School education sociolinguistic research in Catalan-speaking territories: assessment elements

Abstract

This paper defines educational sociolinguistics as a research area, describes the process leading to the formation of this area in Catalan speaking territories, identifies the main groups working on it and suggests a number of elements to assess their respective contributions. The author claims that one of the distinctive features of this area lies in the important contribution
from psycholinguistics, as well as the bilingualist and liberal approaches proposed by authors like Miquel Siguan. Finally, it is argued that the area usually covered by educational linguistics is better understood if a distinction is made between linguistic education, which focuses on pedagogic and educational matters, and educational sociolinguistics, that is more oriented towards linguistic and social issues.

KEY WORDS: educational sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics.