NOVES SL. WINTER 2009. FROM MONOLINGUAL FAMILY BACKGROUND TO BILINGUAL IDENTIFICATION... (4)

Table 3. Coding of the variable "Language used with parents"

Item 1: What language do you speak with your father?	Item 2: What language do you speak with your mother?	Coding of the variable "Language used with parents"
Exclusively or mainly in Catalan	Exclusively or mainly in Catalan	Catalan
Exclusively or mainly in Catalan	Both Catalan and Spanish	Catalan and Spanish
Exclusively or mainly in Catalan	Exclusively or mainly in Spanish
Both Catalan and Spanish	Both Catalan and Spanish
Both Catalan and Spanish	Exclusively or mainly in Catalan
Exclusively or mainly in Spanish	Exclusively or mainly in Catalan
Exclusively or mainly in Spanish	Exclusively or mainly in Spanish	Spanish
In another language	In another language	In another language
In another language	Exclusively or mainly in Catalan
In another language	Both Catalan and Spanish
In another language	Exclusively or mainly in Spanish
Exclusively or mainly in Catalan	In another language
Both Catalan and Spanish	In another language
Exclusively or mainly in Spanish	In another language

The index to assess attitudes to Catalan was based on answers to 10 items, 5 of which indicated a positive attitude to the language while 5 showed negative attitudes. The scale of attitudes goes from -1 to 1. On this scale -1 signifies an unfavourable attitude to Catalan, while 1 indicates a favourable attitude.

The index for confidence combined 12 items, 6 of which were related to language confidence and 6 to anxiety. The index for confidence ranges from -1 to 1. On this scale -1 indicates a lack of confidence in Catalan and 1 indicates confidence when speaking Catalan.

Language competence takes only one item into account: the respondent's self-assessment of his/her ability to speak Catalan on a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 indicates that the respondent cannot speak Catalan at all and 10 indicates complete fluency in Catalan.

Finally, to assess the social network the index was based on the number of friends and classmates given by each respondent and the language in which they spoke to each other. The index is a scale from 0 to 1 on which 0 siginifies that the person never uses Catalan with friends and classmates and 1 indicates that Catalan is the only language used with them.

To analyse the data descriptive techniques (percentages) and multivariable discriminant analysis were used. Discriminant analysis enables us to verify and confirm the consistency of the distinction between different groups of subjects. The fundamental objective of this technique is to analyse and explain the differences between groups in such a way that it is possible to predict the likelihood of a person's belonging to a particular group.

4. Results

4.1. Language used with parents and language of identity

Table 4 (figure 1) compares data on the language used with parents and the language of identity in the EULC 03 study (population of Catalonia aged over 15) with data for the sample from Mataró in this study (pupils aged 11-12).

Table 4. Language used with parents and language of identity in Catalonia and Mataró i Mataró

	Language used with parents				Language of identity
	Catalonia		Mataró		Catalonia		Mataró
	N	%	N	%	N	%	N	%
Catalan	2113	39,5	242	23,8	2670	48,8	268	26,6
Catalan and Spanish	371	6,9	298	29,4	283	5,2	366	36,3
Spanish	2689	50,3	343	33,8	2425	44,3	274	27,2
Other languages	174	3,3	132	13,0	92	1,7	101	10,0
TOTAL	5347	100	1015	100	5470	100	1009	100

Note: Data for Catalonia are from the EULC 03 study. Data for Mataró is drawn from this study.

Graphic 1. Language used with parents and language of identity in Catalonia
(EULC 03) and sixth-year primary pupils in Mataró

If we compare data for all of Catalonia and Mataró on the language used with parents, it will be seen that most of the population of Catalonia uses either Spanish (50.3%) or Catalan (39.5%). In Mataró, on the other hand, in the case of pupils aged 11-12, it will be observed that a considerable percentage speak to them in both Catalan and Spanish (29.4%, as against 6.9% for the whole of Catalonia).

A similar trend can be observed if we compare the language of identity in Catalonia and in Mataró. While only 5.2% of respondents among the population of Catalonia identify with both Catalan and Spanish, 36.3% of the Mataró pupils identify with both languages.

If we compare data for language used with parents and language of identity in Table 4, three trends can be observed.(5) First, the percentage of respondents who report Spanish as the language they use with their parents is higher than the percentage who identify with Spanish (33.8% and 27.2% respectively). Secondly, the percentage of pupils who identify with both Catalan and Spanish is higher than the proportion who report that they use both languages with their parents (36.3% and 29.4% respectively). Lastly, the difference between those who identify with Catalan and speak Catalan with their parents is not so marked as in the other cases mentioned (26.6% and 23.8%, respectively).

Table 5 (Figure 2) allows us to compare the total population of the Aragonese border area with data for pre-adolescents in this area. Of the whole population, the majority use Catalan when speaking to their parents (71.6%), followed by Spanish (19.6%), while only a small percentage (8.1%) use both Catalan and Spanish. However, if we consider the pre-adolescent population, the percentage who use both Catalan and Spanish with their parents is 29.3%.

Regarding the language of identity, the figures show that 35.5% of the pre-adolescent population identify with both Catalan and Spanish, while only 3.1% of the whole population of the Aragonese border area identified with both languages.