Manual of Language Acquisition

Christiane Fäcke

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9783110394146
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

The series Manuals of Romance Linguistics (MRL) aims to present a comprehensive, state-of-the-art overview of Romance linguistics. It will comprise approximately 60 volumes that can either be consulted individually or used as a series of books providing a detailed overall picture of the current state of research in Romance linguistics. A special focus will be placed on the presentation and analysis of the smaller languages, the linguae minores.

Acquisition of Romance Languages: Contexts and Characteristics

Joan Julià-Muné

19 Catalan

Abstract: This contribution analyses the standing of Catalan as L1 and L2. It explains when this Romance language was first taught as a foreign language in early 20th-century Germany, how and where it was extended, and how it is being taught worldwide nowadays in spite of its minor language status in the era of globalization. The article sets out to describe Catalan-speaker competence in terms of both perception and production in all linguistic levels. Different strategies are proposed to improve the linguistic performance of foreign learners of Catalan, so that they may overcome their lack of mastering the language and avoid subsequent misunderstandings. A large range of languages, whose L1 speakers include the majority of the world’s population, is dealt with.

Keywords: Catalan as a foreign language, Catalan pronunciation in L2 learning, Catalan grammar in L2 learning, worldwide Catalan studies

1 Introduction⁹³

A burning issue within the field of sociolinguistics is the growing influence of major languages in the current global period, when English may exert such an increasing pressure on speaking minorities all over the world that their very existence could be endangered. At the present time, due to the extensive areas where it is spoken, Catalan is a Romance language that is strongly influenced above all by Spanish in Spain (

25 Spanish), but also by French in France (

20 French) and by Italian in Italy (

21 Italian), thereby threatening the process of its standardization.

The Institut d’Estudis Catalans (IEC), founded in 1907 by the Provincial Government of Barcelona, acted as the “academy” of Catalan language from the beginning and has fulfilled this role up to the present day. On the other hand, the Institut Ramon Llull (IRL) was established in 2002 by the Generalitat de Catalunya (Autonomous Government of Catalonia) with the aim of promoting the Catalan language and Catalan culture abroad.⁹⁴ Following the death of the dictator Francisco Franco in 1975 and the subsequent restoration of democratic freedoms, the 1978 Constitution recognized linguistic plurality and established that “Spanish languages” other than Castilian (Spanish) could be official in accordance with the statutes of the autonomous regions. The statutes of Catalonia (1979; 2010) and of the Balearic Islands (1983; 2007) recognized Catalan as the first language of the peoples of these territories and declared it an official language in these autonomous regions, together with Spanish. In addition, Catalan was recognized as one of the official languages of the Comunitat Valenciana (1982, 2006), with the legal name of valencià (Valencian).⁹⁵ In the same way, the Constitution of Andorra (1993) established Catalan as the official language of the State (Generalitat de Catalunya 2010, 16) (

32 Spain).

2 The Situation and Relevance of Catalan: Where Does Catalan Stand?

Currently, this Romance language has 7 million speakers as a first language (L1) and 3 million speakers as L2 or as a foreign language. Catalan is spoken in eastern Spain (the eastern strip of the Aragonese region, Catalonia, most of the Valencian Community and the Balearic Islands), in southern France (the eastern Pyrenees), in the city of Alguer (Alghero, on the Italian island of Sardinia) and in Andorra, where it is the official language. It is an official language, together with Spanish, in Catalonia,⁹⁶ Valencia and the Balearic Islands. Residents of Andorra may be considered trilingual, many of them speaking French, Spanish and Catalan.

As we can see in the map below, several geographical varieties of Catalan may be distinguished: Western dialects (North-western and Valencian) and Eastern dialects (Northern or Roussillon, Central, Balearic and the dialect of Alghero).

Catalan is a well-codified language (with grammar and dictionaries),⁹⁷ but it is still fighting the battle for standard usage. The Catalan language is quite alive, even though only 43% of Catalans make use of it as their everyday language. According to the Informe de Política Lingüística 2011 by the Generalitat de Catalunya (2013), 80% of adults can speak the language and 65% can write it. Catalan is the usual language for 76.2% of undergraduate and 56.6% of postgraduate students in the seven public universities. Communication media in the Catalan language was also established quite firmly, amongst which we can highlight, due to their high degree of popular acceptance, TV3 and Catalunya Ràdio in Catalonia and IB3 in the Balearic Islands as well as a large number of local radio and television stations throughout the three regions, the most recent being the private channel 8TV in Catalonia. As a result of this offer, over one million new viewers have been attracted since 2007. Catalan has continued to regain its presence in the press, so that currently 25% of the general information press is in Catalan. Publishing in the Catalan language has reached very high quotas in terms of the number of titles published, which has increased steadily every year. In 2004 over eight thousand titles were published in the Catalan language, with a total of over twenty million copies, but only 26.5% of readers said that the last book they read was in Catalan. For 47.5% of Catalan internet users their own language was habitual for the last 30 days, and the 19th position in Twitter is claimed for Catalan (

