Changes in the linguistic confidence of primary and secondary students in Catalonia: a longitudinal study

ABSTRACT

Previous research in first (L1) and second language (L2) acquisition has provided evidence that linguistic confidence is a key construct that can explain linguistic behaviour. In this paper, we apply previous research in the socio-contextual model of L2 learning to data from Catalonia. More specifically, the paper investigates linguistic confidence towards Catalan and Spanish by students in Catalonia for a period of 5 years, that is, from their last year of primary education to their last year of secondary education. The methodology for the longitudinal study was based on a survey on linguistic confidence in Catalan and Spanish and other sociolinguistic and demographic information by students in five different locations in Catalonia. The results of the study show evidence that (a) linguistic confidence is very high for Catalan and Spanish; (b) there is a relationship between confidence in Spanish and Catalan and the students’ L1; and (c) over time linguistic confidence in both languages increases. These results are discussed in light of current discussions on the stable or dynamic nature of linguistic confidence.

KEYWORDS:

• Linguistic confidence
• language anxiety
• longitudinal
• Catalan sociolinguistics

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Vanessa Bretxa http://orcid/org/0000-0002-4607-9506

Llorenç Comajoan http://orcid/org/0000-0001-9815-6748

Josep Ubalde http://orcid/org/0000-0003-1849-8022

F. Xavier Vila http://orcid/org/0000-0003-4023-3688

Notes

1. More recently, MacIntyre and Legatto (2011) and MacIntyre (2012) have argued for a new approach, namely the idiodynamic method, in which the students’ communicative competence can be accounted for by the momentary interplay of both stable influences (e.g. the students’ personalities) and temporary ones (e.g. task complexity, teachers, peers, etc.). Thus, the idiodynamic method examines WTC from a dynamic systems perspective whereby WTC can change within a single communicative event and can be recorded using special software. In other words, time may introduce significant variations in the confidence levels displayed by the students both in terms of the specific situation and as a personality trait.

2. The notion of linguistic confidence is relatively new to Catalan sociolinguistics, even though Marí and Strubell (2011) include a translation into Catalan of the main research articles in linguistic self-confidence (e.g. MacIntyre et al., 1998).

3. As is common in panel longitudinal studies, there was considerable attrition of the participants in the study (in this case, 42.2%, N = 767, of the initial cases). There are no significant differences regarding linguistic confidence between the lost cases and those that were kept at all three times, but there are some selective biases in some of the variables under study, such as L1.

4. The term alloglot refers to first language, and it includes speakers who had neither Catalan nor Spanish as their L1. For statistical reasons, it also includes those who had combinations of Catalan and/or Spanish with another language as their L1s (e.g. Catalan and Arabic, Spanish and Chinese). The term alloglot is based on linguistic considerations and should therefore not be confused with migrant, which is dependent on nationality or birthplace. As a consequence, in this study, Spanish-speaking children of Latin American origin are included in the group of Spanish L1 speakers irrespective of their place of birth or passport.

5. The term Catalan-speaking areas refers to the territories where Catalan is the traditional and historical language, which include Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, the Valencian Community, La Franja (Aragon), Andorra, Northern Catalonia (France), and Alghero (Italy).

6. The original questions and answer options in Catalan were: Quina llengua vas parlar primer a casa quan eres petit/a? 1) Només o sobretot en català, 2) Igual en català que en castellà, 3) Només o sobretot en castellà, 4) En una altra llengua. Quina o quines?

7. The original in Catalan was as follows: Puntua de 0 a 10 la teva capacitat d'entendre, parlar, llegir i escriure el català i el castellà. 0=gens ni mica, 10=perfectament. The 0–10 scale is the by default system of marks qualification used in the Spanish educational system, and it was therefore assumed that Catalan school children would be familiarised with it.

8. The figures for alloglots should nevertheless be regarded with some prudence, since a significant percentage of informants from this group were obtained from Manlleu, one of the localities of the sample with a lower use of Spanish, a circumstance which may have biased the results in favour of Catalan.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (Gobierno de España) under Grant Plan Nacional I+D+i [Resol3, FFI2012-39285-C02-01; Alcodi, FFI2012-39285-C02-02], by RecerCaixa under Grant Recercaixa 2012, and by the consolidated Research Group on Language Variation [AGAUR, 2009 SGR 521]. It also benefited from the logistical support of the Department of Education (Government of Catalonia) when performing fieldwork.