English and Maltese in Malta: History, Language Usage and Attitudes

Description

Publisher: [email protected] Date: 2001 Pages: 95This research report reflects the results of a mainly qualitative survey that has been conducted in Malta during two weeks of October 2000. To obtain the information for this study, 52 Maltese participated in the project. The respondents were asked to fill in a questionnaire. The people were specially chosen to constitute a reasonable sample. Some cases could be carried out as structured interviews with the use of the questionnaire by the writer of this report. Interviews with speakers whose proficiency in English was relatively low were conducted by a Maltese friend. The interviewees were given the opportunity to make any additional comment on whatever they thought to be relevant for the topic. These comments have been used to emphasize and accentuate the quantitative findings obtained from the data. They are written in italics and possible deviations from (British) Standard English are underlined. In addition to the interviews, 70 questionnaires were distributed in different towns and villages around Malta out of which 45 were mailed back. Several respondents had to be excluded due to non-Maltese citizenship. As a result of these strategies, this report puts forward 52 individual cases.