Las ideologías y trayectorias de los 'nuevos hablantes' en las familias bilingües de Cataluña

AutorEmili Boix Fuster - Anna Paradís
CargoProfessor of Sociolinguistics (Universitat de Barcelona), and main editor of the academic journal Treballs de Sociolingüística Catalana - Student at the Centre de Lingüística Teòrica (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
Páginas165-185

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1 Family Language Policy

All meaningful language policy is ultimately played out in the family. As the seminal proposals of Fishman (1991) posited, the main goal of a language policy which tries to revitalize a linguistic community is to guarantee intergenerational language transmission in private domains, that is, above all in the family. Our concern is to know what happens in bilingual families in the current Catalan society where both Spanish and Catalan coexist and compete steadily in public and private domains, and where the percentage of immigrant population is enormous (Domingo 2014). Therefore, unlike societies with both a huge immigrant population and a well-deined host or titular language, in current Catalonia there is not an evident mainstream group. In other words, the dichotomy between majority and minority may prove to be very often ambiguous, or even contradictory. Therefore it is necessary to investigate language socialization processes across the lifespan where language transmission is emotionally charged: children, for example, "develop a social identity simultaneously with the development of language" (Lanza 1997: 7). Bilingual families are thus a social scenario where metapragmatic awareness is very recurrent : the effects and conditions of language use themselves become objects of discourse (Silverstein 1993).

Spolsky (2004) proposed three main interrelated, complex and non-linear aspects of family language policy: ideology, practice, and management (intervention in this practice, by means, for example, of family literacies such as books, e-ressources, shared book reading, homework help, and explicit teaching reading). Family language policy (FLP) could be deined as explicit (Shohamy 2006) and overt (Schiffman 1996) planning in relation to language use within the home among family members (Spolsky 2012). Some authors have given to this term a more meticulous meaning. On the one hand King and Fogle (2013: 172) stated that " FLP addresses child language learning and use as functions of parental ideologies, decision-making and strategies concerning languages and literacies, as well as the broader social and cultural context of family life". On the other hand Curdt-Christiansen (2009: 352) deined language policy as "a political decision and a deliberate attempt to change/inluence/affect the various aspects of language practices and the status of one or more languages in a given society". As Schwartz and Verschik (2014: 10) propose, "ideologies about language are of course not about language alone, rather they relect issues of social and personal identity". What is evident is that "family language policy in bilingual families is highly related to macro-level political structures and strongly inluenced by migration pressures, national language policy and language in education policy" (Curdt-Christiansen 2014).

The vast majority of parents, however, do not strategically plot and plan family language policy. Family language policy is not consciously planned, but rather has essentially been predetermined by history and circumstances beyond the family’s control. In our data on bilingualism in Catalan families, there is generally not such a deliberate effort. In informal, everyday life, there is not always the opportunity (or the time) of having what Grenoble (2013: 63) calls "prior ideological clariication", that is "an open, honest assessment of the state of the language and how people really feel about using it and preserving it".

Thus there is not an explicit family language policy in the sense of a visible and overt planning in relation to language use within the home among family members (Schwartz 2010: 180). At most a sort of continuum can be found ranging from the highly planned and orchestrated decisions (for example in educated and cosmopolitan families), to the apparently invisible laissez-faire practices of most families. The classical analytical frame proposed by Cooper (1989: 98) is appropriate, though: "What actors attempt to inluence what behaviors of which people, for what ends under what conditions by what means through what decision-making process with what effect?" More often, given the growing globalization, families tend to be increasingly aware of the saliency of linguistic capitals for their children’s welfare. It is not always noticeable to which extent institutionalised communications (those stemming from the state’s power affecting language policy: government, mass media, education and so on) overlow into the family domain, into each family’s language choices, though as an indirect and long-term result. Paivanen and Boyd (2014: 225) remind that "family language policy is by its very nature dynamic and luctuating and subject to re-negotiation during the ongoing life of a family".

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To sum up, it must be underlined that a new ield of research is emerging (Schwartz 2010. Schwartz and Verschnik 2013), a ield that addresses a factor that plays a basic role in the continuity or interruption of linguistic communities.

2 Language Ideologies and trajectories

Language ideologies are the driving force of linguistic choices in the family, since they are based on the perceived value, power and utility of various languages. Curdt-Christiansen (2009: 355 and, as shown below with minor changes, 2014: 37 as well), in igure 1, illustrates the complex and bidirectional links between ideologies, interventions and language practices:

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Figure 1. Conceptualization of family language policy.

Language ideologies are thus interwoven with economic, political and sociocultural factors (Schieffelin et. al. 1998). Family linguistic choices provide a window into parental ideologies, by relecting broader social ideologies. The state linguistic policy in democratic polities does not intervene directly in these linguistic choices within the intimacy and privacy of the families but affects them in an indirect way, We might compare it with state’s birth rate campaigns: increase of investment in kindergarten or in assistance programs for the

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families might help to increase birth rate numbers. In a similar vein, the use of a language in prestigious domains may give it also prestige in the private family domains.

Our goal in this article is to understand how language ideologies underlie linguistic trajectories, above all parenting practices, by new speakers of Catalan in ethnolinguistically mixed families (mainly Spanish/ Catalan). In other words, the purpose of this paper is to know "how people who have Spanish as their irst language locate themselves within this context where both languages, Spanish and Catalan, coexist. Which sorts of transitions do take place? Which patterns of linguistic practices appear?" (Rovira 2012: 13). Which are their linguistic ideologies and trajectories? Considering the declared behavior by interviewed people, one can igure out how these ideologies are formed.

The ultimate factor behind linguistic choices in the family is the individual person’s beliefs, her or his subjective ethnolinguistic vitality, as social psychologists call them (Giles 2001). Ethnolinguistic vitality is "what makes a group to behave as a collective and distinct entity in an intergroup situation" (Azurmendi 1999: 266). A positive subjective ethnolinguistic vitality allowing a group to survive and function as a collective entity would be the best predictor of both endogroup and exogroup behavior (Azurmendi 1999: 268).

