Language and Intergroup Perception in Spain

With the background of the multilingual situation in Spain, which has undergone a very rapid change in the past decade, this study centres in the intergroup perception of social groups who share Castilian (Spanish) with their own ethnic languages, Catalan, Basque, Galician or Valencian. A sample of 165 university students answered several questions related to language competence, attitudes, social status and ingroup social identity. Using the matched-guise technique they also evaluated speakers representative of the five linguistic communities. Results show that the content of social categories (stereotypes) and language attitudes vary according to ingroup social identity and subjective vitality of their languages.