Multilingualism in European Language Education

Cecilio Lapresta-Rey, Ángel Huguet

• Publisher: Multilingual Matters
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781788923323
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This book explores how different European education systems manage multilingualism. Each chapter focuses on one of ten diverse settings (Andorra, Asturias, the Basque Country, Catalonia, England, Finland, France, Latvia, the Netherlands and Romania) and considers how its education system is influenced by historical, sociolinguistic and legislative and political processes and how languages are handled within the system, stressing the challenges and opportunities in each area of study. The chapters provide the reader with insights around three key aspects: the management of the guarantee of the rights of regional language minorities; the incorporation of the language background inherited by immigrants living in Europe (whether they are European citizens or not) and the need to promote the learning of international languages. Individually, the chapters offer deep insights into a specific education system and, together, the studies allow for a comparison and holistic understanding of multilingualism in European education.

1 Catalonia¹

Montserrat Sendra and F. Xavier Vila

Introduction and Contextualization

Catalan is a medium-sized language (Vila & Bretxa, 2012) native to an area on the western Mediterranean coast which is currently divided into four nation states, and into several sub-state political and administrative entities. Catalan is the autochthonous language: in several Spanish autonomous communities, namely Catalonia, (most of) Valencian Country, the Balearic Islands, the eastern part of Aragon known as la Franja (literally, 'the strip [of land]') and a small part of the region of Murcia (El Carxe); in the Department of the Eastern Pyrenees in France (Northern Catalonia); in the Principality of Andorra; and in the city of Alghero, in Sardinia, Italy. In 2013, this area was inhabited by approximately 13.9 million people, of whom 10.1 million (72.5%) could speak Catalan, 12.8 million (91.7%) were able to understand it and 7.3 million (52.6%) could write it (Boix-Fuster & Farràs, 2012; CRUSCAT, 2014; Strubell & Boix-Fuster, 2011). Due to their political and administrative fragmentation, each of these territories has its own language-in-education model, and these models vary enormously as far as the presence of the Catalan language is concerned.²

The chapter starts by elaborating the context, with a brief account of the historical evolution of the languages spoken in Catalonia until the 1970s, when the foundations of the current education system were established, and a description of the evolution of the language policies introduced over the last three decades, including the legal and political framework concerning languages at school. It then goes on to discuss the design of Catalonia's school linguistic model and its linguistic results, both in the official languages (Catalan, Castilian³ and Aranese Occitan) as well as in foreign languages (English, French, German and Italian). A further section focuses on language policies aimed at migrant children: it outlines the reception policies implemented over the last few years and assesses the current treatment of their heritage languages. Before the concluding, the chapter discusses the controversy surrounding the Catalan conjunction model.

Contextualization

The sociolinguistic situation until 1975

The Catalan language originates in Northern Catalonia (i.e. the French Department of the Eastern Pyrenees), Catalonia and Andorra as one of the vulgar forms of Latin which evolved into the Romance languages during the early Middle Ages. The first texts written in Catalan date from the 12th century. Standardized in the 13th century, Catalan became the main spoken and written language of the Crown of Aragon; it spread to the Balearic Islands, Valencia and Sardinia, and enjoyed a golden age of literary and scientific use until the emergence of the Spanish Empire at the beginning of the 16th century, when the royal court moved to Castile and cultural activity in Barcelona and Valencia declined significantly During its own golden age, in the 16th and 17th centuries, Castilian made its mark as a language of literary and international prestige and as the language of the vice-royal courts in the Catalan-speaking territories but Catalan remained firmly established as the only language used in everyday life and the main language of the Catalan institutions.³

The defeat of the Catalans, Valencians and Majorcans during the War of the Spanish Succession (1700-1714) meant the dissolution of their states and institutions, the annexation of these territories to Castile and the beginning of the new assimilationist policies under the new absolute Spanish monarchy These policies started with the decrees of Nueva Planta (1708-1716) and had several major landmarks, such as the Real Cédula de Aranjuez (1786), which introduced the use of Castilian into Catalonia's official and public life. Then, in 1857, the Ley Moyano established compulsory education in Castilian and banished Catalan from school.

In response to these official policies, a new cultural and literary movement emerged in the mid-19th century, known as the Renaixença (Renaissance), which aimed to restore Catalan as a language of higher culture and literature. Its counterpart in the political sphere was catalanisme, a new movement that sought the restoration of Catalonia's freedoms and autonomous institutions (McRoberts, 2001).

As a consequence of these castilianization policies, Catalans became acquainted with Castilian following a familiar top-down path - from the elites to the urban middle classes and then to the working classes. The process of bilingualization was slow; the majority of Catalans became bilingual only in the first decades of the 20th century, with the introduction of compulsory education for the majority of the population. Mass schooling in Castilian coincided with the first significant wave of immigration of Castilian speakers into Catalonia (in the late 1920s), and the increasing impact of the spoken mass media, broadcast compulsorily in Castilian.

