The emergence of new linguistic repertoires among Barcelona's youth of Latin American origin

Abstract

Since the end of the last century, more than 10% of students in Catalonia's schools are immigrants, mostly concentrated in areas of Catalonia where the population speaks Castilian in everyday life. Although these newcomers are educated in Catalan, the majority use diverse varieties of Spanish as their language of everyday communication. In the case of students from Latin America, it is possible to observe the emergence of a new repertoire that shares traits of different varieties of Spanish spoken in South America. This article focuses on the hybrid features of this repertoire, its transmission among peers, and also on the way teachers categorize and value it. The research results reveal that students develop multilingual abilities to fulfill practical goals. The data also show that varieties of vernacular Catalan and Spanish are articulated with a new Latino language repertoire in a complex set of resources in which linguistic forms of various origins are mixed. The uses of this hybrid repertoire can be related to key issues such as the speaker's stance regarding school, but also to symbolic aspects of broader processes, such as the re-territorialization of languages and people and the emergence of new processes of identity construction in a multilingual and cosmopolitan city.

Language Policies, Ideologies, and Attitudes, Part 2: International Immigration, Globalization and the Future of Catalan

“…For example, cosmopolitan attitudes have been observed in groups ranging from autochthonous youths to adult new speakers who may learn Catalan for pragmatic professional reasons or personal fulfillment (Frekko , Soler ). For many immigrants, cosmopolitan stances are solutions for unease with traditional nationalist political rhetoric in Catalonia (Corona et al , Newman, Patiño‐Santos and Trenchs‐Parera , Pujolar and González , Woolard ). Woolard and Frekko () argue that, even for natives, Catalan identity is becoming divested from its ethnic core, which ‘is replaced with a “civic” identity that marshals Catalan as a resource for constructing cosmopolitan selves’.…”

4. Language Socialization

“…Romance languages are found in the same contexte.g., French and Kreyòl (a French-based creole) in Haiti (Doucet 2003), Portuguese and French in Portuguese immigrant communities in France (Koven 2007), Corsican and French in France (Jaffe 2009), Kréyol and French in Guadeloupe (Tessoneau 2005), Catalan (↗19 Catalan) along with Castilian and several South American varieties of Spanish in Catalonia (Corona/Nussbaum/Unamuno 2013;Woolard 1997), Bergamesco and standard Italian in Italy (↗28 Italy and the Italian-Speaking Regions) (Cavanaugh 2006), and Nones and Trentino as well as standard Italian in Italy (Fellin 2002). In these cases, it is not always clear which Romance language holds more prestige as different forms of symbolic capital accrue to each in different ways.…”

“…South American immigrant children in Barcelona schools can also be seen to be co-constructing through peer socialization novel linguistic repertoires for the expression of new and distinctive identities (Corona/Nussbaum/Unamuno 2013). And in the case of southern Spain (García-Sánchez 2012), Spanish-speaking children adopt authority positions, exclude immigrant children, and influence perceptions of social identity (i.e., the teacher's negative perceptions of the Moroccan children).…”

Citizenship and Identity: The Self-Image of Secondary School Students in England and Catalonia

“…There are complex histories (which have involved violent struggles within what are currently constituted as national states), contemporary relationships within the states and with others (including the transnational citizenship of the European Union (EU)) and demographic diversity that are relevant to citizenship and identity. To choose two examples, in England it is likely that someone might have simultaneously British, English, Muslim and Pakistani heritage identities (Ross, 2007); in Catalonia, someone could reasonably identify with Catalan, Spanish speakers, Latino and regional groups (Corona et al, 2013). The first person would, perhaps, hold a UK passport and the second a Spanish and Colombian passport, both being citizens of the EU.…”