Linguistic policies and linguistic ideologies in Spain. The case of Catalonia in relation to the Basque Autonomous Community.

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Linguistic policies and linguistic ideologies in Spain. The case of Catalonia in relation to the Basque Autonomous Community.

MA Thesis, Digital Humanities

Supervisor: Dr. J. M. Fuller

Second supervisor: prof. Aurelie Joubert

Student: Anna Mikhaylovskaya

Student number: 2955997

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Spain is a historically plurilingual country. Although we associate this country mainly with the Castilian language (Spanish), we do not always fully realize the linguistic richness of Spain. Apart from Castilian, there are many other linguistic varieties in that country, some of which are considered separate languages. In addition, according to the Spanish Constitution that establishes the linguistic policies of Spain, the Spanish state recognizes some of these languages as co-official in certain autonomous regions of the country (Cichon & Doppelbauer, 2008, p. 26). Among these regional languages that have the status of co-officiality are Catalan, the language that, next to Castilian, derives from Vulgar Latin, and Basque, which is an example of a language isolate and which has no relationship with other languages of the Iberian Peninsula, or any other Indo-European language varieties (Siebane, 2009). These two languages (Catalan and Basque), together with Castilian, are official in the regions of Catalonia and the Basque Autonomous Community, respectively. In this work, the main goal is to investigate linguistic ideologies of the population of Catalonia in relation to linguistic policies of Spain. Moreover, linguistic ideologies of the Basque Autonomous Community will also be researched and compared to the ones in Catalonia, since such a comparison will provide a better understanding of the situation in Catalonia, and how that situation differs.

The relevance of this research for the academic world is based not only on the fact that Spain and its multilingualism have been a subject of great importance and popularity in different linguistic and social investigations, but also on the current situation in the country. During the last few years, especially in the years of 2017-2018, the autonomous region of Catalonia has been in a state of political instability. Since then, the intensification of the independence movement has been observed, not only in the regional government, but also within the population, all of which, as a consequence, has resulted in the Referendum for Independence of Catalonia in October 2017. The consequences of this referendum have not yet been resolved, and the conflict between the Spanish Government and the local Catalonian government is still in progress. In and outside of Spain, it is now a popular opinion that the linguistic policies of Spain and of Catalonia in particular have been the reason for the escalation of the conflict. In this work, I’m going to investigate if that is the case. I will study the linguistic policies of Catalonia and the Basque Autonomous Community and the influence of these policies on the formation of linguistic ideologies of the population. Although the Basque Country currently does not suffer the political conflict as severely as Catalonia, I will

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investigate the case of Basque Autonomous Community as well, because the comparison between the policies and the linguistic ideologies in these two regions will allow to conduct a deeper analysis of the situation in Catalonia and to make conclusions about the influence of linguistic policies, which are different in these two regions, on the ideologies of the population. However, the main focus of this study is on the region of Catalonia and language ideologies surrounding the referendum, with the Basque Autonomous Community serving primarily as a point of comparison and an additional element aiding the overall analysis. Therefore, the main question of this research will be: how do the regional linguistic policies in Spain influence linguistic ideologies of the population in Catalonia and how do ideologies in Catalonia compare to those in Basque Autonomous Community?

For the purpose of analyzing linguistic ideologies, a corpus of newspaper articles was created. The articles were collected using an online research tool Nexis and were taken only from the Spanish media – thus, all the articles in the corpus are in Castilian (Spanish) language and were taken from Spanish online news portals, for example El país, El Correo. The choice of the articles for the corpus was based on key words and concepts that are central for the study and on the appropriate time frame. The main goal of the corpus and its further analysis is to compare linguistic ideologies as represented in media in Spain and Catalonia before and after the referendum. For these purposes, each of the articles in the corpus is annotated and labeled as expressing nationalist ideologies, cosmopolite ideologies or neutral ideologies (in the case when the articles do not explicitly express any kind of preference towards one ideology or another). This kind of sorting allows us to perform further quantitative and qualitative analysis on linguistic ideologies. It is important to note that the articles in the corpus only relate to Catalonia, and not to the Basque Autonomous community, since Catalonia is, as it was mentioned above, the main center of the research, and the Basque Autonomous Community serves mainly like a point for comparison.

Methodology and research structure of this investigation will be as follows: the work will be divided into five main parts. The first part will be that of the literature review and will focus on the academic literature used in this study. This part will not only give a summary of the main topics discussed in the literature used for this research, and not only will it demonstrate the relevance of these works for the research, but it will also explain some key terms that are central for my work, such as, for example, the concept of "linguistic ideologies". In the second part of the study, I will show the legal context of the problem and describe the linguistic policies of Spain at different levels, starting with the most global level of the EU, continuing with the

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level of the general linguistic policies in Spain and, finally, focusing on regional linguistic policies in Catalonia and the Basque Autonomous Community. As follows, the third part will investigate the current linguistic ideologies in Catalonia and the Basque Autonomous Community in relation to Castilian, Catalan and Basque as represented by the Spanish social media – a few articles will be taken as a point of analysis of the situation in both regions. The fourth part will consist of the analysis of the corpus of news articles related exclusively to the Catalan referendum on the subject of language ideologies expressed in those articles before and after the referendum. The corpus analysis will help us to determine how and whether language ideologies expressed by the media changed during this time. The data collected in the third and the fourth part part will have a key role in conducting the analysis in part five. The fifth part, thus, will be the analysis, in which I will relate the data on linguistic ideologies collected in the third part and the results of the corpus analysis of part four with data from previous research on ideologies and linguistic policies in Catalonia and the Basque Autonomous Community. By making this connection, I will determine whether the linguistic policies established in these regions are responsible for the current sociopolitical situation in Catalonia and for the current ideologies of the population in these two regions, or if there are other factors that have influenced these processes. Finally, in the conclusion I will summarize all the findings and determine the influence of linguistic policies on linguistic ideologies in Catalonia, as well as conclude how do linguistic ideologies and linguistic policies in Catalonia differ from the ones in the Basque Autonomous Community.

