Bilingüització o monolingüisme? La llengua del personal de la Direcció General de l'Administració Local

Resum

This essay on sociolinguistics is based on the study of a group of fifty people who are public servants in the Catalan public administration and, more specifically, of the twenty Castilian speakers that are a part of that group. In this sub-group, in a work setting that favours the use of Catalan, some people have become bilingual in their professional environment, and even on a personal level, while others have remained unilingual on both levels. The author studies this sub-group of individuals, the reasons for their bilingualism or unilingualism, the conditions and circumstances that have made possible or have hindered their change of language, and how this change has taken place. Divided in two parts, the essay analyses separately the group that remains unilingual and the group —a majority— that has become bilingual. In order to explain the process of both groups, a series of aspects have been taken into consideration: how long these people have been living in Catalonia and how long working for the Catalan administration; the degree of "Catalanity" in their professional environment; institutional factors (the administration's efforts to give priority to the use of Catalan); linguistic factors (resemblance between Catalan and Castilian); and a factor of acceptance or refusal (the changing of language behaviour depending upon the Communications). In the group that became bilingual, a factor related to mixed marriages has also been taken into account. Lastly, the author presents the conclusions to her study, in which she points out the positive or negative role of each factor under consideration, both in relation to the group that remained unilingual as well as to the one that became bilingual.