The data in which our analysis is based on are semi-structured interviews to native speakers of Spanish in bilingual families. Can one deine precisely native speaker? The idea of a pure native speaker is so misleading and unusual as the idea of a homogeneous new speaker. There are competing ideologies of linguistic authority (see for the Galician case O’Rourke and Ramallo 2013). Only purists rely on an ideal "authentic", uncontaminated speaker. For instance, in modern Catalonia purists like Pau Vidal (2014) cry out repeatedly that the Catalan runs the risk of dissolution because of the lack of authenticity in its practice, full of unsettling hybrid forms. This author only claims legitimacy for native speakers, warning to keep the language free from Spanish inluence and doesn’t take into account that new speakers might be owners warts and all of the Catalan language as well. We can only agree with Pavlenko (2011: 3) that it is more and more dificult to locate monolingual speakers of languages other than English, and some "do not know how to deal with the ‘messiness’ of bilingualism."

3 New speakers in contemporary Catalonia

A complex continuum of Spanish and Catalan varieties (both languages are Romance and relatively similar) coexist in current Catalonia because steady and massive immigration has been a basic milestone in its recent history. The increase of population in Catalonia during the XXth century and during this century stems above all from immigration from the rest of Spain, irst, and secondly from the rest of the world. This immigration is considered to be either positive (contributing to the country’s progress (Domingo 2014) or negative being a threat to the continuity of the Catalan autochthonous culture (Vandellós 1935, Rafanell 2011), which might run the risk of becoming a minority in its historical territory, the Überfremdung, as it is said in German.

One should inquire "how and to what extent new speakers may see themselves and/or be seen by others as legitimate participants in the speech community that have been historically constituted and imagined in contexts of language revitalization" (O’Rourke, Pujolar and Ramallo 2015: 9)

Actually what we ind in our increasingly intercultural societies is a continuum of linguistic competences. Hornsby (2015) proposes, for instance, a seven-fold typology of speakers: luent, semi-speaker, terminal speaker, rememberer, "ghost" speaker, neospeaker and last speaker. New speakers occupy a sort of third space, located between native speakers and learners. This is the case in current Catalonia where there is a whole bunch of varieties between luent Spanish and luent Catalan (keep in mind that both languages are relatively very similar).

New speakers are "individuals who acquired the language outside of the home and who report that they use Irish with luency, regularity and commitment"(O’Rourke and Walsh 2015: 64) In Basque, there is a speciic name for these new speakers: euskaldunberri. There are many catalanberris, new speakers of Catalan, in modern Catalonia, for instance, its former president, José Montilla (Pernau 2010). Our informants are though peculiar new speakers: they didn’t learn Catalan at their native home, but they come across this language in his or her current home consciously or unwittingly.

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As a whole, the public, politically-correct image of immigration in Catalonia has been positive. A slogan, frequently heard in political meetings and publications, has been integrative and inclusive: "Catalan are all those who live and work in Catalonia", to what some add "and who want to be Catalans". There are smooth boundaries between Spanish L1 and Catalan L1 speakers in modern Catalonia (probably it is not the case with other recent ethnolinguistic groups) (Boix 1993)

Popular literature has echoed this interest in these new Catalans or "Other Catalans", as proposed a popular essay in the sixties ("Els altres Catalans", Candel 1965). Pernau (1995), has, for example, gathered sixteen family stories of Catalan citizens who have moved to Catalonia, and who, in different degrees, have adopted its local language. This author emphasizes that language contacts among equals, among peers, among members of the same social class or network facilitate the acquisition of Catalan (Pernau 1995: 33). Most of the informants, with Spanish-speaking roots, found out that Catalan culture and language indeed existed, and most of them became new speakers of Catalan, and even came in some cases to sympathize with the Catalanist cause. All respondents are well-known public igures of Catalan society and encapsulate their personal cultural story within the context of the more global Catalan history. They acquire Catalan in a sense of achievement (Botey 1986, Woolard 2013)

Finally, the reader should keep in mind that these linguistic ideologies and behaviors occur in a territory where both speakers of Spanish and Catalan feel legitimized as native languages, even though Catalan is the historical or titular variety ("llengua pròpia" in Catalan). This social backdrop in Catalonia is very different from a society with well deined host languages and "immigrant" languages", such as that which is described in the recent review of the topic in Schwartz (2010).

4 The quantitative data: the demolinguistic context

Which is the demographic weight of both the Spanish-speakers and the Catalan-speakers in contemporary Catalonia? Catalan is a minority language in primary socialization due mainly to continual immigration (most of which arrived during harsh anti-Catalan dictatorships), to low birth rates among Catalan-speaking families and to the assimilationist policy carried out by the central Spanish government (Subirats 1990 and 2012, Domingo 2014)

It is therefore extremely salient to know what happens in the intergenerational linguistic processes: "whether the offspring of such marriages are bilingual in both parents’ languages, or have only one of the two as their home language, will certainly have a large impact on the future of the subordinate language whenever such families are numerous" (Strubell 2001: 262).

Survey data show (EULC 2013) some power of linguistic recruitment by the Catalan-speaking population, located in urban areas above all in middle-class sectors. Some L1 Spanish speakers become identiied with the Catalan language, as shown in igures 2 and 3 (EULC 2013). Catalan is becoming in some degree ‘anonymous’ or ethnically unmarked (Pujolar and Gonzàlez 2013).

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Figure 2

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Figure 3

This group of Spanish L1 new speakers of Catalan epitomizes the relative success of the process of linguistic normalization in favour of Catalan. Rovira (2012: 133), very acutely emphasizes that this group of new speakers is not taken enough into account in language policy campaigns in Catalonia:

"They are those who see themselves scarcely mirrored in the language policy appeals to passive bilingualism, as preferred behaviour for Catalan-speakers when addressing Spanish-speakers. Among those messages uttered by the Catalan administration language policy, there is a lack of messages targeting this group, making them unguilty of their linguistic promiscuity, that is, nothing else than a search of personal balance in their transit back and forth between two linguistic communities."

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5 Qualitative data: fourteen semi-structured interviews

These data stem from seventy nine semi-structured interviews with women of linguistically mixed couples (mainly Spanish/Catalan) with small children in the Barcelona area, carried out from 2010 to 2014.

