A lingua das novas xeracións: competencia, cambio lingüístico, actitudes, mantemento e transmisión da lingua

This project aims at studying the traits of the language of Galician youth, from three complementary yet distinct perspectives: competence, especially in writing; language change, especially with respect to the effects of language contact; and language abandonment, within the framework of the processes of the conservation, transmission, and abandonment of the language in Galician families. According to these three perspectives, the project is built around three lines of research:

Line 1: Analysis of the written competence in Galician language of students of second year of Baccalaureate (final year of High School) in Galicia

Principal investigator: María Álvarez de la Granja

This line of research aims at contributing to the study of the traits regarding written competence in the Galician language among students of second year of Baccalaureate (final year of High School) in Galicia. To this end, we are continuing to work on the development of the CORTEGAL corpus, which began as part of the project Corpus para a análise das dificultades na produción escrita en lingua galega of the Instituto da Lingua Galega, and we will start performing analyses from different perspectives on the texts contained in said corpus.

Line 2: Language change and contact in young people

Principal investigator: Xosé Luís Regueira Fernández

No seo do ILG iniciouse nos últimos anos unha liña de investigación sobre os efectos do contacto lingüístico, maiormente co español mais tamén co portugués (a través da incorporación de elementos gramaticais e léxicos do estándar portugués, algúns integrados tamén no estándar oficial do galego), así como sobre os cambios lingüísticos que se están a producir nos tempos recentes, sobre todo entre os falantes máis novos. Neste proxecto pretendemos comprender as dinámicas (socio)lingüísticas que se están a desenvolver na sociedade galega actual. Atenderemos esencialmente ás construcións identitarias na interacción a través das redes sociais e ás ideoloxías lingüísticas que operan na sociedade actual en volta do monolingüismo, do bilingüismo e do multilingüismo.

Line 3: The language of families: conservation, transmission, and abandonment of the language across three generations

Principal investigator: Henrique Monteagudo

This project aims at contributing to the body of knowledge on the processes of conservation, transmission, and abandonment of the language in Galician families. To this end, we will start by analysing a corpus of approximately 500 sociolinguistic family records, studied across three generations. These records have been developed since 2000 by students of Galician Sociolinguistics, following a model provided by their teacher, based on interviews of several members of each family unit across three successive generations. The records include: information on the initial language and the repertoire of language skills and uses of several members of the same family; an exploration of autobiographical attitudes and narratives; and social information: gender and age, residence and migration (including emigration and return), studies/profession, and marital status, among others.