Immigration and Languages in Catalonia: From Policies to Results

ABSTRACT

Transnational immigration is quite a new phenomenon in Catalonia and the rest of Spain. Its sudden increase from 2000 on helps explain why immigration policies have unfolded during the last 20 years, a long-enough period to start evaluating its impact. This article reviews the framework for policies for linguistic integration of the foreign-born population in Catalonia, and explores their results through the lens of census data on these new speakers’ language abilities and practices. It shows that, in Spain, the asymmetrical distribution of competences and power between the state and sub-state levels “prevents the minority nations from developing comprehensive public policy on immigration.” Together with the unbalanced legal and economic status of Castilian and Catalan, and the demographic minorization of Catalan-speakers, this poses a challenge to the full linguistic integration of immigrants and to the sustainability of Catalan in the long run.

KEYWORDS:

• Immigration
• nationalism
• language policies
• Catalonia
• Catalan language

Acknowledgments

The writing of this article has benefited from the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Catalan Government (Generalitat de Catalunya).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

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36. For a comprehensive view of language policies in the Catalan-speaking area, see Miquel Strubell and Emili Boix-Fuster, eds., Democratic Policies for Language Revitalisation: The Case of Catalan (London: Palgrave, 2011).

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39. Judith Oller, “Variables que incideixen en el coneixement de català i castellà de l’alumnat estranger a Catalunya: un estudi amb alumnat de sisè de primària,” Llengua, Societat i Comunicació 8 (2010). doi: 10.1344/LSC-2010.8.5. The Catalan school system has undergone significant pedagogical and methodological changes to cope with the incorporation of allophone students. See Arnau and Vila.

40. Alba Conesa and Rosa Ibarz, “El Consorci per a la Normalització Lingüística: ‘25 anys fent bategar el català,’” Llengua i ús: revista tècnica de política lingüística 56 (2015).

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43. The scope and length of the article do not allow for further analysis of sub-samples of foreign-born population by age group, time of residence in Catalonia or place of residence, which might well reveal interesting differences between groups.

44. Avel·lí Flors-Mas and F. Xavier Vila, “Si em dius d’on vens, et podré dir com parles? (1. Nats a Catalunya),” Apunts de sociolingüística i política lingüística 11 (2019).

45. Guus Extra and Kutlay Yağmur, Language Rich Europe: Trends in Policies and Practices for Multilingualism in Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2012), 8.

46. Woolard, Singular and Plural, 49–66.

47. Xavier Lamuela, Estandardització i establiment de les llengües (Barcelona: Edicions 62, 1994); Monica Heller and Alexandre Duchêne, “Pride and Profit: Changing Discourses of Language, Capital and Nation-State,” in Language in Late Capitalism: Pride and Profit, ed. Alexandre Duchêne and Monica Heller (London/New York: Routledge, 2012), 1–21.

48. Beacco and Hedges, 14–15.

49. Albert Bastardas-Boada, From Language Shift to Language Revitalization and Sustainability: A Complexity Approach to Linguistic Ecology (Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, 2019), 18.

50. Joint Research Centre, European Comission, Immigration and Trust in the EU: A Territorial Analysis of Voting Behaviour and Attitudes (Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2020), 23.

51. Vila, “Language, Education and Ideology.” To name but one example, while writing this article, a bitter argument took place in the Catalan Parliament—followed by an intense controversy in social media—regarding a civil society campaign targeting the aforementioned interposition of Castilian when Catalan-speakers address racialized people in Catalonia.