Sociolinguistic changes in the transition from primary to secondary education: the RESOL project in Mataró

Abstract

This paper summarises some of the main results of the RESOL project on changes in language practices among preadolescents in Mataró, Catalonia. Data for the project was collected in a longitudinal, two-stage process. The first stage focuses on the behaviour of participants in their last year of primary education (6th grade) and the second stage, a year later, analyses the very same participants’ behaviour at the end of their first year of secondary education. The basis of the analysis is a diachronic comparison of several indicators of interpersonal language use, the language choices in media consumption, and the competences declared in Catalan and Spanish. According to the data, whilst these preadolescents consider themselves to be highly competent in both languages, they show remarkably different patterns of language choice that are clearly correlated with their first language. In general terms, the transition between these two grades is accompanied by a moderate decrease in the use of Catalan as language of education, a significant decrease in the use of Catalan as the language of cultural consumption, and a moderate decrease in the use of Catalan in interpersonal communication led by speakers for whom Catalan is not their first language.

Key words: demolinguistics, adolescence, linguistic uses.