Next we are going to present some data on linguistic ideologies among Spanish L1 partners of bilingual Spanish-Catalan families. All of the following fourteen interviewees have contact in a higher or lesser degree with the Catalan language in the family domain. First we’ll describe those linguistic ideologies of twelve informants who have acquired Catalan as their preferred identiication language or in a balanced position comparing with Spanish. Secondly, we’ll focus on an interviewee, who, after losing Catalan in the family, has later reintroduced it in everyday life. Thirdly and inally, we’ll analyse an excerpt of an interview with a Catalan L1 partner speaker who has abandoned somehow Catalan as their main identiication language. Thus we are dealing with opposite processes, namely processes of catalanization (1-11), recatalanization

(13), and castilianization (14) [Castilian is the usual term for Spanish in current Catalonia, and we use both terms indistinctly], that take place simultaneously in the very same society. All the translations into English are ours.

Catalanization processes (1-12)

The irst informant, SI.MA, feels she has the duty to learn Catalan, or at least to understand it, as the country’s language. This is an integrative stance.2In bold we emphasize the most meaningful fragments.

(1) SI.MA. (37 year-old business woman, born in Barcelona, with two daughters (17 and 21 year-old). She speaks in Catalan and Spanish with the oldest one, and Catalan with the youngest one).

ENT: Creu que per ser català cal saber català?

SI.MA: Sí, el català és la llengua de Catalunya i si vius a Catalunya, com a mínim, l’has d’entendre. Encara que tu vinguis d’un altre puesto, has d’aprendre la llengua del lloc on vius, on cries els teus ills, on tens la teva feina.

INT: Do you think it’s necessary to know Catalan to be Catalan?

SI.MA [in Catalan]: Yes. Catalan is the language from Catalonia, and if you live in Catalonia, at least, you must understand it. Even if you come from another place, you must learn the language of the place where you live, where you bring up your children, where you have your job.

The second informant, RO.GA, compares her social class that of autochthonous Catalans in such a way that these autochthonous Catalans are seen as a positive reference group. This vision of Catalan as a code for the wealthy, even "posh" classes is conirmed by Victòria’s words in Rovira’s research again (2012).3

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(2) RO.GA (Spanish L1, 52 year-old woman, primary education teacher, born in Barcelona. Two siblings (20 and 16 year-old) with whom she speaks in Catalan).

RO.GA: "A vegades a casa meva sí que ja havia parlat en català perquè la meva mare, quan va venir de Terol, va entrar a servir en una casa de senyors que parlaven català i per ella el català era una cosa de prestigi, com de senyors. Deia que era bo parlar-lo i recordo que, de tant en tant, a casa deia: ara anem a enraonar en català. I ens feia parlar a tots en català una estona."

RO.GA [in Catalan]: "Myself, sometimes at home I had already spoken in Catalan because my mother, when she came from Teruel, she began working as a servant in a wealthy house where Catalan was spoken and for her Catalan was a prestigious thing, like posh. She used to tell us that it was good to speak it and I remember that, from time to time, she used to say: let’s talk now in Catalan a little bit. And she used to make all of us talk in Catalan for a while."

The third informant, FP, shows a clear-cut militant attitude: she defends the Catalan language politically, which she has adopted "naturally" in her native town, Manresa. Actually she declared herself to be more luent in Catalan than in Spanish. She states the need for mobilization in favour of Catalan (lines 10-12), but with all this put together, she recognizes her Spanish-speaking roots.

(3) F.P (58 year-old L1 Spanish teacher, born in Manresa, with a 23 year-old daughter, with whom she speaks in Catalan)

F.P: El castellà és imposat i el castellà és la llengua que domina. De fet, és un acte de militància, de dir no. Ens hi posem perquè si no... doncs entens? Vull dir, està en desigualtat el català [...] Adoptar-lo [el català]? Diguemne... és la meva llengua, bueno, vull dir, la meva llengua també és el castellà, eh? Vull dir, perquè la meva llengua materna és el castellà. I perquè jo parli sobretot en català no vol dir que... no ho sé. És que clar, jo l’he adoptat. No sé si l’he adoptat.Sí, suposo que sí [...] Si no volem que es perdi, perquè ja prou pals li donen, no? Doncs és important que ens hi posem i que la trobem el més útil possible. [...]Si tu penses en Catalunya, doncs la seva llengua és el català. Si te’n vas a un altre país, doncs, parlaràs l’idioma d’aquell país [...] Sí, de fet, ha estat d’una manera natural [la manera com va aprendre català] perquè des de ben petit l’has sentida i has parlat en català[...] potser em sento més còmode parlant en català perquè sí que és veritat que és la que més, potser més anys de la meva vida he parlat.

F.P [in Catalan]: Spanish is imposed on us and Spanish is the dominant language. In fact, it’s a militant act, to say no. If we don’t make a stand about it... you know? I mean, there is no equality for Catalan [...] Adopt it [Catalan]? Well, this is my language, well, what I want to say is that my language is also Spanish, you know, I mean, because Spanish is my mother language. And just because I speak Catalan above all else doesn’t mean to say... I don’t know. Of course, I have adopted it. I don’t know if I have adopted it. Well, I guess so [...] If we don’t want to lose it because it already gets enough stick, you know, it’s important that we make an effort and consider it a language to really be used. [...] If you think of Catalonia, its language is Catalan. If you go to another country, you will speak the language of that country [...] yes, in fact it has happened in a natural way [the way how she learnt Catalan] because from very small I have heard the language and have spoken it [...] maybe I feel more comfortable speaking

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Catalan because it really is the language that I’ve spoken for possibly most of my life .

The fourth informant is inluenced in her choice of Catalan by the alleged hegemonic presence of Catalan in public schools. She keeps using both languages in the family, depending on the child she talks to. As she summarizes in lines 14-15: "When I give my good night kiss to Sara I tell her "T’estimo molt" ("I love you" in Catalan), whereas to Carlos I say "Te quiero mucho" ("I love you" in Spanish).

(4) MJ (Spanish L1, 46-year-old woman, born in Barcelona and living in Vallromanes. Clerk, with a 14-year-old son and a 13-year-old daughter. Her husband is also Spanish L1, but they speak both in Catalan with their sons)

MJ: "Al primer jo li parlava castellà, el Sergi [her partner] sempre li parlava en català, i amb la Sara no... amb la Sara sempre en català."(...)"Em va sortir natural. No era una decisió. Amb la Sara sí que vaig parlar català perquè em donava la sensació que no m’entenia."(...) "La seva professora a la guarderia era molt catalana, els hi parlava tot amb català. I amb el gran no, era una professora que parlava català i castellà. I amb la Sara no sé per què jo pensava que quan li parlava en castellà no m’entenia... O es feia una mica la "no t’entenc", no ho sé."(...) [Our sons and daughters] "Ens parlen en català, però quan jo estic enfadada, o els he de renyar o recriminar alguna cosa, ho he de fer en castellà i em contesten en castellà.""[...] aleshores el meu pensament és en castellà. I quan em poso seriosa lo primer que em surt és el castellà. I bueno, també quan els dic coses boniques també a vegades és en castellà."(...)"Sí. Quan els faig els petons de bona nit a la Sara li dic "t’estimo molt" i al Carlos li dic "te quiero mucho".

