The children of linguistically "mixed" households, in which one parent comes from one linguistic background, while the other grew up speaking a different language, experience strong personal and group pressures to choose one language or the other. This conflict is especially intense in Catalonia, where Catalan competes with the national language, Castilian Spanish. Catalan, a minority language that enjoys great formal prestige and institutional support within Catalonia, is spoken in one of the wealthiest, most developed parts of Spain. Nevertheless, high status and the economic development of Catalonia do not ensure that Catalan will flourish, or even survive. The present article proposes to study the linguistic attitudes and performance of the children of "mixed" marriages according to these factors: (l) language preferences and ethnolinguistic prejudices, (2) the relation of the speakers' age to language choice, and (3) the tactics for linguistic "recruitment" suggested by the informants' comments. All of this information was elicited by interviews with "mixed" informants using standardized questionnaires. The interview process demonstrated that there are fewer linguistically "mixed" households than other researchers suggest. Furthermore, choosing either Catalan or Castilian as one's dominant, or preferred, language, often implies joining one ethnolinguistic group or another. Whether one associates with a Castilian-language or Catalan-language social network frequently depends on factors as diverse as: (1) which school the informant attends or attended, (2) the informant’s neighborhood, and (3) the interviewee's desire for social advance. Due to the unique situation of the "mixed" household, it constitutes a microcosmic sample of Catalonia as a whole. Its preferences and attitudes represent an essential source of information for studies about the current state of linguistic conflict in Catalonia.

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