Self-identifications of youth in Catalonia: a linguistic acculturation theory approach

Abstract

Located in Catalonia (Spain), and based on the Acculturation Theory applied to the field of linguistics, the objectives of this article are: i) to detect and study the linguistic acculturation strategies of young people; ii) to analyse the effects of origin and linguistic acculturation profiles relating to self-identifications with Spain and Catalonia and; iii) to explore the predictive power of these variables. The quantitative data belongs to a representative sample of teenagers aged 14 to 16 in the city of Lleida (n=571) -the second most populated province capital, after Barcelona, and a territory with a high percentage of immigrant population. The youth of Catalonia construct Catalan or Spanish linguistic acculturation strategies, but also a high percentage of integration strategies. Also, there are polarised identitary constructions, but not in all of the strategies nor associated with all of the origins. These are observed most amongst natives and with non-integrationist strategies.

The differentiated role of language knowledge and linguistic acculturation strategies in the configuration of occupational aspirations: the case of the descendants of migrants in Western Catalonia

“…This fact shows that the knowledge of languages has an influence on their configuration (Alarcón et al, 2014;Portes et al, 2010;Portes & Rivas, 2011;Portes & Rumbaut, 2001), although Catalan knowledge is the one that predicts the highest aspirations. Finally, the majority acculturation linguistic strategy is bilingual, which is consistent with other studies on this topic of the descendants of migrants in Catalonia (Lapresta et al 2020). But again, the strategy that predicts the highest aspirations is the one that favors Catalan.…”

“…Although there are few studies that analyse the influence of linguistic acculturation strategies on occupational aspirations, Bourhis (2001) or Lapresta et al (2020) start from the hypothesis that a bilingual strategy tends to produce more balanced outputs. 2 Nevertheless it is no less true that both outputs and strategies are neither static nor unalterable.…”

“…2. These outputs include, among others, linguistic knowledge and uses, self-identification or linguistic integration (Bourhis 2001;Lapresta et al 2020).…”

“…Linguistic acculturation strategies: inspired by the work ofBerry et al (2004),Bourhis et al (1997) andBourhis (2001), the scales used byNavas et al (2005) andNavas and Rojas (2010) orLapresta et al (2020) were adapted to a 5-point Likert scale on the extent of the adoption of Catalan and Spanish in two areas: at school and with unknown adults.6 An example of these questions: To what extent do you adopt [Catalan/Spanish] [at school in general / with unknown adults]?…”

Acculturation preferences, conflict and cultural enrichment on secondary education in Western Catalonia

“…This can be understood as the consequence of the fact that reciprocal cultural knowledge and appreciation are still limited, as they have not been sufficiently focused on as a value that produces a mutual closeness. Therefore, possibly this cultural enrichment does not produce a generalized reduction of conflict (Briones, 2010;Briones et al, 2011;Lapresta-Rey et al, 2020;Navas et al, 2005).…”