The Catalan immersion program: The joint creation of shared indexical territory

Abstract

This paper begins with a brief overview of the sociolinguistic situation in which the Catalan immersion program is being implemented. It then goes on to focus on certain issues related to the main feature that distinguishes this program from others—the low socioeconomic background of the children—and reflects on current theories about discontinuity between the communicative context‐bound language used in the home and the decontextualised, formal language of school. The remainder of the text is devoted to an attempt to analyse the first uses of the new language (Ln) as what will be termed a ‘shared indexical territory’, and to hypothesise that this analytical option enables us to postulate the existence of a semiotic continuity between these first uses of the Ln and subsequent, linguistically more highly developed texts in the same language. Finally it is argued that this continuity operates as a recognition mechanism within the process of acquisition of the new, decontextualised school language.

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