Abstract

In this article, which first appeared in 1983, some thoughts are given to the status of Catalan since the Spanish political transition into democracy. The purpose is to show how present «important» opinionmakers base themselves on an escapist fantasy which replaces real history, which in tur prevents us to study the real past and thus conceive and propose a real future for the language. An analysis is made of the significance of the Renaixença and how this movement considered Catalan as lost. In fact, the ultimate aspirations of regionalists were nowhere near the minimum requirements of a modern European linguistic community. Therefore, the present return to the idyllic recovery practised by the Renaixença is considered even more brutally simplistic and fantastic than what the Renaixença meant. This different analysis of the present situations involves a change in mentality, a different way of thinking. Such mentality must enable us to clarify, not only the wiles coming from outside, but first and foremost, the internal obstacles presented by Catalan society itself.

Abstract

This is is a paper about the history of Catalan proverbs borrowed by Spanish tradition and lost in modern Catalan. The authors give the real origin of such proverbs and stress the sociolinguistic relevance of this «oblivion», as a kind of inferiority complex, to the present-day consciousness of the Catalan speech community.

Abstract

In several of Salvador's writings –Qüestions de llenguatge (1936), El valencia a les escoles (1935) and reviews of various texts by Delfí Dalmau (1936)– Solé recovers ideas and concepts taken up in current sociolinguistic discourse, for example, linguistic substitution, monolingualism in primary school curriculum, and the effects of passive polyglotism.

Abstract

Carles Salvador described himself as «a politician of language». Already at an early age, he staunchly defended the right to speak Catalan in the Valencian Country at every level, beginning in primary school. Pérez i Moragón situates this posture within the Valencian linguistic panorama in an era characterized by the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, the Second Republic, and the Franco regime.

Abstract

This article reviews the contribution of the different Catalan social sciences —excepting laws and political science— to the creation of sociolinguistics as a research field. In the conclusions it is mentioned that, in spite of the fact that research on language and society has not been an exclusive field for the linguists, and although some of the sociolinguistical disciplines have attained a great level of development, the degree of exchange between different currents and disciplines is quite limited, therefore it is preferable to speak, at most, of multirateral research, rather than of real interdisciplinarity. The article concludes that the new immigration of non-Catalan speakers makes even more necessary to fight against the isolationism of the sociolinguistical currents as well as against the lack of interest for the language shown by the Catalan social sciences.

Abstract

This text constitutes a study and critical edition of a Valencian prescription manuscript, from the beginning of the XIX century, which has remained practically unknown up to the present day. It juxtaposes early instances of the language in this genre with the presence of the traditional forms of the names of diseases or medicines in Valencian popular literature of the XVIII and XIX centuries.

Abstract

Abstract: The Tortosa diocese spans a geographical area where the autoctonous dialectal variety — called tortosí — is subject to pressures from different linguistic models.The aim of this article is to shed light on the historical processes of socio-political dynamics that have led to the linguistic breakup of this area of reference. The article also assesses formal models of local narrators from the early twentieth-century.The final aim is to show the correlation between the demand for a specific linguistic treatment in the formal dialectal linguistic variety and the dominant identity dynamics in the area.Key words: sociolinguistics, corpus planning, linguistic model, literary language, identity.