Languages, young people and university: linguistic attitudes in the city of Valencia and its metropolitan area

Abstract

This paper analyzes the attitudes of young Valencians (aged 19-34) to their official languages, Valencian and Spanish, depending on whether they have completed or not their university studies. The research focuses on standard Spanish (CS) language modalities, standard Valencian (VS), non-standard Spanish (CNS) and non-standard Valencian (VNS). It also interprets the data according to the degree of identification and use that young people have assigned to the communicative interactions of each mode, the ideological consideration of the speakers of one language or the other, as well as the identification of personal traits. Among the conclusions, the widespread assessment of CS as the best-rated modality has been highlighted, surpassed only by VS in certain areas. Regarding the group of university students, CS is considered by the majority as centralist while VS as more Catalanist (with nuances according to the population group). Another result is the relevance of the affective (character) attributes in the different perception of both standard modalities. Lastly, the statistical significance of social factors at the sociocultural level and the customary language in the characterization of the four linguistic modalities are stated.

Keywords: language attitudes, languages in contact, university students, metropolitan area, factorial analyses, ANOVA.