On the validity of conflict sociolinguistics and the notion of linguistic normality

Abstract

This article addresses two questions raised in the context of the historical review of Catalan sociolinguistics: to what extent is the approach known as conflict sociolinguistics still valid? How should linguistic normality be defined for a language such as Catalan? After a brief review of the presence of the notion of conflict in Catalan and international sociolinguistics, it is argued that many of the basic assumptions of that approach are still valid, especially if limited to the type of societies for which they were developed. As for the idea of linguistic normality, it is argued that some forms of weaker normality that had been postulated years ago probably would not guarantee linguistic stability in times of demographic change, presenting some ideas for linguistic policies aimed to achieve the normalization of Catalan.

Keywords: Conflict sociolinguistics; language establishment; language minorization; political economy of language; language policy; language normalization.