1. Literature review

In the literature section, I will look at the academic materials used in the process of this research. I will describe the main themes and ideas of the books and articles used, at the same time explaining why each of these academic works is useful for the study. As previously mentioned, the literature used in this work serves not only as a basis for academic analysis, but also as a source of definitions and terms that play a key role in the work. The sources will be explained focusing on the key concepts that appear in this study. First, I will make a summary of the literature that explains language policies and their functions, both on the global level and in Spain and its regions in particular. I will also focus on the literature that demonstrates the general frame of reference for the most

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important terms in the study, such as, for example, "linguistic ideologies" and "linguistic attitudes", which are also mentioned. I will observe the difference between the two and also see the particular ideologies that have a fundamental meaning for this research. Finally, I will discuss the literature that focuses on analyzing ideologies, or, in some cases, the linguistic attitudes in the regions of Catalonia and the Basque Country and I will define the usefulness of the literature for this work.

The main literature used is the research will be with the emphasis on linguistic policies, so, to demonstrate the legal situation, some treaties of the EU will be described – such as, for instance, the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union and the Treaty of Lisbon. All these documents have a certain relation with the linguistic rights of the member states of the EU, with the linguistic diversity in the EU and with the policies to defend this diversity, therefore, they help us to understand the context of the linguistic policies of Spain. There will be also works focused particularly on language policies and their formation in Spain - the linguistic rights of the population in the autonomies of Spain is a central theme of the studies by Siguán (1992), Herreras (2007) and Comibane (2009). Cichon & Doppelbauer (2008) also focus on regional policies of different Spanish autonomies, including the ones we are focusing on in this study – Catalonia and Basque Autonomous Community.

One of the types of literature central to this research is that focused on language policies. Linguistic policies are essential for the study, since in many cases they determine the linguistic ideologies of the population – and vice versa (Fuller, 2019), and that is exactly what I will investigate in this work: I will try to determine what has been a role of linguistic policies of Spain in the formation of current linguistic ideologies. Language/linguistic policies are, basically, the official laws of the country or region that regulate issues related to languages at a legal level: they determine the official and co-official languages, the language of education, and, in addition, linguistic policies have as their crucial themes the matters of linguistic rights of the population and the preservation of languages (Ricento, 2000). To describe certain global linguistic policies, such as linguistic policies of the EU, I have used the texts of some of the EU treaties and charters, such as, for example, the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), the Treaty of Lisbon and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. All these documents have a certain relationship with linguistic rights of the member states, with linguistic diversity in the EU

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and with policies licensed to defend this diversity. In other words, these documents help us to understand the context of the linguistic policies of Spain.

To investigate linguistic policies in Spain and its regions, I have used, evidently, the text of the Spanish Constitution valid since 1978 and the texts of different authors focused specifically on the linguistic policies of Spain. Authors like Cichon & Doppelbauer (2008) focus on the regional policies of different Spanish autonomies, including the autonomies that I have in focus for this study, Catalonia and the Basque Autonomous Community. They investigate the Spanish Constitution of 1978 and make a statement about the influence of this Constitution on the appearance and establishment of co-official languages in Spain. Furthermore, they summarize the regional linguistic policies in regions such as Catalonia and the Basque Country, describing the status and the legal rights of co-official languages in these regions (Cichon & Doppelbauer, 2008). Linguistic rights of the population in the autonomies of Spain is also a central theme of the studies by Herreras (2007), Seibane (2009) and Siguán (1992). They describe the formation of general and regional linguistic policies in the autonomies of Spain, the historical context of Spanish multilingualism and its revitalization after the fall of the government of General Francisco Franco (Herreras, 2007, Seibane, 2009, Siguán, 1992).

Moreover, Newman & Trenchs-Parera (2015) and Berché (2013) focus particularly on linguistic policies within the region of Catalonia, not only explaining the legal structure of the regional system, but also showing the relationship between regional languages (Castilian and Catalan) and their status. Niño-Murcia & Rothman (2008) and Echeverria (2003), on the other hand, talk about the linguistic and educational policies in the Basque Autonomous Community, explaining the details of the laws in the region and the structure of the multilingual educational model adopted there. Linguistic policies of the mentioned regions will be, as was already said, fundamental for this research, and in the analysis of the media and the corpus in the following sections I will explore the influence linguistic policies have on linguistic ideologies.

Linguistic ideologies represent another key concept for this study, since they show how people perceive particular languages not only at the individual level, but also at the societal level. In other words, research into linguistic ideologies allows us to analyze social and political processes related to languages, which is a central objective of this work. Linguistic ideologies in general, as explained by Piller (2015), are beliefs and feelings about language

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that are shared by society in a certain region, with linguistic difference justifying social organization (2015, p. 4). The general framework of linguistic ideologies can be found in the chapter by Gal & Irvine (2000), which describes the appearance and formation of linguistic ideologies as a phenomenon. Gal & Irvine (2000) argue that linguistic ideologies appear on the basis of linguistic variety and assign three main processes of the formation of those ideologies - ionization, fractal recursivity and erasure. Iconization has to do with the fact that certain linguistic forms serve as the icons that describe certain attributes of society, while fractal recursivity means that ideologies always focus on certain linguistic opposition of two or more languages or varieties, and that these oppositions are repeated on different levels. Finally, erasure indicates that in linguistic ideologies that have already formed certain linguistic varieties and groups of people identifying with those varieties become invisible (Gal & Irvine, 2000, pp. 37-38). The study of linguistic policies includes discourse analysis, which uses data that can be collected in, for example, discussions in the media (Fuller, 2019), or the corpus analysis of news articles. Both methods will be used in my study.

In addition, apart from explaining the general concept of linguistic ideologies, we can highlight some specific types of these ideologies. For instance, Piller (2015) gives us a definition of the particular linguistic ideology based on nationalism, the ideology of "one language - one nation", which promotes the idea that monolingualism and the use of one common language is a key element of national unity and harmony in the state (Piller, 2015, p.6). This nationalist ideology is, basically, a quite conventional linguistic ideology and has much to do with essentialism. Thus, nationalist linguistic ideologies include ideas that speakers of a particular language must be a part of a certain social (and linguistic) group, sharing with other members of this group characteristics that separate them from other groups – such a characteristic can be a language (Fuller, 2019). The linguistic ideology of nationalism is essential to this research, since, as media data will show, the movement for independence in Catalonia and the actions of the Spanish government focused on fighting this movement are directly related to this ideology, which is used as one of the political tools, and we are going to use this term a lot in the part of data analysis.

