El 12 de gener de 2011 a les 16.00 hores, es farà la xerrada «Linguistic complexity in Catalan migration contexts: Catalans in New York, and Muslims in Catalonia», a càrrec d’ Eva Juarros Daussà i Tilman Lanz (University at Buffalo, The State University of New York).
La xerrada, organitzada pel CUSC, tindrà lloc a la Sala de Professors, a la 5a planta de l’edifici Josep Carner de la Facultat de Filologia de la Universitat de Barcelona.
Tot seguit, podeu llegir-ne l’abstract:
Catalan aspirations for independence and autonomy are traditionally and still today largely funneled through the expression of a distinct desire, on the part of many Catalans, to speak their own language as opposed to Castillian. In this context, Catalonia has, over the past three decades, become one of the very few, if not the outstanding, example for a successful language revitalization process. In this paper, we critically examine the contemporary linguistic antagonism between Catalan and Castillian. Based on results from our empirical work in New York (Juarros Daussà) and Barcelona (Lanz), we give two examples to show how complex the language revitalization process in Catalonia has become today. The work of Juarros Daussà among Catalan emigrants in New York examines how the revitalization efforts in Catalonia impact a population that has been removed from the influence of such efforts for substantial amounts of time. Lanz’ research among Muslim immigrants in Barcelona is able to also document the significantly increased complexity of the linguistic issues at hand through his work on the recent phenomenon of immigration to Catalonia. We suggest that, as a result of processes of diversification and increased complexity of the linguistic issues surrounding the case of Catalan, alternative measures have to be taken to ensure the continued survival of the language as a viable means of communication among the people in Catalonia (Catalans and immigrants alike) as well as the growing Catalan populations abroad.