Suchergebnisse

AbstractIn 2018, the Government of Catalonia redefined its educational language policy through a programmatic document entailing a relevant shift: instead of highlighting the protection of Catalan as the national language, it stressed multilingualism and interculturalism as educational pillars. In doing so, it widened the scope of linguistic rights and duties of immigrants (LRDI). The exceptional growth of international immigration in Catalonia over the last two decades is at the root of this change. This article addresses LRDI from a theoretical and empirical perspective. First, it contributes a categorisation of approaches to LRDI (adjustive, accommodative and transformative) based on a comprehensive analysis of contemporary linguistic justice theories. Second, it analyses the challenging position of minority nations in managing LRDI and suggests that their explicitness in language policies has often been misinterpreted as monist by the literature. Finally, it documents a trend in Catalonia, in terms of rationale and policies, towards a pluralist reframing of national identity and the recognition of immigrants' languages.

Abstract
Theorists of linguistic justice tend to assume that English (particularly its native varieties) has paramount and stable value as a global communicative tool. From this alleged value they identify several injustices for non-native speakers, like unequal opportunities and lower dignity, related to the instrumental and identity-related values of languages. In this article we challenge assumptions about the real-life value of English by engaging in an interdisciplinary dialogue that connects normative theories and sociolinguistic theories of value. Through the analysis of ethnographic case studies, we conclude that the value of English (and nativeness in English) as linguistic capital is highly context-dependent, to the extent that possessing native skills may have no positive effects for an English speaker. Both language-centred factors (linguistic awareness and adaptive skills) and non-language centred factors (markets and social indexicalities) determine this value. We highlight that normative approaches to languages cannot address instrumental and identity-related values separately, because identity is instrumental to communicative interactions. We conclude that multilingualism fulfils better than monolingualism (either in English or in state majority languages) the goals of linguistic justice traditionally associated with the latter. Finally, we engage in a critical reflection about the suitability and conditions of possibility of interdisciplinary research.

This article explores party strategies in electoral competition in Catalonia in order to test the existence of ethnic outbidding ( Chandra, 2005 ; Zuber and Szöcsik, 2015 ). We contribute with original findings on this case by addressing the evolution of political parties' discourses through a qualitative analysis of their manifestos for the last five regional elections campaigns (2006–2017), covering a period of strong territorial conflict between Catalonia and Spain. Our analysis aims to measure the impact of secessionism growth on parties' ethnic competition in Catalonia and compares the strategies of secessionist, federalist and centralist parties. In order to measure ethnicity, we focus on language, the most salient identity marker in Catalan politics, and link the evolution of parties' territorial positions to that of their treatment of national identities and the Catalan and Castilian languages – both official languages in Catalonia – in their manifestos. Our findings include diverse strategies that do not entirely fit in with ethnic competition theories. First, we find that territorial outbidding does not always imply ethnic outbidding: political parties generally do not use the main identity marker in Catalonia (language) for outbidding purposes. Second, we find some evidence of ethnic outbidding in majority nationalist parties, but not in minority nationalist parties.