The first autonomous government since the 1714 defeat, the Mancomunitat (1914-1925) and the second one elected under the Republic (1931-1939) recovered Catalan's official status and gave it a new impulse as a formal, academic and literary language. However, this reinstatement was frustrated in the first case by the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera (1923-1930) and in the second by the Franco regime (1939-1975), which prohibited the public and administrative use of the language. Catalan was therefore banned from schools both as a subject and as a vehicle of instruction. Simultaneously, the increasing presence of the state in citizens' lives and the waves of immigration of people from elsewhere in Spain accelerated the bilingualization of Catalan-speakers (Vila, 2019b).

The legal, political and demolinguistic evolution of Catalonia since 1975

After the end of Franco's dictatorship, the advent of parliamentary democracy in 1978 and the regime of political autonomy ushered in a new atmosphere of political and linguistic pluralism. In Catalonia, a programme was instituted to recover the Catalan language after decades of prohibition. This language normalization programme combined the spread of literacy in Catalan among native speakers with the promotion of proficiency and use of Catalan among the numerous immigrants who had arrived from Spanish-speaking areas between the 1950s and the 1970s.

The Spanish constitution of 1978 established Castilian as the sole official language of the state in its third article, but also considered the possibility that the other languages spoken in Spain (Catalan, Basque and Galician) might become official in their respective historical territories. In 1979, the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia declared Catalan official, and a general framework of official bilingualism was introduced by means of laws, decrees and a wealth of language promotion activities (see Madariaga in Chapter 2 of this volume).

But the general framework of bilingualism was interpreted in different ways in Catalonia and in Castilian-speaking Spain. To put it simply, for the former, Catalan was considered not only as an additional official language but also as Catalonia's llengua pròpia (literally, Catalonia's own language), which accredited it as the pre-eminent language in the government, in the public media and in the education system. For the last, the understanding was that Castilian should retain the position of prominence it had acquired over the course of the 20th century; for instance, proficiency in Catalan was to be regarded as an individual, optional issue, whereas proficiency in Castilian was considered compulsory for all citizens.

These contradictory interpretations soon led to a tug of war between Catalonia and Spain's central powers. The level of tension between the two has fluctuated enormously, depending on the sociopolitical situation of the moment. It goes without saying that neither the Catalan side nor the Spanish side has presented a united front or been 100% consistent. Table 1.1 summarizes the main language legislation in Catalonia. Tensions escalated significantly after 2004/05: in 2006, after a great deal of public debate, the Catalan parliament passed a new Statute of Autonomy stating that Catalan was the pre-eminent institutional language of Catalonia, and that Catalan and Castilian were equal in terms of personal rights and duties. This Statute also established that Aranese Occitan, the historical language of Val d'Aran - a mountainous county in the Pyrenees, with 10,090 inhabitants in 2013 (IDESCAT, 2013) - was Catalonia's third official language. A modified version of this Statute was eventually ratified by the Spanish parliament - with the support of the Spanish leftist parties then in power - and by a popular referendum in Catalonia in 2006. But the 2006 Statute was taken to the Spanish Constitutional Court by the conservative opposition and by several Spanish institutions. Four years later, the Constitutional Court - in the hands of a Castilian-speaking, conservative majority - ruled that Catalan could not be pre-eminent in Catalonia's institutions and that while Castilian was to be learnt compulsorily, knowledge of Catalan was to remain optional. This conflict and others led to a massive shift in public opinion and support for independence grew exponentially (L. Castro, 2013).

Table 1.1 The main legal provisions regarding languages in Catalonia

Year	Institution	Legislation passed
1975	Spanish parliament	Decree 1433/1975, regulating the incorporation of native languages in the programmes of pre-school centres and basic general education
1978	Spanish parliament	Spanish constitution
1978	Spanish parliament	Royal Decree 2092/1978, on the incorporation of the Catalan language in the education system in Catalonia
1979	Catalan parliament	Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia
1980	Spanish parliament	Royal Decree 2809/1980, transferring powers regarding education from the state to the Generalitat of Catalonia
1983	Catalan parliament	Law 7/1983, Linguistic Normalization Act (the first language act)
1983	Catalan parliament	Decree 362/1983, on the application of linguistic normalization in the field of non-university education
1985	Spanish parliament	Organic Law 8/1985, on the right to education
1990	Spanish parliament	Organic Law 1/1990, on the general organization of the education system
1992	Catalan parliament	Decree 75/1992, on the general organization of preschool, primary and compulsory secondary education in Catalonia
1998	Catalan parliament	Law 1/1998, Language Policy Act
2006	Catalan parliament	Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia
2010	Spanish Constitutional Court	Ruling 31/2010

Simultaneously with all these political and legal conflicts, the population in Catalonia experienced a number of significant changes. The hundreds of thousands of Castilian-speaking immigrants who had settled in Catalonia during the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s did not learn to speak Catalan in great numbers, but their offspring did. Immigration from Spain stopped abruptly in 1975, and it remained almost imperceptible unti...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Contents of the Book
• 1 Catalonia
• 2 The Basque Country
• 3 Principality of Asturias
• 4 Principality of Andorra
• 5 France
• 6 England
• 7 The Netherlands
• 8 Romania
• 9 Latvia
• 10 Finland
• Conclusions
• Index