Màster Oficial en Antropologia i Etnografia, Departament d'Antropologia, Facultat Geografia i Història, Universitat de Barcelona, Curs: 2015-2016, Director: Maria Jesús Buxó
What are the certain patterns of collective identity of whom has been
taken own identity language away by force? If a culture is symbolized by a
language, what will happen if another language replaces to the existing
language to interfere the symbolization of the culture? The research focuses on
individuals, who are the semi-speakers of Catalan language. In other words,
monolingual Castilian speakers, who have failed to develop full fluency and
proficiency of Catalan language in the bilingual communities in Spain,
Barcelona where I did my fieldwork. Catalonia as a nation having own language
had struggled over centuries of political control by the Spanish central
government and had been imposed to employ Castilian in public. The speakers
who have been deprived a language, they have recognized a self-awareness of
discrepancy in ethnic identity and become an ambivalent identity. The
hypothesis is that the experience of being excluded from Catalan linguistic
community because of the low-proficiency may link to the phenomenon of
shame as the internal and external sanction of the individuals.