Abstract

This article uses speech act theory to analyse the socialised discourse in polarised media between 2016 and 2019, where ideologies conflicted with the so-called sovereignty process scenario in Catalonia and Spain. On the one hand, some of the terms created by language in the media with regard to the sovereignty process and constructing an ideological narrative are highlighted from a pragmatic approach; on the other, the discrediting used by state-wide media in constructing a counter-narrative is also analysed. In this dialectic, belligerent confrontation, the media, authentic socio-cognitive intermediaries between psychological and contextual frameworks, have socialised linguistic attitudes around the social use of Catalan, as a language that competes both socially and linguistically with Spanish. This study attempts to measure up to what point these beliefs are social representations linked to a fundamental group ideology, whilst noting the rhetorical strategies, particularly lexicon, used in the central propositions of both spheres of media.