The articles by Woolard (2016) and Newman & Trenchs-Parera (2015) also focus on the particular linguistic ideology, which is called the cosmopolite linguistic ideology. Unlike the already explained nationalist ideology, the cosmopolite linguistic ideology is based on harmonious and productive multilingualism in society, and not on

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monolingualism. Society with the cosmopolite linguistic ideology sees different languages and multilingualism not as a divisive factor, but as a source of multiculturalism and successful communication between various groups of people. Moreover, although language remains an important part of national identity, it is not considered to be the property of this particular nation, instead, it is rather seen as an instrument for communication between different national and social groups (Newman & Trenchs-Parera , 2015; Woolard, 2016). It can be stated that this type of linguistic ideology is one of the varieties of pluralist linguistic ideology, which is characterized by the promotion of linguistic diversity (Fuller, 2019). The concept of the cosmopolite linguistic ideology will also be very important for this study, since it will allow us to analyze which of the mentioned ideologies really dominates in the regions of Spain in question.

Finally, in the analysis part I have used the research on linguistic ideologies in Catalonia and the Basque Autonomous Community. It is important to emphasize that some of these studies focus on linguistic attitudes, and not on ideologies. Linguistic attitudes are different from the linguistic ideologies, since they are centered more on the quantitative analysis and on the individual opinions and ideas that speakers have about a particular languages, and less on the analysis of the recurring discourses in relation to the organization of the society (Soukup , 2012). However, research data collected on linguistic attitudes are also useful for investigating ideologies, so I have used these data in the analysis of Catalonia and the Basque Autonomous Community. Apart from making a summary of the linguistic policies in these regions, Cichon & Doppelbauer (2008) provide data, including surveys and statistics, which demonstrate the general linguistic attitudes of the population, both in Catalonia and in the Basque Autonomous Community. Newman & Trenchs-Parera (2008; 2015) also investigate linguistic ideologies and linguistic attitudes in the region of Catalonia, meanwhile making references to the socio-political situation in the region and to the initiatives taken by the Spanish government in recent years with the aim to control internal policies of Catalonia. Likewise, researchers such as Gal & Woolard (2001) and Frekko & Woolard (2013) focus on the linguistic ideologies of Catalonia, especially in the young generation, on development and evolution of these ideologies. What is more, they talk about the influence of the political processes on the formation of ideologies.

If we talk about the research used to study specifically the Basque Country, we should mention the V Sociolinguistic Survey of the Basque Autonomous Community (2012), which contains the data from the surveys on the linguistic attitudes of the population of the

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Basque Country towards Basque and Castilian languages. Furthermore, educational linguistic policies in the Basque Autonomous Community and Catalonia, as well as linguistic attitudes in the educational context of regional multilingualism have also been investigated by Lasagabaster (2017). Lasagabaster's research (2017) has been especially useful for this work since it focuses on both regions that we are analyzing, showing the differences and similarities of educational policies and linguistic attitudes in Catalonia and the Basque Country. Huguet, Madariaga & Rojo (2010) also focus on experiments to determine linguistic attitudes in the Basque Country in the educational context. Meanwhile, articles by other researchers such as Echeverria (2003) and aforementioned V sociolinguistic survey of Gasteiz (2012) contain surveys and experiments which study linguistic attitudes in the Basque Autonomous Community, the meaning of the languages in question for the identity of people in the region and the level of multilingualism in the population. Combined together, the data collected in all these investigations will allow us to draw conclusions about linguistic ideologies in the regions of Catalonia and the Basque Autonomous Community and analyze these ideologies under the focus of the discussion in the media and the corpus analysis of the articles.

2. The legal context of the problem. Linguistic policies in Catalonia and the Basque Autonomous Community.

In order to study and analyze linguistic ideologies of Catalonia and the Basque Autonomous Community in an appropriate way, it is necessary to first show the context of these ideologies. In other words, there is a need to make a general description of the linguistic policies. The linguistic policies of Spain, as was already mentioned in the introduction, are quite complicated. This is due to the fact that each autonomous region in Spain has a right to develop its own internal policies, including linguistic and educational ones (Cichon & Doppelbauer, 2008). In order to gain a clear understanding of the linguistic policies of Spain and its regions, they will be observed at different levels. First, I will make a general comment on the linguistic policies concerning minority languages adopted by the EU, since Spain is a member of the EU and thus its internal linguistic policies are influenced by the EU standards. Then, I will see how the Spanish Constitution establishes the linguistic policies of the country. Finally, I will observe the specific linguistic policies established in the regions in question, in Catalonia and in the Basque Autonomous Community.

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The EU underlines the importance of cultural diversity, and respect for linguistic diversity in particular is one of the fundamental values proclaimed by the EU, together with respect for human rights in general. Nevertheless, it is vital to note that the EU does not have specific competence with regard to national, regional or minority languages of the Member States. However, even though its power is limited, the EU can support and promote certain initiatives concerning language diversity.

Article 165 (2) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) has to do with education in the EU. This treaty states that the EU can support educational initiatives focused on the teaching of languages of the Member States. In addition, Article 167 of the TFEU ensures respect for not only national diversity, but also for regional diversity (http://www.europarl.europa.eu, p. 5). What is more, the EU Treaty (TEU) also specifies that the EU must respect its own linguistic diversity. Finally, the Treaty of Lisbon that has been in force since 2009 establishes that the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (CFR) is legally binding on the national governments of the EU and its institutions. Article 22 of the Charter particularly proclaims respect of linguistic diversity, including diversity of regional and minority languages (http://www.europarl.europa.eu, p. 5).

The official status of each regional or minority language is defined by the Member State where this language is spoken. Minority or regional languages can have the status of official or co-official languages, if this is established in the constitution of the Member State (http://www.europarl.europa.eu, p. 7). In total, only five regional languages in the EU have the status of co-official languages, which means that these languages can be officially used in the administration of a region within a Member State. Two of these five languages are the main languages in question for this research - Catalan and Basque in Spain (http://www.europarl.europa.eu, p. 7). The number of regional languages that have a co-official status is so small due to the fact that, even though the EU proclaims respect for linguistic diversity, central and local authorities of each Member State are the ones who have the responsibility to shape the linguistic policies of their country, also in relation to regional or minority languages. In other words, Member States have the power to establish how to manage languages within the state, and the EU only has the right to support the initiatives of these governments to promote projects and programs of language teaching and development (http://www.europarl.europa.eu, p. 9). As it was already said, Spain is one of the few countries in the EU that has such a developed and, in a certain sense,

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progressive language policy, with the strong support for regional languages. Thus, the next step in this chapter is to observe Spain’s internal language policies.

