Language transmission among migrant Catalan speakers in New York City

Abstract

This paper is part of ITML3 http://latllab.canterbury.ac.nz/language-transmission-among-migrant-catalan-speakers-new-york-city/ Eva J Daussa University of Groningen Language transmission among migrant Catalan speakers in New York City Understanding why parents transmit which of their languages or not, and how they manage, is especially interesting in the case of mixed and migrant families, since typically these parents are forced to make conscious choices regarding their language repertoire. I present one such case within the USA, a rich multilingual society, yet where, due to the hegemony of English, intergenerational transmission of other languages is oftentimes weak. Through a questionnaire and interviews, I examine linguistic practices and ideologies by multilingual families residing in NYC, in which one of the parents is born in Catalonia. Potential languages for transmission are: two locally available and globally projected languages, English and Spanish; and Catalan, not only a minoritized language at home, but also one with no presence in the American landscape. In the sample of 62 families, parents transmitted Catalan in a surprising proportion, and in many cases at the cost of Spanish. A motivational analysis revealed that the determinant factor was the distribution of integrative and personal values among the languages and the symbolic role that the languages had in the construction of identity.