Ideology and language choice: Catalan-speaking university students

Abstract

[EN] The article analyses the relationship between the ideological factors of university students from the cities of Barcelona, Valencia and Palma de Mallorca, and their language behavior. Apart from the traditional right¿left scale, the self-defining ideology focuses on national¿regional identity, which presented as the main ideological variable in recent studies on language choice in the Catalan language area. The data were gathered through a sociolinguistic questionnaire completed by approximately 600 respondents. The results highlight the importance of identity in the three different regions but also the impact this has on the use of Catalan. The comparative analysis from the main Catalan-speaking cities and society in general is crucial to show the interaction between different perceptions of ideological factors and language choice, Valencia being the only city where the use of Catalan correlates with an ideological position: the left.