The Western Catalan standard model in Telenotícies from TV3 7

Abstract

The economic, political, cultural and demographic influence of Barcelona on the other Catalan regions contributes to the confusion between Central Catalan —the dialect spoken in Barcelona and its region— and the standard model for the media. Consequently, the Western Catalan standard model is relegated to informal usage. Keeping in mind that the presence of Western voices in TV series and movies is nearly inexistent, the few times this variety of Catalan appears as a formal model in the media is through correspondents reporting from Western regions and journalists native to the area but based in Barcelona. Therefore, given that since TV3 was founded, Eastern voices have been a majority throughout its broadcasting history, coupled with the fact that the educational system does not teach Western standard forms, the oral standard spoken by reporters from the Western regions exhibits Eastern phonetic and morphological features. The main objective of this article is to analyze the linguistic model of six Western Catalan journalists that work in the TV3 news broadcast, Telenotícies.

Key Words: media, broadcast, Western Catalan, Northwestern Catalan, Valencian, Language implementation