MJ: "At irst I spoke to him in Spanish while Sergi [the interviewee’s partner] always spoke to him in Catalan and with Sara... with Sara it was always Catalan." [...] "It wasn’t a conscious decision, it just came out that way. But I spoke Catalan to Sara because I had this feeling that she wouldn’t understand me, otherwise."[...] "Her teacher at nursery school was especially keen on everyone speaking Catalan: everything had to be in Catalan. But not with our older child because that teacher spoke both Catalan and Spanish. And with Sara I don’t know why I thought she didn’t understand me in Spanish

... Maybe it was how she reacted."[...] "They [the interviewee’s sons and daughters] speak to us in Catalan, but when I’m angry or I’m griping about something I do it in Spanish and they switch to Spanish, too." "Then I think in Spanish. And when I get serious the language that comes out is Spanish. When I’m being tender with them, too, often it’s in Spanish."[...] "Yes. When I kiss them goodnight, with Sara I say "T’estimo molt", which is Catalan, and with Carlos I say "Te quiero mucho", in Spanish."

The following ive informants (5-10) share a similar stance. In all of their families, the Spanish speaking partner addresses her son or daughter in Catalan, by adding that she or he will learn Spanish anyhow given the social dominance of Spanish in current Catalan society. Hybridity is the common trait as Rovira (2010: 127) wrote clearly: in Catalonia "it is dificult to ind out cases where people abandon a given language in order to assimilate completely another one."

The following ifth informant shows language choices in the family are spontaneous and not planned ("things come up"). When her children got older she decided to stick to Catalan when addressing them. She is not worried about the acquisition of Spanish, since the sons are expected to learn it anyhow. One can observe that she uses very recurrent interferences of Spanish in her Catalan (for example, Spanish ‘terminas’ instead of Catalan ‘acabes’).

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(5) AFS (Spanish L1, 46-year-old woman, born and still living in Barcelona, ofice worker, with a university degree. Two sons (16 and 14-year-old) with whom she speaks in Catalan currently, although when they were small she spoke to them in Spanish. She speaks with her husband in Catalan, who is Catalan L1 and has always spoken in Catalan with his sons)

AFS: "No sé, e... és, jo penso que això va sortint. Te, te va sortint, o sigui no, no, no són coses que programis. Són coses que... bueno, tu, és normal que si amb els teus pares tota la vida has parlat en castellà, i estan aquí a casa i ells estan amb els nens i els hi estan parlant en castellà... i tu amb ells també els hi estàs parlant en castellà... doncs clar, quan són petits, si encara ells no diferencien amb quin idioma parla ningú, pues terminas de rematar tu també la frase en castellà. Però després, quan ells ja van començar a diferenciar els dos idiomes, jo automàticament vaig passar a parlar amb ells en català, perquè els nens aprendrien el castellà igualment."

AFS: "I don’t know, really; I think it’s just how things gradually happen and it’s not a matter of choice. If you’ve spent your whole life speaking Spanish to your parents and they’re here in your house with your kids speaking Spanish to them, it’s just natural; and you speak Spanish to them, too. And of course, when the kids were small they didn’t realize that the language changed depending on who was speaking and so you ended up saying that inal sentence in Spanish, too. But later, when they started to see there were two different languages, I automatically switched to Catalan because I knew that kids learn Spanish anyway."

The sixth informant arrived to Catalonia in her twenties, coming from the Canary Islands and shows in her Catalan narrative some elementary Spanish interferences (e.g. ‘donde’ instead of ‘on’). She declares that she mixes up both languages when talking to her daughter. She is worried by the quality of her daughter’s Spanish, especially because she has Spanish-speaking relatives in her home islands: she wants her to speak in Spanish. This daughter uses both languages when addressing her parents, but the mother prefers that she has Catalan as her mother tongue. Her partner refers to the Catalan independentist movement behind these preferences. And she adds at the end the same justiication as informants 5, 7 and 8: "she’ll end up learning and speaking Spanish anyway and so at least she’ll have learnt Catalan too."4(6) AAS (Spanish L1, 41-year-old woman, born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and living in Barcelona since 23 years old, publicist, with a 3-year-old daughter. Her girlfriend is from Barcelona and Catalan L1. AAS speaks with her in Spanish, and in both languages with her daughter).

AAS: "(...) Io diria que de petita petita castellà. Però aquí és donde io no el tinc molt clar, perquè sí que és cert que hi ha vegades que li parlo tot en castellà, a vegades en català i acabo en castellà... i voldria deinir-me ja però m’està costant, eh! Vull dir que... vull veure com acoblar-me. Ja ho diuen que lo millor és que un li parli en un i l’altre una altra, perquè també per una banda no vull que... diguéssim que Meri està preocupada perquè no està parlant molt català la nena i per altra banda jo lo que tampoc vull és que no parli bé el castellà perquè com que té tota la família en Canàries... Després comencen a dir que no l’entenen... i que tal, no sé què... però bueno [...] Jo... no m’he ixat molt però crec que em parla en les dos, depèn. Si li surt castellà, castellà i si li surt català, català. És que no està molt deinida encara [...] Les dues. [The interviewee is being asked which language his daughter

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will use when she grows up.] Però... però crec que... o almenys intentarem que com a materna tingui el català. Sí, perquè ara estem amb el tot el rotllo de la independència i amb tot això estem molt... sensibles? I tirarem per allà, sí. I perquè, bueno, és el que diu ella, el castellà al inal ia l’aprendrà igual i ho parlarà igual. Llavors almenys que tingui el català."

