When language mixing is the norm: documenting post-muda language choice in a state school in Barcelona

Abstract

Abstract This article studies the language uses of a group of new speakers of Catalan at a secondary school in a metropolitan working class area of Barcelona, who have experienced their linguistic mudes as a consequence of having being schooled in the Catalan education system from an early age. As shown in previous research on children of economic migrants in Catalonia, these students internalize and reproduce the language distribution of Catalan and Spanish that they are exposed to in their immediate environment. This will vary according to the locality in which they find themselves, in our case, a working class neighborhood in which Catalan is reserved as the vehicular language of instruction, while Spanish dominates as the language of social relations. The article adopts a language socialization perspective to give account of the linguistic competences these multilinguals display when carrying out an academic task. Translanguaging, in the form of language alternation and language mixing from the various repertoires that these students have at their disposal, emerges as the norm among them and their teachers in this school. This article embraces the idea that documenting the linguistic practices of new speakers can shed light on actual linguistic uses and trajectories after the linguistic muda takes place.