Abstract:
In this thesis, I explored the effects of language education policies in the autonomous communities (administrative regions) of Cataluña and Galicia, Spain. I attempted to account for how language policies requiring education in regional minority languages have influenced both knowledge of those languages, and linguistic preferences both in the educational environment and in daily use. These language normalization policies, designed to increase usage of minority languages once repressed under the Francoist dictatorship, are part of a broader regional nationalist political project in each autonomous community. Though compared to the Galician policies the Catalan language policies are stronger, and though many more students speak Catalan compared to Spanish in the classroom than Galician compared to Spanish, the policies seem to have had little impact on overall language preferences in both autonomous communities.