Abstract

This paper describes in detail the speech in the region of La Safor —with emphasis on the phonetics and the lexical, and also on the morphosyntax and the phraseology. People from almost all the towns and villages in the region and bordering ones were surveyed between 2008 and 2015. A description of the regional speech is given based on the results obtained. The repopulation process in the 17th century explains the Balearic influence in this dialectal variation of southern Valencian. Geographical factors have created areas with common characteristics within La Safor and have boosted the entrance of features from other dialects (central Valencian) and subdialects (southern Valencian from inland regions) into the region. This first monographic approach to Catalan in La Safor raises several interesting points, such as the devoicing of voicing sibilants in Gandia and in other nearby towns; the introduction of features from central Valencian into the north of the region; or the need for considering the insular influence not only in La Marina Alta and Baixa or El Comtat, but also in La Safor.

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.