Logotip de la revista Noves SL

Presentació

hemeroteca

bústia

Logo

Sociolingüística catalana


Language attitudes and loyalties in the Valencian Country, by Lorena Císcar, David González and Pau Pérez


CONTINUA


The next step is therefore to classify the individuals we have been studying according to the indicators of linguistic loyalty. To do so we have chosed the cluster analysis method which allows to standardize the values of the indicators so that values under the average are negative and those above are positive. Finally the same elements of the samples are gathered according their level of affinity.

We have constructed linguistic groups from our analysis of these conglomerates. The positive and negative combination of loyalties results in the observation of five groups. These are Loyal, Competent, Idealisers, Users and Assimilated.

In short, the cluster analysis allows us to establish five groups with the attitudinal characteristics showed in the table below:

Groups

Loyalties

Typology

Competential

Primary
Instrum.

Secundary
Instrum.

Written
Instrum.

Valuational

1

+

+

+

+

+

Loyal

2

+/–

+

+

+

Usears

3

+

+

Competent

4

+

Idealisers

5

Assimilated

Own elaboration.

a) Loyal. Includes individuals with an overall, above-average score in all loyalties. This group has high Competential, Instrumental and Valuational Loyalties. These individuals display a highly positive attitude towards the standardisation of Valencian and are opposed to the process of language shift.

b) Competent. They have a high Competential and Written Instrumental loyalty but negative values in oral Instrumental and Valuational loyalties. They know the language very well, but do not use it or value it.

c) Idealisers. Individuals with negative linguistic loyalties in all areas, except for valuation. They do not know the language well and do not use it, but have a very important, explicit valuation.

d) Users. This conglomerate has high oral Instrumental loyalties, a negative Competential and Written instrumental loyalty, and a positive (but low) Valuational loyalty. This group habitually uses Valencian orally, but does not know the language very well and does not, therefore, write in it.

e) Assimilated. Lastly, we obtain a group of individuals with negative language loyalties in all the dimensions considered. The attitude of this group is far from language loyalty to Valencian. It has no competence, does not use the language and does not value it. This polarisation leads us to see them as being totally integrated into Spanish and opposed to language standardisation.

 

 


5 de 7