The current laws of Spain have their origin in the Spanish Constitution established in 1978, after the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco. While the period of the Franco government was marked by strong policy of monolingualism, with Castilian accepted as the only official language and with other regional languages basically banned, the new 1978 Constitution, on the contrary, has been the main point of support for linguistic policies based on regional multilingualism (Seibane, 2009, pp. 4-5). Article 2 of the Spanish Constitution proclaims the "unity of the Spanish nation" and, at the same time, "recognizes and guarantees the right to autonomy of the nationalities and regions of which it is composed" (Siguán, 1992). Consequently, the Constitution establishes "the Spanish nation" as the common identity of all citizens, but also recognizes the rights of the autonomies to have their own regional nationality.

Article 3 of the Spanish Constitution is dealing directly with linguistic policies and languages of Spain:

Article 3 of the Spanish Constitution. 1. Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State. All Spaniards have the duty to know it and the right to use it. 2. The other Spanish languages shall also be official in the respective Autonomous Communities in accordance with their Statutes. 3. The wealth of the different language modalities of Spain is a cultural heritage which shall be the object of special respect and protection. (www.constitucion.es) In this way, the Constitution establishes Castilian (Spanish) as the official language of the entire state, but also allows regional languages to be official languages in their respective Communities (Herreras, 2007). That is to say, all the autonomous communities in Spain can develop and form their own internal language policies (Seibane, 2009). As a result, the statutes of the Autonomous Communities, including those of Catalonia and the Basque Autonomous Community, declare their regional languages as their “lenguas propias” ("own languages") and as the official languages (alongside with Castilian) in the respective Autonomies. All the citizens in the autonomous communities have the right to use their region's own official language and to not be discriminated against on the basis of their language (Herreras, 2007, p.5). However, as noted by Herreras (2007), it is crucial to remember that, according to the Spanish Constitution, the only language that every citizen has an obligation to know is Castilian. The Constitution does not establish the duty to know

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regional languages, even those co-official in the autonomous communities (Herreras, 2007, p.5). Thanks to these laws that have been established in Spain, communities such as Catalonia and the Basque Autonomous Community have developed their linguistic policies in a way that made it possible to widely promote regional languages, Catalan and Basque. Now, let us look at the language policies in these particular regions.

2.1 Regional linguistic policies in Catalonia.

The last institutional norm that was approved by the Catalan government is the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 2006. This Statute introduced some changes in comparison with the previous Catalan statutes, especially if we compare it with the first Statute in the year of 1979. To start with, Article 6 of the 2006 Statute gives the Catalan language full legitimacy of being the official language of the administration alongside with Spanish, even though, as it was already mentioned, the only official and obligatory language in the whole territory of the Spanish State is Castilian (Berché, 2013). In addition, in the same Article 6 of the 2006 Statute, Catalan is established as "la lengua propia" (“own language) and as a language that is used as a vehicular language in education:

Article 6.1: Catalonia's own language is Catalan. As such, Catalan is the language of normal and preferential use in Public Administration bodies and in the public media of Catalonia, and is also the language of normal use for teaching and learning in the education system.

What is more, the new Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 2006 indicates for the first time that citizens of Catalonia have an obligation to know Catalan, and not only Castilian. This is especially surprising since, in reality, this article basically goes against the aforementioned Article 3 of the Spanish Constitution, since the only language in Spain that the Constitution marks as a mandatory language for all is, once again, Castilian (Berché, 2013).

Another process that has influenced the linguistic policies of Catalonia has been the policy of normalization of the Catalan language, which has been conducted since the beginning of the 1980s. Normalization has been focused on the promotion of bilingualism in the region and its main objective has been the revitalization of Catalan after Franco's dictatorship (Newman & Trenchs-Parera, 2015, page 491). The latest law of linguistic normalization that is currently in force is the law of 1998, which is fundamentally the law of 1983, but in its

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revised version. The policy of normalization shows its main influence in the areas of Catalan education and civil service, making Catalan a language that is compulsory to know in those fields.

Thanks to this law, education in Catalonia has followed the model of language immersion, establishing Catalan as a vehicular language in schools. In this model, the vast majority of courses are offered in Catalan, with some of the arts courses being introduced in Castilian. To put it differently, although school education in Catalonia is bilingual, it is an asymmetric bilingualism, since the Catalan language has greater presence than Castilian. However, students always have the right to choose one of the two languages for their written or oral work in all courses (Newman & Trenchs-Parera, 2015, p.290). The use and knowledge of Catalan has also been made mandatory for all the people who work in civil services of Catalonia. Therefore, although Article 6 of the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 2006 establishes the duty to know Catalan for all citizens of Catalonia, the only areas in which a person is obliged to know both languages are education and civil service. It is entirely possible to live in Catalonia without knowing Catalan if one is not a part of these two systems (Newman & Trenchs-Parera, 2015, page 288).

2.2 Regional linguistic policies in Basque Autonomous Community

In the Basque Autonomous Community, the current linguistic policy’s origins can be traced back to the Law for the Normalization of the Use of Basque of 1982 (Niño-Murcia & Rothman, 2008, p.40). In contrast to Catalonia, although Basque is also considered to be the “lengua propia” (“own language”) of the autonomy, there is no established obligatory nature of knowledge of Basque language by citizens of the Basque Autonomous Community. In other words, no document says that knowledge of Basque is an obligation (Cichon & Doppelbauer, 2008, p.80). Nevertheless, just like Catalan, in agreement with the 3rd Article of the Spanish Constitution Basque is an official language in the Basque Autonomous Community. All citizens have the right to study and use it and, and, what is even more, the use of Basque is present in all civil services and public authorities in the Basque Autonomous Community (Cichon & Doppelbauer, 2008, p.121). However, knowledge of Basque is not a necessary qualification for working in public administrations, since it is possible to work in these sectors knowing only Castilian. Only in 1989 the Basque government began planning to extend the

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use and knowledge of Basque among public administration workers to ensure that all citizens can be attended for in both languages, Castilian and Basque (Cichon & Doppelbauer, 2008, pp. 114-115).

Within the region, the usage and learning of Basque are regulated by, as it was mentioned above, the Law for the Normalization of the Use of Basque established in 1982 (Niño-Murcia & Rothman, 2008, p.40). This Law for the Normalization determines that primary and secondary school education must work to ensure knowledge of both official languages, Castilian and Basque, throughout the whole territory of the region.