AAS: "When she was really small, in Spanish, I think. But I’m not completely certain, because it’s true that sometimes I speak to her in just Spanish but sometimes I start speaking in Catalan and then end up speaking Spanish [...] and I’d like to decide on just one language but I’m inding it really hard! What I mean is, I’m still looking at how to get a handle on things. They say it’s best if one parent speaks one language and the other speaks the other language. But while Meri worries that our daughter isn’t speaking enough Catalan, I also want her to speak Spanish well because all the family is from the Canaries; and then they’ll all start complaining that they can’t understand her." [...] "I haven’t stopped to think about it but I reckon she speaks to me in both and that it depends on the moment. It could be one or the other, depending what comes out irst. Things aren’t very clearly deined yet in that respect."[...] "She’ll speak both languages [the interviewee is being asked which language his daughter will use when she grows up]. But I think her mother tongue will be Catalan or at least that’s what I hope. Because now, with everyone talking about Catalan independence, we’ve all got a bit more receptive to that idea and I reckon that’s what we’ll do. And also because of what she [the interviewee’s partner] says: she’ll end up learning and speaking Spanish anyway and so at least she’ll have learnt Catalan too."

The seventh informant, herself a bilingual Spanish/Catalan, explains, as usual, that the couple’s language is Spanish but both partners use Catalan with their sons "always". She refers to the predominance of Catalan at school as a cause of this choice of Catalan. And ultimately she adds that the parents are convinced their sons will master Spanish "anyhow", because they will practice it when meeting their Spanish-speaking grand-parents.

(7) AS (Bilingual Catalan/Spanish, 44-year-old woman, born and living in Barcelona (Sant Andreu district), clerk, with three children (17, 14 and 8-year-old). She speaks in Spanish with her husband, who is Spanish L1. However, they speak both in Catalan with their children.

AS: "Ens van presentar en castellà (ella i el seu marit) i parlem en castellà. El que passa que a casa indistintament si parlem dels nens podem parlar català." [...] "Als nens? Nosaltres? Català, en català sempre."She presents why she speaks Catalan to her children [...]" No, perquè a mi em surt el ca... surt el català i llavors... també l’escola... a la guarderia on anaven... en el bressol on anaven i això... ho parlaven tot en català i allavors parlàvem català. Però com que també anaven a vegades quan els tenien els meus sogres els hi parlaven en castellà jasabíem que el castellà l’aprendrien de totes maneres."

AS: "We [the interviewee is referring to her husband and her] met in Spanish and now we speak in Spanish. But what happens is that at home whenever we speak about the kids, we can speak Catalan. [...] What do the kids speak to us? Catalan, always." [The interviewee explains why she speaks Catalan to her children.] "No, because I always speak Catalan [...] and at their nursery school everything was in Catalan so we spoke Catalan, too. But because they occasionally spent time with my parents-in-law and my parents-in-law spoke to them in Spanish, we knew they’d learn Spanish anyway."

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The eighth informant describes how the couple has chosen Catalan as the language to their son. This decision wasn’t a conscious, deliberate option. Once again she states that he will learn Spanish "anyhow". She praises bilingualism: "If he can get two mother languages, it’s best."

(8) MPM (38-year-old Spanish L1, born and living in Barcelona, biologist, with a 3-year-old son with whom she speaks in Catalan)

MPM: "No, perquè això... vam pensar que el castellà l’aprendria igualment per l’entorn en el que estem, bueno vull dir, més medis en castellà malauradament que en català... Llavors això ho aprendria segur, i emmm clar volíem que aprengui un altre idioma com a propi. Després l’anglès, el francès i tot això ja arribarà, però si pot tenir dues llengües maternes, perfecte. Potser no li ensenyarem el millor català del món, però bueno. De fet no és allò que ens haguéssim parlat... vull dir va sortir com una mica una cosa que vam pensar... tampoc no ho vam discutir... va ser com algo que teníem molt clar tots dos."

MPM: "No, because we thought she would just learn Spanish naturally from the daily world we live in; because, unfortunately, there’s generally more Spanish around us than Catalan, in the media, in life in general [...] So since Spanish was going to be a sure thing, we thought it’s better if you can learn another language that can be just your own. Later on there’d also be time for English and French and other languages, but if you can start with two maternal languages, so much the better. Perhaps the Catalan we’re teaching our child isn’t the most correct Catalan, but that’s the way it is. It’s not what we would have spoken [...] I mean, the idea just came out and we didn’t really need to debate it in any great detail [...] it just made a lot of sense to both of us."

The same rationale resonates in interviewee 9 (JC). Spanish is already guaranteed, so the acquisition of Catalan in the family is not an obstacle for the acquisition of Spanish. Interviewee 10 (BC) adds a nuance: BC comments that she plans to speak to their children in Catalan, whereas their children will learn Spanish because its acquisition is easier and because it is more available in the surrounding society. Both excerpts come from Bastardas (forthcoming), in an article which belongs to the same research project as the rest of this paper.

(9) JC (bilingual L1 Spanish/Catalan woman, born and living in Barcelona, with a 3 year-old child. The partner is Spanish L1. Both began speaking in Spanish but now they interact in Catalan. Nowadays both speak in Catalan to their child)

JC: "De fet, també va ser de les coses que vam pensar, no? El castellà aquí el té garantit, segur. Llavors, anem a garantir-li el català"

JC: "Actually, it was one of the things that we thought about as well, didn’t we? Spanish is completely guaranteed, for sure. So let’s guarantee Catalan for him"

(10) BC ( L1 Spanish woman. Her partner is French L1. They met in Catalonia and communicate in Spanish, with a couple of fourteen-month kids. The interviewee talks in Catalan to her children, whereas her partner uses French).

Interviewer: "I això ho vau decidir o va sorgir o com va anar?

BC: No ho vam decidir. Jo vaig decidir que si vivia a Catalunya els hi parlaria en català i en el supòsit de que haguéssim eh: viscut a França, crec que hagués optat pel castellà, més que res per un tema de...lo que tenia clar és que volia que el sapiguessin... vull dir. Jo no els hi parlo francès perquè no és la meva llengua materna. Amb la qual cosa em sembla molt imposat

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i la meva idea és parlar-les en català. I com que el castellà ja l’adquiriran perquè és molt més fàcil, perquè està molt més a l’abast doncs... I ella francès, perquè és la seva llengua.

Interviewer: Did you decide it? Or did it come up spontaneously?

