Youth, language and identity

This special issue of Noves-sl makes a further contribution to the well stoked tradition of studies and reflections on youth and language in Catalan Sociolinguistics. This has been partially motivated by the fact that one of the priority objectives of the 2005-2006 Action Plan of the Secretariat of Linguistic Policy was the promotion of the use of Catalan among young people and included, among other measures, conducting and publishing studies on this subject. In any case, this issue does not intend to make an exhaustive study of the “state of the art ” of research on language and youth. In this introduction, I would like to analyse the progress of this research work in the Catalan sociolinguistic context from a point of view that links political and theoretic questions. Following that, the contributions made by various authors are divided into two sections: in the first, three articles show new approaches to the study of the linguistic practices of youths; and in the second there is a collection of the most recent studies carried out (and which we have been able to publish here) on language and youths in Catalonia. On the basis of these articles, I would also like to discuss the theoretical and epistemological changes taking place in sociolinguistics both on a Catalan and international level, and which directly affect the approach to research on youths and language.. Summary 1. The large number of studies on youths and language 2. Theoretical displacements in research on youths and language