Demolinguistic characteristics of Catalonia’s young people at the close of the first decade of the 21st century

Abstract

On the basis of the information provided by the Survey of the Population’s Language Uses 2008 (EULP08), this paper characterises the young people of Catalonia (ages 15-34 years) according to their origin, initial language and identification language. Likewise, it makes an overall assessment of the young people’s language uses, studying two specific contexts of interaction: the language used with friends and the language used at financial institutions. The complexity of the group formed by Catalonia’s young people very clearly reflects the major demolinguistic transformation that has come about with the arrival of a large number of persons from abroad in the last 15 years. In this respect, the use of the Catalan language by young people is closely tied to the circumstances of being born in Catalonia, of being the off-spring of parents likewise born in Catalonia, of belonging to the group of initially Catalan-speaking people and of identifying oneself as a Catalan-speaker.

Key words: Catalan language, demolinguistics, sociolinguistics, language planning, multilingualism.