PUTTING POLICY INTO PRACTICE: THE PROBLEMATISATION OF CATALAN LANGUAGE PLANNING AND IDEOLOGIES IN MEDIA DISCOURSE

The revitalisation of the Catalan language has been an ongoing effort in Catalonia for decades. The language policies that have stemmed from this effort have perpetuated ideologies that promote the use and legitimisation of Catalan as both an official and a vehicular language. While this effort is w...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inRevista de llengua i dret no. 78; p. 194
Main Author Ali, Farah
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Barcelona Escola d'Administracio Publica de Catalunya 01.12.2022
Subjects
Catalan language
Critical discourse analysis
Language
Language ideologies
Language planning
Language policy
Language revitalization
Language usage
Spanish language
Catalonia Spain
Spain
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:The revitalisation of the Catalan language has been an ongoing effort in Catalonia for decades. The language policies that have stemmed from this effort have perpetuated ideologies that promote the use and legitimisation of Catalan as both an official and a vehicular language. While this effort is widely regarded as an example of successful language revitalisation, the process has not been without conflict between Spanish and Catalan, particularly in terms of domains of use and disparate attitudes towards the two languages (Newman & Trenchs-Parera, 2015; Woolard, 2016; Soler & Gallego-Balsà, 2019; Ianos et al., 2020). Given that these policies aim to be implemented in public sectors, the objective of this study is to examine how media discourse represents language practices in such domains. Using critical discourse analysis, the present study draws on articles from Madrid- and Catalonia-based news sources that focus on language use in public sectors. While differing perspectives on language use frequently appear together in the same texts, Madrid- and Catalonia-based sources at times use different linguistic strategies to report the same events and often produce seemingly contradictory discourse, such as reporting language discrimination against both Spanish and Catalan speakers in the same domains.
ISSN:0212-5056
DOI:10.2436/rld.i78.2022.3783