BC: We didn’t decide it. I decided that if I lived in Catalonia, I’d talk to them in Catalan, and in the case I had lived in France, I think I would have chosen Spanish...It is clear to me I wanted them to know it, I mean. I don’t speak French to them because it isn’t my mother language, so it seems imposed. My idea is to talk to them in Catalan, since they will acquire Spanish because it is much easier. It (Spanish) is much more available.. And she, in French, because it is her Language.

The eleventh interviewee, RY, shows a similar stance to the one by informant 1. He states that in order to feel really Catalan, he thinks he needs to learn and speak Catalan. Therefore, RY, L1 Spanish, decides to adopt Catalan when addressing his child.

(11) RY (Spanish L1 man, with a French L1 partner. They talk in Spanish to each other, but he talks in Catalan with their child.

"Vaig ser jo que vaig decidir que jo volia parlar en català perquè em sento molt català i no entenia que sentint-me molt català, no parlés català."

Interviewer: Per parlar en català et sents més català?

RY: "Per parlar català, em sento més català, no. Jo em sento molt català i per a sentir-me català, vull parlar en català. No és a l’inrevés [...]

Jo pensava en castellà i havia de traduir al català. Ara mateix no, ara mateix, penso, sento, somio en català. Ja és meu el català."

It was my own idea to decide that I wanted to speak in Catalan, because i feel very Catalan and I didn’t understand how I could feel so Catalan and not speaking the language.

[...]

Because by speaking Catalan, I feel more Catalan. No, it isn’t that way. I feel strongly Catalan, and in order to feel Catalan, I want to speak in Catalan, it is the other way around.

[...]

"I used to think in Spanish. I had to translate into Catalan. Right now, right now no, I think, I feel, I dream in Catalan. Catalan is already mine."

Finally, this twelfth informant, MGH, appears to be somehow skeptical with regard to the catalanization process. She suggests there has been an attitude change concerning the linguistic repertoire. In her opinion new generations evaluate languages in a new way, less positive towards Catalan in comparison with earlier generations.5(12) MGF (40 year-old, L1 Spanish housewife, living in Barcelona, with two children (14 and 8 year-old) with whom she declares to speak both Spanish and Catalan)

MGF: "Ara crec que tot això ha canviat. La llengua catalana ha perdut prestigi per totes aquestes raons polítiques, no? Bueno, crec que abans la

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gent feia l’esforç de parlar en català i ensenyar els ills en català. Ara crec que tot això s’ha perdut."

MGF: "Now I think that this has changed . The Catalan language has lost its prestige for all those political reasons and so, you know. Well, I think that before people used to make an effort to speak in Catalan and teach their children in Catalan. Now I think all this has been lost."

Recatalanization processes

The thirteenth informant shows a double compensation process in a family living in a rich district in the city of Barcelona. On the one hand, the informants’ parents, both Catalan L1 speakers, had shifted to Spanish when raising her. Later on the informant, when bringing up her own children chose Catalan to compensate this previous interruption of Catalan in her family ("I didn’t want what happened to me to happen to them") On the other hand, the grandmother (Catalan L1 speaker, who didn’t’ use her irst language to her children) sticks to Spanish when addressing her grandsiblings in order to compensate as well: "I will speak to them in Spanish, so we compensate a little bit".

(13) C.O: (Spanish L1, from a previously castilianized Catalan L1 family, owner of a business agency, born in Barcelona (Sarrià neighbourhood). Two siblings (15 and 11 year-old) with whom she speaks in Catalan)

C.O: la llengua materna de la meva mare era el català i la del meu pare, el castellà, però entre ells parlaven català i amb nosaltres castellà.

ENT: Com va tenir lloc aquest procés de castellanització a la teva família?

C.O : Perquè com la família del meu pare era molt estiradai no eren catalanistes... Era una mica perquè no tinguéssim l’accent catalàque tenim els catalans quan parlem castellà.

ENT: Molt bé. Llavors quan vau tenir els nens, com ho vau decidir? Vau decidir, doncs mira, a partir d’ara els hi parlaré en català o va ser un tema que no vau parlar i va sortir com natural?

C.O: Jo diria que ho vam parlar perquè, o sigui, jo no volia que els passés el mateix que a mi, que a mi em va costar molt arribar a parlar català i parlar-lo amb luïdesa [...] Però bueno, la meva mare els hi parla en castellà. Intenta compensar una mica. Però el DA (el germà de l’entrevistada) també els hi parla en castellà.

ENT: I això és premeditat, aquest ús del castellà?

C.O: Sí, la meva mare em diu, em diu "yo les hablaré en castellano y así equilibramos un poco".

C.O [in Catalan]: My mother’s irst language was Catalan and my father’s was Catalan, but they used to speak Catalan among themselves, and with us Spanish.

INT: How was the Castilianization process in your family?

C.O: Because my father’s family was very posh and they weren’t catalanist ...In a way they didn’t want us to have the Catalan accent Catalans usually have when we speak in Castilian.

Interviewer: OK. Then when you began bringing up your children, how did you decide it? Did you make your mind saying "From now on, I’ll speak Catalan to them" or you didn’t discuss this subject and it came out naturally?

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C.O: I’d say we discussed it because, I mean, I didn’t want what happened to me to happen to them, that it was hard for me to get to speak Catalan, and speak it with luency [...] but anyway, my mother talks to them in Spanish. She tries to offset a little bit. But DA (the interviewee’s brother) speaks to them also in Spanish.

Interviewer: " Then is this deliberate, this use of Spanish?

C.O: Yes, my mother tells me,tells me [in Spanish] "I will speak to them in Spanish", so we compensate a little bit".

Castilianization processes

Finally the fourteenth fragment is similar to the previous (13th) linguistic story. This excerpt epitomizes the linguistic behaviour of a tiny sector of the autochthonous Catalan speaking population who stopped using Catalan in the family. This sector is located mainly in the upper classes and has been barely investigated (Boix-Fuster and Moran 2014). The interviewee proclaims or boasts her Catalan roots ("I am Catalan through and through, I know my sixteen last names"), but altogether she criticizes the alleged exaggerated pressures of the Catalan normalization process. She takes an apparent moderate stance ("one extreme is bad and the other one too") and implicitly she refuses what seems to refer to Catalan imposition and to Catalan closure ("it’s better not to impose, better not to refuse to budge, better have open horizons") Her reference groups are mobile sectors for which Spanish, English and even Chinese rather than Catalan are more useful. As a result of this comparison, Catalan is a secondary language: "What I ind sad is (that) people who stick only to the Catalan subject". To sum up, all this narrative supports her choice: shifting to Spanish when talking to her children.

