Author, as appears in the article.: Lapresta-Rey, Cecilio; Janes, Judit; Alarcon, Amado;

Department: Gestió d'Empreses

URV's Author/s: Alarcón Alarcón, Amado

Keywords: Occupational aspirations Linguistic acculturation Language knowledge Descendants of immigrants Catalonia

Abstract: One of the most influential factors in the future access to the labour market of a young descendant of migrants is their occupational aspirations. Sociodemographic, socio-cultural, and socio-professional family elements or knowledge of languages are key in their formation. But in bilingual societies like Catalonia, the symbolism associated with languages is an added complexity. Thus, this article aims to analyse the influence and predictive power of linguistic knowledge and linguistic acculturation profiles on occupational aspirations, using a questionnaire completed by 205 young people of African, European, and Latin American origin in Lleida. The findings indicate that better knowledge of Catalan and a profile of linguistic acculturation which emphasises this language predict above-mean occupational aspirations. Knowledge of Spanish has an unclear role and a profile prioritising Spanish is a negative predictor. We conclude that language knowledge becomes a resource 'through' its symbolic value, questioning theories postulating that multilingualism always allows/facilitates access to better occupations.

Thematic Areas: Linguistics and language Linguistics Language and linguistics Language & linguistics Filologia, lingüística i sociolingüística Education & educational research Ciencias sociales Ciencias humanas

licence for use: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/

Author's mail: amado.alarcon@urv.cat amado.alarcon@urv.cat

Author identifier: 0000-0003-4640-2681 0000-0003-4640-2681

Record's date: 2023-07-09

Papper version: info:eu-repo/semantics/submittedVersion

Link to the original source: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14790718.2021.1898615

Licence document URL: http://repositori.urv.cat/ca/proteccio-de-dades/

Papper original source: International Journal Of Multilingualism. 20 (2): 153-168

APA: Lapresta-Rey, Cecilio; Janes, Judit; Alarcon, Amado; (2023). 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. International Journal Of Multilingualism, 20(2), 153-168. DOI: 10.1080/14790718.2021.1898615

Article's DOI: 10.1080/14790718.2021.1898615

Entity: Universitat Rovira i Virgili

Journal publication year: 2023

Publication Type: Journal Publications