Students’ Attitudes and Opinions in a Context of Bilingualism with a Minority Language: Italian and Sardinian Compared

In this chapter, the results of an investigation on language attitudes towards Italian and Sardinian are presented. Attitudes are crucial in contexts of bilingualism or bilectalism, as they affect the possibilities of a minority language to survive. Students’ attitudes in Sardinia were studied with a direct method, i.e. a written questionnaire: participants had to express their degree of agreement on a Likert scale with statements concerning Italian and Sardinian. Results show that Italian is seen as the most prestigious language. Students gave generally favourable opinions on Sardinian and its private and public use as well, but they acknowledged its little instrumental importance. Proficiency and frequent use of Sardinian proved to relate with positive attitudes towards that language. Furthermore, high school students turned out to be more interested in the benefits of the majority language than students in the early adolescence. The implications of these findings are discussed.