Traditionally, Catalonia is seen as a successful example of language revitalization, through the achievement and maintenance of a fairly stable Castilian/Catalan bilingualism for the last thirty years or so. Recently, however, Catalonia has experienced significant immigration in the context of globalization. The autonomous government is now supporting an agenda in which Catalan alone is presented as the national language, the language of convergence, while Castilian, despite its long historical presence in the region, is portrayed as one of three hundred languages spoken there today. We examine how this policy interacts with everyday linguistic realities and with a preservationist agenda. Catalan speakers are divided between those who feel liberated from the imposition of Spanish identity and culture and those who fear an exclusivist nationalism which they feel would be anachronistic in the globalized world of today. Spanish speakers, in turn, feel threatened and targeted. New immigrants, coming from all corners of the world, are caught in a climate in which official language policies hardly reflect their own needs. Linguistic policies have to be re-thought to tend to the needs of immigrants while also ensuring the survival of Catalan.
Gràcia, Marta, Fàtima Vega, Sonia Jarque, Ana Luisa Adam, Maria Josep Jarque & Sammy King Fai Hui
2021. Teaching practices for developing oral language skills in Catalan schools. Cogent Education 8:1
Garvía, Roberto & Andrés Santana
2020. The linguistic regime in Catalan Schools: some survey results. European Journal of Language Policy 12:1 ► pp. 85 ff.
Comellas-Casanova, Pere
2016. Immigration and linguistic diversity: A new and poorly understood situation for Catalan. International Journal of Multilingualism 13:2 ► pp. 149 ff.
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