Tension, transgressions, and (contested) coexistence: Linguistic landscapes of Barcelona

The contentious relationship between Catalan and Spanish within the contemporary linguistic ecology of Barcelona, Spain, simultaneously reflects modern ideologies of linguistic resistance (Catalan nationalism) as well as linguistic regimes of the past (Spanish hegemony). In this paper, I will argue that this sociolinguistic tension between past and present in the contemporary context receives a nuanced account through a frame-theoretic analysis of Linguistic Landscapes (LL). The data for this study were collected in Summer 2013 and consist of approximately 2,500 photographs taken of a cross-section of commercial and noncommercial public signage in Barcelona. Following in part Coupland (2012) and Goffman (1974), I propose four frames for understanding Catalan-Spanish bilingual displays: i. The FRAME OF NONAUTONOMOUS CATALAN: This frame reflects an ideology of public Castilian monolingualism. ii. The FRAME OF NORMALIZED SEMIAUTONOMOUS CATALAN: This frame reflects an ideology wherein Catalan is the appropriate language for public use in Catalonia, but which does not explicitly reject the public use of Castilian. iii. The FRAME OF BILINGUAL CATALONIA: Within this frame, Catalan and Castilian are conceptualized as not existing in competition with one another, with each being a resource and a part of the city’s multilingualism. iv. The FRAME OF CATALAN RESISTANCE: This frame reflects an ideology that advocates for Catalan monolingualism within Catalan-speaking territories. Signs produced under this frame are (a) those that exclusively and explicitly advocate Catalan monolingualism and index linguistic secession and (b) those that show acts of linguistic vandalism and make visible the defacement of Castilian in its attenuated role in contemporary local politics. Such acts of linguistic transgression foreground newer forms of representations, meanings, and messages now mobilized through Catalan. In conclusion, this paper shows that a shift in theoretical and methodological focus to Linguistic Landscaping enables us to capture the various complexes of nuances of language contact and tensions that defy an analysis in traditional sociolinguistic frameworks.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.A.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Linguistics

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2014

Author dc:creator

• Stillwell, Kevin

Contributors dc:contributor

• Bhatt, Rakesh M.

• Linguistic Landscapes
• Catalan
• Frame Analysis
• Bilingualism

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2014 Kevin Stillwell

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/49586

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/49586