Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-2022

Abstract

The revitalization 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 legitimization of Catalan as both an official and a vehicular language. While this effort is widely regarded as an example of successful language revitalization, 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.

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