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The idea for an issue of Noves SL focussing
on young people and language came about because the Language
Policy Secretariat felt that there was a need to have greater
in-depth knowledge of a population segment that, according
to the statistics, has a very high level of knowledge of Catalan
which is not reflected in the use it makes of the language.
This is also the reason why fostering the use of Catalan among
young people was one of the goals of the Language Policy Action
Plan 2005-06, as mentioned by Joan Pujolar in
the article which introduces this new edition of Noves
SL, and was also included in the Language Policy Action Plan
for the VIII Legislature. As Pujolar, who has coordinated
this issue of Noves SL, puts it, “sociological common
sense” views this age group as the future of society
and even though “we cannot complain that research in
this area is poor or insufficient”, there is understandable
concern about the attitude of young people to the use of Catalan
and an interest in taking a closer look so as to understand
them better.
The articles in this issue of Noves SL illustrate
both how complex the relationship between language and identity
is (even more so in our contemporary globalized world) and
also the valuable sociological information that can be drawn
from the language practice of young people.
Firstly Mary Bucholtz, in Gender,
consumption, and interaction among American youth, examines
the attitudes to be found in young people’s discourse
which give another meaning to the identity models specifically
created for young people by the globalized market, or which
may even reject them.
The impact of globalization also features
in Joe Grixti’s article, 'Glocalised'
Youth Culture as Linguistic Performance: Media Globalisation
and the Construction of Hybrid Identities, which analyses
the impact of globalization in a bilingual society such as
Malta. Study of the language interactions of young Maltese
enables Grixti to conclude that cultural identity, linguistic
construction and the expression of the identity of these young
people is hybrid. Along similar lines, Roger Martínez
in Els adjectius
catalufo i cholo com a produccions culturals (The adjectives
catalufo and cholo as cultural products) looks at how
the language practice and identification of young people are
articulated with other factors such as music, youth styles,
social class and national identification, in such a way that
cultural identity is also built in a hybrid fashion by combining
global and local perceptions.
Next Ben Rampton in Everyday
antiracism in ethnolinguistic crossing and stylisation
sets out the sociolinguistic research he has done among young
adolescents in the United Kingdom from a range of ethnic,
cultural and linguistic backgrounds. The data gathered by
the author show that the linguistic “crossings”
that are carried out represent cultural, social and political
positioning.
Finally there are two articles about studies
recently performed in Catalonia. Firstly there is Isaac González’s
article Els
posicionaments polítics dels joves catalans. Una aproximació
en clau lingüística (The political stances of
young Catalans. A linguistic approach), which explores
the relationship between political participation and the language
use of young Catalans based on a survey about political participation
and young people carried out by the Government of Catalonia’s
Youth Secretariat. Secondly, Anna Torrijos, in her Caracterització
sociolingüística dels joves de Catalunya: alguns
factors que expliquen els usos linguistics (Sociolinguistic
characterization of young people in Catalonia: some factors
which explain language use), examines the position of
Catalan among young people based on two recent studies: a
qualitative study of the “Dóna corda al català”
(Give Catalan a boost) campaign run by the Government of Catalonia’s
Language Policy Secretariat, and the 2002 Survey of Young
People in Catalonia carried out by the Government of Catalonia’s
Youth Secretariat. .
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