Trilingual identity of engineering students in the Basque Country

Abstract

An exploratory study to analyse the prospective increase of trilingual identity in engineering students from the Basque Country is carried out in this article. The differences of two groups of students were analysed by taking into account the answers provided in two similar questionnaires, one in 2004 and the other in 2012. The results obtained confirm that the incipient trilingual identity detected in 2004 has increased significantly though its current level is not very high yet. Due to the institutional efforts made so far, the fruits of a long-term linguistic policy are reaching the University of the Basque Country. A more overall successful performance in the three languages (Basque/Spanish/English) and a more favourable attitude towards English have led to a higher trilingual identity. However, English is not clearly associated with a cultural reference (integrative motivation) but with a necessary language (instrumental motivation). The Basque language seems to be fighting well for its survival in the presence of co-official Spanish and all-powerful English.

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