To promote knowledge of Basque and bilingualism, the Basque government has created different bilingual educational models that were then accepted in public and private schools of the Basque Autonomous Community. As a result, there are currently three educational models available: model A, model B and model D. In model A, the vehicular language of education is Castilian, and Basque is only a subject to which curriculum dedicates more or less 3-4 hours each week. Most of the students in this model have Castilian as their first language (mother tongue). Model B uses both languages, Castilian and Basque, as vehicular – thus, education is bilingual and hours in curriculum are distributed equally between these two languages. Finally, model D proclaims Basque as a vehicular language in the classroom and Castilian as a subject of a few hours per week (Echeverria, 2003, page 253). All three models, especially model D and model B, are focused on the promotion of bilingualism in Castilian and in Basque among youth (Niño-Murcia & Rothman, 2008, p.40). Parents of children have the right to choose freely between these three models of education (Lasagabaster, 2017, p.585).

In general, it is possible to say that language policies in the Basque Autonomous Community have the promotion of the use of Basque as their main objective not only in the area of education, but also in the aforementioned areas of public administration and civil services. However, although the promotion of Basque is present in a quite proactive way, the level of linguistic immersion in the Basque Autonomous Community is much lower than in Catalonia, linguistic policies of which were already described above (Cichon & Doppelbauer, 2008).

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3. Linguistic ideologies in the context of Catalan and Castilian in Catalonia and Basque and Castilian in the Basque Autonomous Community as represented in the media

Linguistic policies of Catalonia and the Basque Autonomous Community, which we have described in the previous section, have been a matter of constant debate during the last decades. They were the subject of discussion not only for linguists and academic research, but also within society. The debate, as it was mentioned before, deals with a linguistic conflict between the official language of the state for all the communities, Castilian, and the co-official languages of the Autonomous Communities, which in the context of this research are Catalan and the Basque.

In this section, we will look at the opinions on language policies in Spain in the regions in question. We will use the data from the news and from online media in general to demonstrate how the discourse of linguistic ideologies is reflected in the public sphere of Catalonia and the Basque Autonomous Community. The articles were chosen on the basis of their currentness, so most of the articles used were published in the last 2 years, and there are some articles published in the period from 2014 to 2016. The search was conducted through internet search engines using keywords such as “referendum”, “ideologías”, “lengua”, “idioma”, as well as by searching through the archives of such online newspapers as El Pais. Since the analysis of those articles was qualitative in nature and only the articles directly related to the topic were chosen, the number of the articles investigated was seven for Catalonia and five for the Basque Autonomous Community. However, all these publications are recent and are focused on linguistic policies of Catalonia and the Basque Autonomous Community. The selected articles also show reactions of the population towards the reforms and initiatives proposed by the government in the field of regional linguistic policies. This allows us to draw certain conclusions about the dominant ideologies in Catalan and Basque society. Thus, this section of the research will be organized in the following way: it will start with the articles and discussions in the news and newspapers that talk about the linguistic situation in Catalonia, and then the same will be done in regard to the Basque Autonomous Community. In the next section, we will focus on analyzing the data of the abovementioned corpus of the articles, which will give us further insights into language ideologies in Catalonia. All of that will help in confirming or rejecting the theory that current linguistic ideologies in Catalonia and the Basque Autonomous Community are the consequence of regional language policies.

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3.1 Linguistic ideologies in Catalonia as represented in the media. The context of Castilian and Catalan.

Let us start with the discussion of the recent Catalan situation as reflected in the news and in the media. Lately, the vast majority of articles related to linguistic policies in Catalonia revolves around the sociopolitical scandal of the Catalan Independence Referendum in October 2017. The issues discussed in the media address the influence of the linguistic policies of Catalonia and of the linguistic immersion started in the year 1978 on the current independence movement and on the ideology of nationalism (not purely linguistic, but ethnic), which have been especially evident in the context of the 2017 Independence Referendum. Looking at these recent events in Catalonia, it is easy to notice that the ideology of "one nation - one language" ( which, as it was already explained, serves as a way of separating a nation or a social group from other groups) seems to be one of the main bases for the development of the discussion on independence for Catalonia (Piller, 2015). The discourse of many articles is related to the fact that linguistic policies of Catalonia imply language immersion with the use of Catalan being greater than the use of Spanish in secondary education, and that, moreover, those policies oblige members of regional Catalan government administration and universities to know the Catalan language (Herreras, 2007). At the same time, as articles reflect, those policies make many people believe that linguistic immersion in Catalonia results in the invocation of pro-independence and nationalist ideas, including the idea of "a language - a nation".

Due to the popularity of that point of view and also due to the consequences of the 2017 referendum, the government of Spain is currently proposing an initiative to end linguistic immersion in Catalonia and introduce more Castilian (Spanish) into the curriculum. In the article by Teodoro León Gross in El país (2018), the journalist argues that the Spanish government sees the model of linguistic immersion in Catalonia as a threat to the unity of the state of Spain and believes that this model serves to manipulate young people and promote a nationalist Catalan identity. In other words, the government suspects that the policy of immersion poses linguistic ideologies of people of Catalonia in favor of Catalan and against Castilian as a common language for all. The argument is used that the language immersion establishes Catalan as the vehicular language of education in Catalonia, with

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mandatory presence of Spanish in 25% of the curriculum (Cichon & Doppelbauer, 2008), and that in order to receive higher education in Spanish, it is necessary to make a request for "an economic aid for tuition in private centers" (El País, Álvarez & Baquero, 2018). However, as the article states, although the possibility of educating children in Castilian exists, "in the last three years there have been 560 petitions and only 50 have been granted assistance" (El País, Álvarez & Baquero, 2018).

