Language attitudes of the young generation in Malta

Abstract

The principle concern of this study is to examine the language attitudes of Maltese pupils towards the languages they are constantly confronted with, i.e. Maltese, English, Mixed Maltese English, and Italian. The first chapter briefly discusses some basic theoretical considerations underlying language attitudes. It provides a brief insight into the concept of attitude, its possible definitions, its structure and related concepts. Moreover, it presents the various research methods which have been used in order to measure language attitudes. Chapter 2 presents a historical overview and a summary of the language dispute during British colonial rule in Malta, which constitutes the framework of the present day language situation, attitudes and stereotypes on the island. This part of the thesis is primarily based on the work of two authors: on Geoffrey Hull's The Language Question, which investigates Malta's recent history from a linguistic, philological and ethnological perspective, and on the works of Professor Henry Frendo, a political scientist who takes a more historical comparative approach, outlining the interaction of society and politics in the colonial experience. Finally, the second part of chapter 2 deals with a description of the present multifaceted language situation in Malta and considers the type of bilingualism and the various functions and domains of language use with regard to education. In order to elucidate the present language situation, language use in different domains was observed and a few informal interviews have been conducted with teachers, university lecturers and students. The empirical part of this investigation is based on a questionnaire involving 198 pupils from both state and private schools. This section attempts to provide full details of the methodological approaches taken and is concerned with the preparation of the field study, i.e. the presentation of the aims and hypotheses, the design of the questionnaire and the testing procedure. Furthermore, it describes the sample size and difficulties encountered during data collection. Chapter 4 analyses the results of the field study, presents them with the help of graphs and offers possible interpretations for certain trends. This includes a discussion of evaluations based on the informants' school affiliation, sex, language background, educational background and socio-economic background. Finally, the last chapter represents a contrastive analysis of the field study discussed in the present thesis with a similar investigation carried out at the University of Malta during the same period of time. The present paper is neither a representative nor a complete overview of Malta's linguistic situation. It was never intended to be. It does, however, provide the reader with some notion about Malta's linguistic past and present situation and about Maltese adolescents' attitudes towards Maltese, English, Mixed Maltese English and Italian.