(14) ADB (47 year-old housewife, born in Barcelona (Sarrià neighbourhood). Four siblings (20, 18, 16 and 14 year-old) with whom she speaks in Spanish).

ENT: ¿Te has planteado la razón por la que ha aumentado el uso del catalán?

ADB: Ahora o hace años, hay gente que quiere como catalán, muy muy catalán. No sé si llego a salir como normas incluso de los rótulos de los comercios. Que si no era en catalán multa y así, no. Para mí creo que no hay que cerrarse. No hay que limitarse, no hay que imponer. O sea, yo creo que dos lenguas enriquece cuanto más mejor. No hay que cerrarse, no, porque si todo es catalán... a mí siempre he pensado que me ha sabido muy mal las familias que en casa catalán, en el cole catalán, en el trabajo y todo catalán. Y se cierran y van en detrimento del castellano. Para mí es cerrarse puertas [...] Porque hoy en día, que justo pensamos en abrirnos a Europa, viendo el futuro de cómo están las cosas, aún más, porque nuestros hijos están estudiando. Por muy formados que estén, se tendrán que buscar la vida y tendrán que salir. Pues incluso por el resto funcionarán más con el castellano que con el catalán, dando por hecho que el inglés lo dominen y encima alguna otra lengua, tipo chino o ruso o lo que sea. Lo que veo triste es la gente que se limita sólo en el tema catalán porque, por muy orgullosos que estén pues de su cultura, de su historia, de su tierra... yo también lo estoy. Porque, digamos, soy catalana de pura cepa. Yo sé dieciséis apellidos míos (como un juego, los fuimos aprendiendo de memoria, como si fueran una canción. Dieciséis apellidos míos que son catalanes) [...] Yo creo que su habla materna es el castellano pero creo que se defenderán, que incluso estarán cómodos hablando el catalán en el trabajo o incluso en la universidad. Y que claro, el tema, tal como están las cosas, tendrán que controlar mucho el tema inglés, también con sus trabajos, sean aquí o sea fuera [...] Y yo más orgullosa de mi tierra, de Cataluña, de Barcelona, mi ciudad y todo. Si yo oigo hablar fuera de

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Cataluña mal, seré la primera que me pondré a defenderlo. Pero claro, no el otro extremo o quizá piensan que estuvieron muy reprimidos. Viven mucho el pasado, la época franquista, en vez de olvidar cosas desagradables, porque fue muy triste por los dos bandos, están un poco como heridos. Es malo un extremo y es malo el otro. Es mejor no imponer, mejor no cerrarse, mejor tener miras más abiertas. El catalán es muy bonito, la historia de Cataluña, también.

[in Spanish] Interviewer: Have you ever considered why the use of Catalan has increased?

ADB: Now or for years, there are people who want like Catalan a lot of Catalan. I don’t know whether even as far are norms are concerned, even in the business signs. If they weren’t in Catalan, one would get ined and this wasn’t right. In my opinion one shouldn’t refuse to budge. One shouldn’t limit oneself, one shouldn’t impose. That is, I believe two languages make rich, as many as possible. One shouldn’t refuse to budge, no, because if everything is in Catalan... I’ve always thought I’ve disliked those families which at home Catalan, at school Catalan, at work, everything Catalan. And they refuse to budge and this is detrimental to Spanish. For me this means closing doors [...] because nowadays, when we just think of opening up to Europe, considering the future, how things are going on, and even more, our sons and daughters are studying. Even though they are well-prepared, they will have to go abroad. Well they will function more in Spanish than in Catalan, implying that they are already luent in Spanish and furthermore in another language such as Chinese, Russian or whatever. What I ind sad is that people who stick only to the Catalan subject because, although they might be proud of their culture, their history, their land... I am proud of it too. Because, let’s say, I am Catalan through and through. I know my sixteen last names (as a game we used to learn them by heart as if they were a song. Sixteen last names which are Catalan) [...] I think their mother language is Spanish but I guess they will get by, that even they will be comfortable in Catalan at work, or even at the university. And of course as things go on, they will have to master English as well in their work either here or abroad [...] I am proud of my land, of Catalonia, of Barcelona, my city and everything. If I listen to somebody criticizing Catalonia outside, I’ll be the irst to defend it. But of course not the other extreme or maybe they think they were very repressed. They live very much in the past, the francoist period, instead of forgetting unpleasant things because it was bad for both sides, they are like wounded. One extreme is bad and the other one too. It’s better not to impose, better not to refuse to budge, better have open horizons. Catalan is very nice, the history of Catalonia too.

Data discussion

The data we have just shown attests to a speciic sociolinguistic situation in ethnolinguistically mixed families in Catalonia, where both processes of acquisition and loss of the Catalan language occur in intergenerational language transmission. Both languages tend to be spoken, or at least understood.

Castilian speakers, according to previous research (Pujolar and Gonzàlez 2013: 148-149) display readiness to accommodate towards the Catalan group. This is especially the case among Castilian members of ethnolinguistically mixed families, we have talked to. They make ‘mudes’, that is, "speciic biographical junctures where individuals enact signiicant changes in their linguistic repertoire" (Pujolar and Gonzàlez 2013: 139 and 143). Some Castilian members of these ethnolinguistically-mixed families shift towards Catalan when bringing up their children, when creating a new family (see interviewees 1-11).These

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informants, however, adopt Catalan to talk to their children, but they don’t abandon Spanish, which still lingers in their minds and lifes. Simultaneously the opposite trend also happens: some Catalan-speaking families give up Catalan as the main family language (see interviewee 14). Finally recatalanization takes place as well. Informants who quit Catalan, but recover this language in a subsequent family socialization process (see interviewee 17).

Most of these catalanized new speakers display a deep symbolic identiication with the Catalan language. They have a strong predisposition to be part of the community, they don’t want to conine in monolingualism, they want to incorporate "catalanitat" as a dimension which allows them to open up to the country, to its people, to the social networks, to the trade unions, to the parties... Catalan speakers, generally considered to have higher social status, have become a reference group for these new speakers, as already indicated by Mollà (2006). Catalan is perceived as an asset for social advancement (their speakers and adopters have what social psychologists of the language call positive "subjective ethnolinguistic vitality"). Whereas Catalan is chosen because it is prestigious thanks to its dominance in middle-class networks and in the local and regional (national Catalan) institutions, Spanish keeps being the most important code in both the Spanish state institutions and in the labour market. These results conirm the factors behind the catalanization process Rovira (2012) found out in her research on new speakers: upwards social mobility, catalanization thanks to surrounding Catalan milieu, and will to stamp out personal links with Catalonia and its language.

