Located in the province of Lleida (Catalonia, Spain), this study aims to identify and analyze the predictors of linguistic acculturation preferences of autochthonous high-school students toward their peers of Latin American descent. Autochthonous high-school students (N = 349) filled a questionnaire measuring linguistic acculturation and a series…

The current study investigates Spanish children's variation between the standard and non-standard forms for second person singular preterit --s ("caiste" [approximately equal to] "caístes"). All second person singular preterit forms were extracted from the spontaneous speech of 78 children in Spain and analyzed for the effects…

Literature on early language acquisition has observed that age of onset of acquisition (AoA) is relevant for certain grammatical phenomena. Simultaneous bilinguals receive regular and extensive exposure to two languages from birth (Müller, 2009), whereas sequential child learners get in extensive contact to L[subscript B] once the L[subscript A]…

A critical approach to "neofalante," newspeakers of Galician and their theoretical framework, is presented. In order to do so, we take as a case study some of its documented cases as a popular notion, its transformations, and its mobilisation in the planning discourse, along with its construction and evolution as an analytical category…

Aragonese is a threatened Romance language immersed in a historical process of substitution by Spanish, the official language. The number of speakers who maintained its transmission to younger generations, mainly in rural areas, has extremely declined over the last century. In the meantime, revitalisation efforts have incorporated new speakers,…

In many immigrant families, children often learn the language and culture of the host society quicker than adult immigrants. Consequently, children serve as language brokers, translating and interpreting face-to-face communication. The aim of this paper is to present a study based on 19 qualitative in depth interviews with young adults reporting…

This article presents the outcomes of a 2-year pilot study of a teaching innovation project in an English-medium instruction course on sociolinguistics, in a languages degree at a Catalan university. Following the tenets of Critical Linguistics Education, our proposal aimed at promoting the students' development of metalinguistic awareness of…

Predicting the outcome of language contact situations is complicated by the fact that the primary agents of linguistic change--individual speakers--are unpredictable (van Coetsem, 2000; Thomason, 2001). My dissertation examines the variety of Spanish spoken in Galicia, Spain, where individual language choices are often motivated not by utility but…

Immigrant integration in nation states increasingly focuses on the importance of learning the national state language. This is evidenced by increased emphasis on rigorous language testing and tighter citizenship regulations. This paper analyses immigrant integration in two sub-state contexts, Galicia and Wales, where presence of a national…

In this paper, we analyse the relationship between use and perception of five Catalan variants of the variable "subject coreferential with an antecedent." This will be done by examining the results of a cloze test and three perception surveys answered in 1997 by 26 respondents. Two different correct constructions were then presented as…

In recent years there has been a focus in language policy research on understanding how national policies are interpreted and negotiated by social actors on the ground. This paper looks at the interplay between government and grassroots initiatives to create Galician-speaking spaces in predominantly Spanish-speaking urban settings. While official…

In this article, we examine the experiences of 18 Galician language learners who participated in what Garland [(2008). "The minority language and the cosmopolitan speaker: Ideologies of Irish language learners" (Unpublished PhD thesis). University of California, Santa Barbara] refers to as a "language-learning holiday" in…

While the idea of plurilingual competence is widely established theoretically and promoted in European language policies, it is not implemented in educational practice, where separate plurilingualism is still dominant. The idea of languages as autonomous entities is e.g. reflected in the "Common European Framework of Reference for…

Adolescents' attitudes towards standard Galician, non-standard Galician and Spanish are examined in this study using a matched-guise test. Results show that adolescents perceive standard and non-standard Galician differently and that different values are attached to the three linguistic varieties investigated. Our findings confirm that certain…

An analysis of the language attitudes in the adjacent regions of Els Ports (in the province of Castellon, Spain) and Matarranya (in the province of Teruel, Spain) using the matched-guise technique shows that in both areas, Catalan and Spanish coexist today in a diglossic situation in which Catalan has instrumental values that are lower than those…