Aragonese language

Numerous studies have shown the benefits of articulating the learning of, and in our own, majority and foreign languages, and experts and institutions have denounced the sensitive situation of Aragon's own languages. Despite this, Aragonese classrooms continue to be characterised by the scant prominence of these languages, especially Aragonese. Schools are one of the key factors in the process of revitalising and safeguarding minority languages. However, before undertaking any linguistic change in the educational context, it is essential to know the attitudes of both the speakers of these languages and other individuals in the society to which they belong. In order to gain an understanding of the linguistic attitudes of future Aragonese teachers of primary education, we present a study in which we highlight the considerably positive results towards Aragonese despite the minority status of this language at all levels.

The globalization process developed during the last decades has had important socioeducative effects. On the one hand, new information and communication technologies have been so deeply introduced in our life-style and interpersonal relationships that nowadays they are quotidian tools in educative contexts. On the other hand, Globalization has brought a complex process of economical, social and cultural exchanges that has been responsible of the minority languages shift. Aragonese is one of the most endangered European languages. In spite of the reports made by experts, Aragonese government has developed very few actions related to its protection sincenow. As a result, a great part of the Aragonese society have developed some linguistic prejudices. Aragonese has been only thought as a subject in some Primary schools since 1997, and this subject has been introduced without a previous sociolinguistic study of the different contexts where children speak this language. This situation has resulted in difficult and complex situations in some places where “traditional” speakers are rejecting Aragonese classes. With the aim of changing this tendency, we are developing a participatory-action research in one of the schools where Aragonese is thought and rejected by students, under a plan focused on NICT and motivation.

The role of the school in the shift of Aragonese language has been underlined during the last decades in works focused on the linguistic and cultural characterization of Huesca province. Nevertheless, there is not still available a holistic study focused on the analysis of its influence over the years, from 19th century to the present. With the aim of contributing to this field a work of compilation and analysis of the available documented testimonies was done. It was complemented with a research on the current situation in the schools of Alto Aragón. The research was developed under a multiple case design and a qualitative ethnographic methodology. Results show the continuation of some practices of linguistic repression in our days.

Catalan is one of the Aragonese regional languages. In spite of its introduction as a school subject three decades ago in some Eastern Aragonese schools, Catalan has no presence in the teacher training degree at the University of Zaragoza. Considering the threatened status of the Aragonese regional languages and the influence of school context, and particularly teachers, on the pupils¿ linguistic attitudes, it seems necessary to know what the linguistic attitudes of future Aragonese teachers towards their regional languages are. The present study reveals very unfavorable attitudes towards Catalan by first and fourth year Aragonese students of the degree in primary education teaching.

Linguistic diversity in Aragon has been institutionally recognized since 1982. Nevertheless, its presence in the media has been poor and questioned. Given that situation, this concern has been tackled by activists from the ‘new speakers’ sphere. With the aim of making a contribution with respect to the Aragonese language in the mass media, a qualitative research was conducted in Alto Aragón. Results show the existence of a majoriatian favorable attitude towards the presence of Aragonese in the media, particularly in the areas where the language has still some level of vitality. Nevertheless, initiatives developed by activists have a very little impact around native speakers of Aragonese, and this situation underscores the gap that exists between ‘native speakers’ and ‘new speakers’. Finally, it is also important to stress the lack of information about the regional language among the population. Thus, it is common to find the identification of Aragonese language with linguistic models tainted with prejudices. One recurring example is the ‘baturra’ identity, that has been largely widespread by films and the media during the XXth century.

Aragonese is one of the regional languages spoken in Aragon. Although it has not a cooficial status in the territory where it is spoken, there are some laws that recognize its value as one important element of the Aragonese culture. In spite of its arrival at some schools as a subject almost two decades ago, Aragonese teaching has been little developed. This fact, together with the unestable and variable Aragonese teacher corps, took us to question ourselves about the degree of job satisfaction among Aragonese teachers. With the aim of contribute to the knowledge of the situation, we performed a qualitative research study using Grounded Theory analyses. In each interview, we focused on four main themes: attitudes towards Aragonese language and its teaching among the educational community, the evolution of their own attitudes as ‘Aragonese language teachers’, the situation with regard to the available training and learning-resources, and the methodologies implemented. We used a non-probability sampling (concretely snowball sampling) because of the small size of the universe we were interested in. We collected the impressions of 15 of the 17 people that have taught Aragonese in the schools of Alto Aragon since 1997/1998. The data were analyzed under grounded theory procedures. We extracted the main topics and also their categories and subcategories directly from the data corpus and we reviewed the literature simultaneously. Our results show that there’s an overall situation of job dissatisfaction among Aragonese language teachers and there also are some clear cases burnout syndrome.

Although it is the 20 years since Aragonese language was introduced in some schools of Huesca’s province, there is still little scientific data about the situation and prospects of this language in the educational area. With the aim of providing evidence about this issue, we developed an exploratory research under a mixed methodology, and focused on the attitudes towards Aragonese language of Primary Education students in Huesca province and the communicative competence of those children who are learning Aragonese. In this paper we analyse the data refering to the communicative competence of children that are learning Aragonese. These data were obtained under a double method (qualitative and quantitative). Results show the insufficient competence achieved by those children who don’t have Aragonese as their L1/L2, in terms of grammar and expressive skills.