In the media it is clear that the initiative to end the current program of immersion finds great resistance in Catalonia. On Saturday, March 17 of 2018, thousands of people gathered for a demonstration to support the current educational model (Blanchar, 2018). However, it is crucial to understand that defense of the Catalan linguistic immersion is not necessarily a sign of the independence movement or of the ideology that supports linguistic nationalism. For example, in the interview with Albert Branchadell, professor of Catalan philology at the UAB, we can find an alternative opinion. Branchadell argues that the immersion program has been a key element for vitality and popularity of Catalan that we see today and claims that the conditions created in Spain for regional languages are an impressive achievement, especially when compared to other countries such as, for instance, France. In addition, the professor states that he does not see the problem for learning either Catalan or Castilian in the current model of immersion, since all the students who received education during the immersion period demonstrate proficiency in both languages, and that teaching in Catalan does not cause problems in the study of Spanish and vice versa. Therefore, current Catalan educational model does not motivate the ideology of "a Catalan language - a Catalan nation" and does not cause the separation between the Catalan population and the population of Spain in general (Branchadell, 2018). Branchadell (2018) also believes that the discussion about the conflict between Catalan and Castilian is not based on actual data or real problems, but rather on ideological and political discussions of another level (text provided below is a translation):

Some people believe that 'the school must be in Catalan because we are in Catalonia', and that the model must be designed by the Catalan legislator without external interference, and then there are those who believe that immersion is condemnable because it marginalizes Castilian and restricts its learning. The problem of the latter is that their demand has no empirical basis. The famous myth of the child of Olot who does not know how to speak Castilian has no foundation. It does not appear nor in the studies of the Ministry, nor in the external tests of the Generalitat, nor in the Selectivity. (Branchadell, 2018)

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We can observe a similar point of view in some articles of the newspaper El País. For example, the article by Camilo S. Baquero of 2018 reflects opinions of some parents and teachers of Catalonia on the linguistic and educational policy. Just like Branchadell, he expresses a positive attitude towards the current immersion policy. He confirm the success of this policy and thinks that thanks to the immersion, young people in Catalonia have achieved competence in both languages, Catalan and Castilian (Baquero, 2018). Once again, people demonstrate an opinion that what is happening in Catalonia today is the politicization of languages and their use as a political instrument. However, this seemingly happens not because of the linguistic immersion, but because of the efforts of political parties and leaders who use languages as an argument in the discussion about the independence of Catalonia (Baquero, 2018). This point of view is confirmed in another article in El país by Pere Ríos, in which it is revealed that political parties such as Ciudadanos and the PP support and promote the Spanish government's initiative to end linguistic immersion in Catalonia and argue for it as a necessary mean to defend the Castilian language (Rivers, 2018). That goes against the Spanish Constitution and against the policies established in Spain, since, although the only common language in Spain is Castilian, the Constitution also promotes multilingualism in the regions. To put it differently, on the one hand, the Spanish government follows the policy of multilingualism, but, on the other hand, it uses the ideology of "one language - one nation" described by Piller (2015) to justify the initiative to end linguistic immersion in Catalonia.

Furthermore, it seems that the role of Catalan as a threat to society or to the Castilian language in the region is no more than a myth constructed by the government and politicians to influence linguistic ideologies of the people, converting the language in something political and not something cultural. At the level of education or learning of Castilian, the data from the media show that there is no evidence that the co-official status of Catalan and the linguistic immersion have negatively influenced the knowledge or attitudes of the citizens of Catalonia towards Castilian. For instance, in the news of El Confidencial from February 2018 it can be seen that Catalan students have the highest average grade for Castilian among all the Autonomous Communities with the co-official languages. The article in El País by Lluís Orriols also claims that there is no proof that the linguistic policies of immersion in Catalonia have provoked the support of independence movement and nationalism. Orriols points out that, although in the year of 2010 the program of language immersion has been active for already more than 30 years, back then support for the independence of Catalonia was a minority opinion and was not so popular (Orriols, 2018). For that reason, the linguistic ideologies of

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nationalism and movement for independence in the recent years should have been provoked by some other factors, but not by the linguistic policy that has already been functioning for several decades.

Here, we can use the term "erasure" by Irvine & Gal (2000) to describe the actions of the Spanish government as well as the Catalan government, which seem to be the real provocateurs of the current process. The Spanish government tries to erase the fact that Catalan population can remain multilingual without threatening Castilian language, and the Catalan government promotes the idea that Catalan identity must be separated from Spanish identity, thus provoking the ideology of linguistic nationalism. In other words, both governments are trying to erase the fact that the nation, both Castilian (Spanish) and Catalan, can be multilingual, and that both languages can continue coexisting as they have during the last decades. Under the pressure from media and from the image presented by the governments, many people adopted a point of view on Castilian as a threat to Catalan, and, at the same time, other groups of people started considering languages like Catalan a threat for Castilian as a common language everyone.

3.2 Linguistic ideologies in the Basque Autonomous Community as represented in the media. The context of Castilian and Basque.

In this section, the situation in the Basque Autonomous Community will be observed. There, the Basque language has been existing alongside Castilian, and we are going to see how the linguistic situation of this community is reflected in the media. It is necessary to emphasize that the Basque Autonomous Community also, just like Catalonia, has the status of autonomy and has co-official languages. Moreover, it is famous for its part of the population that expresses pro-independence sentiments. However, although the Basque Autonomous Community has not suffered as many tensions as Catalonia in the recent years, or has not conducted any referendum for independence, it is possible that the events in Catalonia have influenced ideologies of the Basque people and reflection of those ideologies in the media. To start with, some sources from 2-3 years ago will be investigated, in order to understand how the linguistic situation was reflected several years ago, and afterwards more recent articles will be observed.

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In the article by J.M. Alonso of the year 2015 in El Mundo, the statement can be found that most Basques – specifically, 63%, identify with Castilian as their language (Alonso, 2015). The data collected in the article are originally the data of the study conducted by the Basque Government on opinions and linguistic attitudes of the population in the context of the current linguistic policy. Apart from identifying with Castilian language, in Alonso's article we also see the evidence that 74% of the Basque Community population considers knowledge of both languages, Castilian and Euskera, very important. What is more, the majority of the people surveyed, 75% in total, affirm that they have never felt discriminated on the basis of their language. Furthermore, the vast majority of 85% of the population denies the assertion that Basque is "a nationalist thing". To sum it up, it can be said that three years ago, in 2015, attitudes towards Castilian and bilingualism in the Basque Autonomous Community were, according to this article by Alonso, positive, and a large part of the Basque population felt identified with both languages, with the preference for Castilian (Alonso, 2015). Another article of more or less the same period in the ABC by Itziar Reyero indicates the same tendencies. It also confirms that most Basques prefer Castilian language to Basque; in addition, the use of Castilian is in general stated to be more common in everyday and colloquial language (Reyero, 2014).

The fact is that, during this period, you cannot find much discussion in the media about language policies in the Basque Autonomous Community, which also demonstrates tranquility of the overall atmosphere and absence of serious tensions in relation to languages. However, because of the intensified discussion in the recent years about Catalonia, its languages and independence, it is not surprising that in more recent media articles we can also observe a more active debate on these issues in relation to the Basque Autonomous Community.

