Acceso usuarios
Albert Bastardas i Boada
The migrations of recent years pose new challenges for the social use of Catalan. It behoves institutions to create foundation for the Catalan population to understand and accept these phenomena so as to facilitate the integration of these new citizens. The case of Canada indicates that an open attitude on the part of the indigenous population is essential for integration. Every year since 1990, this country has received about 200,000 immigrants, most of whom are of Asian origin. Sociolinguistic analyses indicate that while typically the first generation does not do a good job of learning the country's languages, English and French, the second generation has already developed a mastery of them. The degree of mastery depends on the social level and the size of the ethnic group. In the case of the Chinese, for example, there is a greater degree of language maintenance because they tend to congregate in closed groups that function in Chinese. In the specific case of Quebec, while a majority of the students who reached the province before turning 15 adopt French as their lingua franca, English wins out among the adult population. The Quebec government has control over immigration and can give preference to French-culture immigrants in order to facilitate their integration. In Catalonia, it is important for the Generalitat (the Autonomous Government of Catalonia) to have jurisdiction over immigration matters in order for few citizens to understand the reality of the Catalan sociolinguistic situation. The necessary conditions must be created to allow these new citizens to acquire knowledge of both official languages. The Catalan situation is less favourable than that of Quebec because in Catalonia, Catalan is often not the language of interaction on the street.
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