The issue of Noves SL which we present
to you focuses on languages in education, and the knowledge,
uses, representations and corpus of languages among pupils.
The linguistic policies of most of the territories where Catalan
is spoken have maintained education policy as one their fundamental
pillars. This importance of languages in education has resulted
in a general interest in the related legislation, its application
and its effects both from the autonomous community governments
who see their linguistic standardisation policies depending
on them and from agents who see a danger to the current status
of the languages in contact. In some territories where Catalan
is spoken, education policies and their effects on languages
have headed the media and social agenda. And, particularly
in Catalonia, over the last few months this issue has been
a central one.
But it is not only the media and education
policy which have focused interest on this issue. Sociolinguistic
research in the country has concentrated the interest of various
studies looking in depth at the multilateral relations between
language, school and society. In this issue, we present research
articles carried out over the last few years in the context
of this field of study.
Natxo Sorolla presents Home,
school and playground: linguistic usages when lessons are
over a summary and analysis of the Socio-demographic and linguistic
study at secondary schools in Catalonia. The text is the
result of a descriptive analysis of the survey promoted by
the Education System Higher Assessment Council, administered
to secondary school pupils from all over Catalonia. And it
is accompanied by an analysis of family language usages and
the presence of languages at the school in order to discover
the most important language choice factors in interactions
with friends.
Mireia Galindo and F. Xavier Vila i Moreno
present Factors
explaining informal linguistic usage among Catalan schoolchildren:
initial language, social networks, competence and vehicular
teaching language, analysing declared, experimental and
observed data concerning linguistic knowledge and behaviour
of pupils in the sixth year of primary school in Catalonia,
in order to discover the most important factors in the configuration
of inter-personal linguistic practices among these pupils.
Ricard Benito i Pérez, and Isaac Gonzàlez
i Balletbó, present Intensity
and characterisation of segregation in language terms in Catalan
schools. The text deals with the distribution of pupils
among schools depending on their family language, with surveys
administered to families of 3rd-year primary schools in different
Catalan municipalities. The researchers focus their interest
on the relationship between linguistic segregation and residential
segregation, the choice of school, whether it is public school
or a private one forming part of the public system, the size
of the municipality and the parents' level of education. All
these factors together come within a school context with a
principal objective being to teach all the pupils in one language.
Under the title: From
monolingual family practices to bilingual identification:
the case of pre-teenagers from Mataró and the Franja,
Vanessa Bretxa, Llorenç Comajoan and Natxo Sorolla
present the first results of research among pupils in their
last year at primary school. They investigate the way in which
different socio-linguistic variables are involved in the creation
of two linguistic subgroups among pupils with monolingual
Spanish family practices: one group which identifies with
the family language; and another that has a bilingual identification.
Finally, Katharina Wieland presents the study
Young people's
language in Barcelona and its representation in the communications
media. The expansion of the social presence of the communications
media has led to a specialisation of programming depending
on the age groups it is aimed at. The author studies the way
different teenagers in the Barcelona area speak and compares
this with the language used in television programmes aimed
at this audience.
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