Els catalanoparlants

Identifier:  imarina:5130275

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/imarina5130275

Authors:  Sorolla Vidal, Natxo

Abstract:
This study presents a multivariate analysis on the knowledge and language use of the population living in La Franja, following up on the preliminary analyses of the language use survey conducted in 2003 in La Franja (Sorolla 2005). The results indicate that although diglossia ends up being too abstract a concept for an analysis of the complex sociolinguistic situation of La Franja, one does observe that a majority of the Catalan-speaking population uses Catalan in situations of greatest social proximity (family, friends, neighbors...) and Spanish for anything in writing, media consumption, or other formal uses. Even so, there are other typologies of speakers in La Franja who do not adhere to this functional distribution in the use of the two languages. One of the groups that stands out among these typologies are those whose written use of Catalan is much more than something simply token, a group whose media consumption is to a large extent in Catalan. This group coexists along with significant layers of monolingual Spanishspeakers, who use only Spanish. In light of these results, the paper discusses the difficulty of applying the consensusoriented models of diglossia, at least in generalized fashion, but the paper also considers their usefulness in defining partial population segments, in this case, in La Franja. In doing so, however, it is necessary to always bear in mind the dynamic character of societies, as well as the tension that is produced therein between consensus and conflict. Key words: sociolinguistics, demolinguistics, La Franja, language skills, language use, sociolinguistic groups, diglossia, area.