In the last few years, with the development of the Catalan crisis and its movement for independence, the same issue in the Basque Autonomous Community has caused reactions completely different from those in Catalonia. It could have been expected that, having Catalonia as an example, the Basque population would want to fight for their independence as well, using their identity and their language as a political instrument. However, the data shown in the media demonstrate that this is not the case, in fact, quite the contrary happens. The article in El país by Mikel Ormazabal (2017) shows that, during the Catalan crisis in the last years, desire for independence in the Basque Autonomous Community has not risen, but has, in fact, fallen. In December of 2017, after the referendum in Catalonia, the percentage of Basque people who wanted to separate from Spain was about 14% according to data collected by the

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University of Deusto, which was "three percentage points less than just six months ago". Moreover, the majority of the respondents, 42.6%, reported that they would vote against independence in the case of a referendum in the Basque Autonomous Community, and only 23% would support it (Ormazabal, 2017).

In the news of Libertad Digital (2017), we also find data that reflects the situation from the same perspective. Using the data from Euskobarómetro, the survey conducted by the University of the Basque Country (UPV), the news article argues that the independence process in Catalonia has caused rejection in the Basque population. According to the news, "two out of three Basques are opposed (66%), both among nationalists (53%), and non-nationalists (80%)" (Libertad Digital, 2017). In addition, the majority of the respondents in all the different political sectors also oppose independence, it is a common opinion among the voters of the different political parties, excluding only one party, EH Bildu. At the same time, the separation is supported by only 24%, the minority part of the Basque population (Libertad Digital, 2017). If the data of two last mentioned news articles are compared, it can be clearly seen that these data correspond with the data of the articles of several years ago, according to which the majority of the Basque population identifies with Castilian language (Alonso, 2015). Even more so, in the article in El Confidencial of the year 2018 the criticism is found not towards the Castilian language, but more towards the Basque language. The article reveals that students in Basque schools have the worst average results out of all Spanish regions and states that this is due to the excessive focus on Basque language in Basque schools, prioritizing the teaching of Basque, especially in model D of education, over of all other subjects (Alonso, 2018).

Bearing all of this in mind, the situation of a certain rejection against the independence movement in the Basque Autonomous community seems quite logical and something to be expected. As a result, two different situations can be observed. In Catalonia we can see quite a strong support for independence, greatly intensified during the last years, whereas in the Basque Autonomous Community that is not the case. In reality, people of the Basque Autonomous Community have become even less pro-independence oriented during the Catalan crisis than before (Ormazabal, 2015). It seems that, in contrast to Catalonia, where the Catalan government and the Spanish government have been provoking the nationalist linguistic ideology, in the Basque Autonomous Community the pluralist, or cosmopolite linguistic ideology remains central (Fuller, 2019), with the population having positive attitudes towards both languages, Basque and Castilian. The process of iconization in the Basque Autonomous

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Community does not promote separatism, since people who speak Basque and identify themselves as Basques do not reject the Castilian language. The internal politics of the Basque Country and the Basque population do not try to erase the fact that the Basque Autonomous Community, even though it has its own language, remains a part of Spain and the Spanish nation as a multilingual nation, while, in Catalonia, as it has been already observed, the ideology of nationalism has intensified in recent years (Gal & Irvine, 2000).

However, differences in ideologies are not necessarily caused by the attitudes of people, given that in the media we also have not found evidence that the population of Catalonia has a more negative attitude towards Castilian than the Basque people. It may be the case that the difference in ideologies in the two regions is due more to internal linguistic policies, but it is also possible that, in case of Catalonia, this is even more the fault of political propaganda and of political provocation of nationalism. In order to see whether that is the case, and to determine how much the rhetoric of the media has changed before and after the Catalan referendum, in the next section we will analyze the corpus of articles related to the topic of independence in Catalonia. After doing so, we will compare our overall findings with the data from previous research on the subject of ideologies and linguistic attitudes in Catalonia as well as in Basque Autonomous Community. This will allow to determine whether current situation in Catalonia and in the Basque Autonomous Community is a result of the linguistic policies of these regions formed in the last few decades, or whether, in case of Catalonia, it is more a result of the fairly recent politicization of the language. Using all of these data and analyzing it, we will try to explain why the current linguistic ideologies in Catalonia and the Basque Autonomous Community are different.

4. Analysis of the corpus

In this section, the main focus will be on the analysis of the corpus of the articles, which was compiled specifically for the purpose of this study. The investigation of the corpus will serve to determine what ideologies are represented in the Spanish media, and how are they represented. We will start with the description of the corpus itself, of its structure and of the criteria used for its assembling. It is important to note that the corpus did not contain any articles related to Basque Autonomous Community and focused solely on Catalonia, since that is the region where referendum for independence happened and where discussions of the

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language conflicts were more prominent, and thus it is the region which serves as the main focus of this study, while Basque Autonomous Community serves more as a point of comparison for Catalonia.

The corpus consists of a hundred articles in total. All of the articles selected for the corpus were published by Spanish media (Spanish not only in terms of language, but also in terms of territory – in other words, articles written in Spanish but published, for instance, in the media of Latin America, were not included) and were found using an online tool LexisNexis. As it was already mentioned in the introduction, all the publication in the corpus are dedicated, in one way or another, to the situation in Catalonia, in particular – to such topic such as referendum, Catalan and Castilian language, linguistic policies and ideologies. In order to find the articles that were most relevant for the research, selection process included search by keywords. The keywords and key phrases established and used for the search were as following (the words are given in Castilian with a translation provided in the brackets): lengua catalana (Catalan language), lengua castellana (Castilian language), Catalán (Catalan), Castellano (Castilian), independencia (independence), referéndum (referendum), español (Spanish), independentismo (movement for independence), lengua (language). Online media that published the articles chosen for the corpus included the following sources: El Pais, El Mundo, El Periódico de Catalunya, El Correo, BBC Spanish, Spanish Newswire Services and a few others.