3 Language Policy, Management and Planning).

Fig. 1: Catalan-speaking areas and dialects (Wheeler/Yates/Dols 1999, xviii)

Just over twenty years ago the Catalan language was still under the threat of extinction which had lasted over a period of about fifty years (Prats/Rafanell/Rossich 1990). Sociolinguists differ about those opinions, either backing them (Gabancho 2007) or opposing them, arguing that the announcement of the “death” of Catalan was premature:

“Wouldn’t it be more sensible and useful to get rid of ghosts, to look at things more seriously – as we have done at moments in our history that have proved even more difficult than the current one, when we have faced much more powerful adversaries, when we have found ourselves lacking in resources and freedoms – and to accept the challenge to confide a little more in our country and its citizens?” (Pueyo 2007, 118s.).

3 The Catalan Language Abroad

3.1 A Brief History of the Pioneering Teaching and Learning Catalan as L2 or as Foreign Language (FL)

Catalan was first taught as a foreign language by Bernhard Schädel (1878–1926) at the Prussian University of Halle an der Saale at the beginning of the 20th century. The young postgraduate Schädel met the keen linguist Antoni M. Alcover⁹⁸ in Majorca in 1904. Alcover became Schädel’s first Catalan teacher and they undertook, in close collaboration, fruitful research work in Catalan linguistics. Four years after that first Balearic stay, three young Catalans won a scholarship promoted by Schädel and Alcover and funded by the Diputació de Barcelona (the Provincial Government of Barcelona) to study Romance linguistics at the University of Halle, where Schädel had been lecturing in Romance languages, including Catalan. The three scholars were the first native assistants (known as lectors later on) ever to help in teaching Catalan abroad. Their pioneering studies and practical assistance with teaching work were supervised by Schädel, who had already become an enthusiastic Romanist, for a two-year period 1908–1910 (Julià-Muné 2008). The scholarship holders, known as pensionats, from old-fashioned pensió, or estipendiats, from German Stipendium, at the time, were Manuel de Montoliu (1877–1961), Pere Barnils (1882–1933) and Antoni Griera (1887–1973) (

14 European History of Romance Language Teaching).

That starting point was the basis for the wider international expansion of Catalan studies outside the Catalan-speaking areas up to the late thirties, and especially from the mid-20th century in post-war Europe and North America.⁹⁹ From then on Catalan societies were set up in both continents: the Anglo-Catalan Society (ACS, 1954), El Centre d’Estudis Catalans (Paris, 1977), not a society proper, L’Associazione Italiana di Studi Catalani (AISC, 1978), the North-American Catalan Society (NACS, 1978), Deutsch-Katalanische Gesellschaft (DKG, 1983, which changed into Deutscher Katalanistenverband e.V. in 1997), L’Association Française des Catalanistes (AFC, 1990), and the recent Associació de Catalanistes de l’Amèrica Llatina (2012). All of them have been coordinated by the Federació Internacional d’Associacions de Catalanística (FIAC) since 2006.

It must be taken into account that the first post-war international conference on the Catalan language was held in France (La linguistique catalane, Strasbourg, 1968), the second meeting was hosted by the University of Amsterdam in 1970 and the third one was held at Fitzwilliam College (Cambridge, 1973), where the Associació Internacional de Llengua i Literatura Catalanes (AILLC) was set up.¹⁰⁰ Later on, Catalan studies were expanded in the Dutch-speaking and Scandinavian countries and throughout Eastern Europe.¹⁰¹ Early Catalan studies were also established in Asia, Australia and Latin America.

Surprisingly enough, while Catalan was banned at schools and in the mass media under Franco’s rule (1939–1975),¹⁰² a decree dated 7th July 1944 and signed by the dictator allowed lecturing in Catalan for three hours a week in higher education. The University of Granada was the first to take advantage of the decree; it set up Catalan studies in 1955,¹⁰³ s...

Table of contents

• Manuals of Romance Linguistics
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Manuals of Romance Linguistics
• Table of contents
• 0 Introduction
• Language Acquisition
• First Language Acquisition
• Second Language Acquisition
• Acquisition of Romance Languages: Contexts and Characteristics
• Language Acquisition in the Romance-Speaking World
• Index