“Speak to him in Spanish, it is the language of the city”: the importance of context in the success or failure of Galician language transmission and use in families
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Abstract
The objective of this work is to examine the influence of community and contextual factors on the results of family language policies (FLP) aimed at the intergenerational maintenance of Galician. To this end, we analysed three semi-structured interviews with Galician-speaking mothers that were selected according to habitat type, seeking a contrast in the rural-urban continuum. The analysis focuses on the ideologies and forms of language management in the family setting, as well as on observations and expectations on the children’s linguistic development. As we expected, the type of habitat stands out as a contextual factor of great relevance in the results of the FLP stated by the interviewees. In the semi-rural context, the socialisation of children in the school environment and with their peers is mainly developed in Galician, which contributes to the success of the FLP. In contrast, in semi-urban and urban contexts, where the presence of Galician is minor, the socialisation outside the home and family relationships occurs in Spanish and thus acts as an external force opposed to the FLP, to the point of being considered the main cause of its possible failure. However, in the three cases addressed, the analysis also detects an underestimation of language management that seems especially problematic for the success of the FLP in urban and semi-urban contexts, as the maintenance of Galician depends only in these cases on its choice as the language to interact with children.
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