In order to structure the corpus, two certain timelines were established, and an equal number of articles was selected for each timeline – thus, having a hundred articles in total, fifty articles were selected for each timeline. The selection was made based on the content of the articles since, even using keywords and time references, results provided by LexisNexis included some articles that were not related to our topic of interest and would have been irrelevant for this study. Thus, studying the content of the articles prior to their selection was necessary. The first timeline covers the period from the 1st_{of September of 2017 and up to the}

1st_{of October of 2017, which is also the day of the Catalan Independence Referendum.}

Therefore, the first timeline contains the articles published throughout the month before the Catalan referendum. The second timeline, in its turn, covers the month after the referendum – since the 2nd of October of 2017 and up to the 1st of November of 2017. The point of this division into two timelines was to compare publications made by Spanish media before and after the referendum, and to try and determine whether there is any change in the ideologies represented in those media.

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However, in order to make any kind of comparison or perform analysis, after the articles were collected, they had to be annotated – or, in other words, had to be sorted into different categories that would allow analysis. For the purpose of this study, three categories were established – cosmopolite ideologies, nationalist ideologies and neutral. It has to be noted that articles were sorted into those categories not on the basis of their explicit support for one or other ideology, but on the basis of what kind of ideologies they discuss (explicitly or implicitly). For instance, if an article discussed Catalan nationalism or underlines the conflict between Catalan language and Castilian language, such an article was marked as the one belonging to “nationalist ideologies” category, since it demonstrates the existence of division and nationalist sentiments in the Catalan society. If an article contained statements and discussions that expressed the beliefs that Catalan and Castilian languages can coexist peacefully, or, for example, that current linguistic ideologies are not a threat to neither Castilian nor Catalan, such a publication was sorted into the “cosmopolite ideologies” category. Finally, if the article did not contain any discussions or arguments about the linguistic and political situation in Catalonia, and was rather just stating the facts, it was marked as being in the “neutral” category. For instance, one of the articles in BBC Spanish from the 10th_{of October}

of 2017 simply lists the possible outcomes of the referendum, not talking neither about nationalism, nor about the peaceful coexistence of Castilian and Catalan, and thus was sorted as “neutral”. In case when articles contained elements of both ideologies, the articles was places in the category of the one ideology that prevailed or was shown to be the dominant one in the context of that particular article.

Down below I will give two examples of the abstracts from the articles to demonstrate which kind of rhetoric classified as cosmopolite ideologies and which – as nationalist.

The cosmopolite ideology example (original and translation):

Amo mi tierra, porque también respeto a todos los demás. Pero la tensión y agresión generadas por este desafío independentista no las entiendo. No puedo comprender cuál es el razonamiento de los políticos, tampoco encuentro sus argumentos históricos para separarnos de España, y mucho menos sus justificaciones económicas. Estoy cansada de este catalanismo que viene impuesto. Estoy hastiada, casi agotada, y me consume el discurso pesado sobre la independencia y el por qué la merecemos o por qué la tenemos que querer.

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I love my land, because I also respect all others. But the tension and aggression generated by this independence challenge I do not understand. I cannot understand what the politicians' reasoning is, nor do I understand their historical arguments to separate us from Spain, let alone their economic justifications. I'm tired of this Catalanism that is imposed. I am tired, almost exhausted, and I am consumed by the heavy discourse about independence and why we deserve it or why we have to love it.

(El Mundo, 20th of September 2017)

The nationalist ideology example (original and translation):

El canibalismo de los partidos 'madrileños' ha facilitado la tarea a los propagandistas de Omnium Cultural o la Asamblea Nacional de Cataluña. La designación de alguien como 'español' se ha convertido en un gesto de desprecio más allá de ideologías o alineamientos políticos. Nadie quiere ser español. Todo menos español.

The cannibalism of the 'Madrilenian' parties has made the task easier for the propagandists of Omnium Cultural or the National Assembly of Catalonia. The designation of someone as 'Spanish' has become a gesture of contempt beyond ideologies or political alignments. Nobody wants to be Spanish. Everything except Spanish.

(El Correo, 4th_{of September 2017)}

The process of sorting selected articles into those three categories served as a qualitative analysis, since, in order to be assigned to a category, each publication had to be analyzed and investigated. The results of this sorting process, however, can also be analyzed quantitatively, since, even though the sample of the articles is not very big (a hundred in total), it still demonstrates certain tendencies and represents the general discourse. Now, qualitative and quantitative data of the corpus for each of the two timelines will be looked at, which, in its turn, will allow us to determine what are the major trends in ideologies represented in Spanish media before and after the Catalan referendum, and what do those trends tell us about language ideologies in Catalonia. However, it is crucial to remember that the sample of the articles analyzed in this research is rather small, and, in general, analyzing mass media does not necessarily reflect the objective reality, and thus we should not make any decisive conclusions

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about ideologies in Catalonia exclusively based on this study and without taking into account other data.

4.1 The first timeline – from the 1st of September 2017 up to the 1st of October 2017.

As it was already stated above, the first timeline covers the period of one month – in particular, the month preceding the Catalan Independence Referendum of the 1st of October of 2017. In total, 50 articles were collected for this period from various Spanish media, which were then sorted into three already mentioned and described categories – “cosmopolite ideologies”, “nationalist ideologies” and “neutral”. Each article was assigned only to one category, thus avoiding any kind of confusion or duplicates.

The quantitative analysis of the articles in three categories reveals the following distribution: 21 articles out of the total 50 belong to the category “cosmopolite ideologies”, 22 articles were sorted into the category of “nationalist ideologies”, and only 7 articles were marked as belonging to the “neutral” category. Such a division is quite curious, since it basically reveals an almost equal distribution of the articles between two categories – the cosmopolite and the nationalist ones (21 and 22 respectively), with nationalist ideologies categories being in the lead. Even though the sample of the articles analyzed is rather limited, this still indicates how complex and multifaceted the Catalonian situation is – there is no clearly defined public opinion on what ideologies prevail in Catalonia and whether Castilian and Catalan languages are in conflict or in peaceful co-existence. Moreover, it is even harder to judge solely based on these publications whether nationalist ideologies are accounted for by linguistic ideologies, as some articles suggest, or whether there are more complicate factors involved, that go beyond languages – such as political propaganda and manipulation, which use politicization of languages as a tool for gaining more power.

The majority of the articles talk about “nacionalismo catalán” (Catalan nationalism) and about the division of Catalan society because of the movement for independence. A lot of them also underline the fact that the Catalan language has been used as a political instrument in order to manipulate people and to construct the image of the separate nation that would be hostile to Spanish government. According to some of the articles, a lot of those constructions are based on myths and pseudo-historical statements about Catalan

Linguistic policies and linguistic ideologies in Spain. The case of Catalonia in relation to the Basque Autonomous Community.

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