These new speakers have participated in organized social networks, they have left their neighborhood (where they used to distinguish "the Catalans" as different) and have added it as a family language in such a way that they have broken with former generations. The intergenerational transmission of Spanish, however, has not been interrupted, because their children keep being completely competent in it because of environmental factors inside and outside the family. Spanish continues to be a family language anyway, in internal communications, for example, with grandparents and among siblings (Tuominen 1999, Barron-Hauwaert 2011).

New speakers haven’t made an option to abandon Spanish. At the same time for them the normalization of Catalan is legitimate, but it doesn’t mean at all monolingualism in Catalan. The normalization of Catalan competes with the normalization of Spanish in the opposite direction: "for many people, Spanish, besides being the family language, is always available, is the normal language, the language with institutional language, the language with more media power and with more cultural market." (Rovira 2012: 475)

We suggest that this data indexes some saturation (Bertaux and Bertaux-Wiame 1993): middle class informants present again and again similar results. However, there is a lack of informants from both lower classes and upper classes.

6 Conclusion

An apparent power of recruitment of Catalan among ethnolinguistically mixed families in contemporary Catalonia has been found. Some Spanish L1 partners in Catalan/Spanish couples speak in Catalan to their sons and daughters, because the ethnolinguistic vitality of Catalan speakers is relatively high. These new speakers of Catalan we have just depicted feel empowered by adopting Catalan in their private world. Catalan acquisition is an asset, not a law. This catalanization process, however, doesn’t offset the overall demographic dominance of Spanish in current Catalan society. These interviewees, partially catalanized, declare that Spanish continues to be somehow a family language: their children will learn it anyhow due to its overwhelming social impact. New aspects are open for research: for example, the children’s perspective, the evolution of both linguistic socialization and family language policy in the long run, and the comparison between declared principles and actual practices by means of ethnographic ieldwork.

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[1] This research has been funded by the project FF-I 2012-35-502, «Globalisation and family language transmission in medium-sized linguistic communities», (Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Spanish Government). We would like to thank as well the suggestions sent by the anonymous reviewers. The writing of the article also benefited from discussions with members of the EUfunded COST network IS1306 «New Speakers in a Multilingual Europe: Opportunities and Challenges». We would like to thank as well those students (Universitat de Barcelona, 2013 and 2015), who have contributed with their interviews.

[2] This integrative ideology resonates as well in Rovira’s data (2012), a similar research. A compensatory ideology appears clearly: if the parents didn’t gain access to Catalan, their children must do it, so they must be spoken in Catalan. He feels the moral duty to speak in Catalan to his children. He relies, like in informants 5-10, that his children will learn Spanish anyhow. EL., Spanish L1, married to a teacher, speaks Catalan to his children: "(p. 251-2) El meu compromís era que si els meus ills han nascut aquí...el meu compromís com a immigrant era de que...jo no estic integrat plenament però ells sí. Ells s’han de sentir com que han nascut aquí i tenen una cultura pròpia i de petit jo sempre els parlava català [...] Que la de 9 anys hasta fa poc li costava parlar el castellà. Perquè la meva obligació era parlar-li en català. La meva mare...: "Ai, Antonio, que hable en castellano que no la entiendo! [...] i Jo a la meva mare li deia: "És la seva llengua, mama, ja parlarà castellà quan sigui gran" (...) La meva obligació era parlar-li català perquè era la seva llengua. Els meus ills parlen perfectament el català, parlen perfectament el castellà i parlen l’idioma que sigui". "The most important thing for me was that if my children were born here [...] as an immigrant, I wanted them to feel they belonged here, even if I didn’t feel that, completely. They needed to have the sense that they were born here and that this was their culture and that’s why, when they were small, I always talked to them in Catalan [...] Until recently my nine-year-old even found it dificult to speak Spanish; and that’s because I actually felt a duty to speak to him in Catalan. ‘Dear me, Antonio,’ my mother would complain, ‘I can’t understand a word he’s saying, make him speak Spanish!’ [...] And my answer was ‘But it’s his language, mama; he’ll speak Spanish when he’s older’. [...] I had this duty to speak to him in Catalan because it was his language. And now my children speak perfect Catalan and Spanish and they can use either language, when and where they want."

[3] Victòria, Spanish L1, from Mataró, with a Gambian husband. Her mother used to work as a sewer in rich Catalan-speaking households. Victòria felt alienated from "Catalans" and she was called "xarnego" (this term is used pejoratively to refer to a person, mainly from popular sectors, who originally came to Catalonia as an immigrant from another part of Spain): "Llavors (my mother) deia: "vosaltres heu d’aprendre el català. Heu d’aprendre el català per no tenir cap problema de...". Perquè ens deien xarnegos, eh?". Victòria: "Heu d’aprendre el català. No vull que sigueu marginats perquè no sapigueu el català." "Then she [the interviewee’s mother] said to us: ‘You’ll have to learn Catalan so you don’t have trouble with anybody and anything ... because they used to call us xarnegos, right?’" Victòria: "You’re going to have to learn Catalan. I don’t want doors being closed in your face just because you can’t speak the language."

[4] These informants’s ideologies coincide with the traditional view of additional bilingualism. These interviewees consider the acquisition of Catalan an asset, not a law. Pinto, a Spanish L1 teacher, militant of the Catalan cause, states a similar reasoning: "(El català suma) perquè els catalanoparlants d’adopció han trobat en la llengua catalana un element essencial de connexió amb el país on viuen, sense haver de renunciar a res ni renegar de res, sinó tot el contrari." /"(Catalan adds) because Spanish speakers who have adopted Catalan have found in the Catalan language an essential element in order to connect with the country where they live, without having to abandon anything, without having to renounce anything, but quite the opposite."

[5] Pérez Andújar (2011) mirrors perfectly this new perspective in his novel describing the identity of Spanish-speaking immigrants in the Barcelona metropolitan area.

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