Abstract

Abstract: This work aims to deploy the term favourable sociolinguistic conditions framework proposed by F. X. Vila, M. Nogué and I. Vila in order to make it academically operational to analyse the factors that would foster the implementation of the Catalan linguistic norm. To achieve this goal, the starting point will be the concept of Catalan Sociolinguistics and some works of ours. Following systematically this concept, the paper analyses the factors that would foster the implementation of the Catalan linguistic norms. This will be done following the usual stages in the process of implementing norms: codification (including selection), spread and implementation (or not). These factors will be tentatively classified within each stage in decreasing order of influence. At the end of the paper, a general overview of the sociolinguistic disciplines that are more relevant for analysing the degree of implementation of the linguistic norm will be provided. Key words: evaluation, implementation, linguistic norms, Sociolinguistics, Language Planning.

Abstract

In this paper, we advocate overcoming the dichotomies that fragment the study of language facts (synchrony vs. diachrony, linguistics vs. sociolinguistics, internal history vs. external history), in favor of an approach that integrates the maximum number of possible explanatory factors. A suitable field for this confluence is the analysis of ongoing language changes, which are those that take place in real time in front of the eyes of the researcher, who can thus benefit from the proximity to the object of study and from the accessibility to the multiple factors that condition its evolution, provided that he is capable of not getting overly involved. The analysis of the transformations observed in Northwestern Catalan since the resumption of the standardization process in Catalonia shows how we can increase the degree of understanding of linguistic changes if we are attentive to the interactions that occur between the socially established uses, the forms subjected to the constraints of the system, and the perceptions that end up forming the linguistic awareness of speakers understood as individuals and as a social body.