The vocabulary marking the process of reform and approval of the text of the Autonomy Statute of Catalonia (2006)

Abstract

In 2006, after a drawn-out parliamentary process, the Autonomy Statute of Catalonia (ASC) was approved. The Spanish Constitutional Court Ruling 31/2010 would later declare it partly unconstitutional. Morales (2008) already examined the statutory frameworks drafted by the parliamentary groups and this paper now presents a study of the three versions of the ASC agreed on in the Catalan Parliament.These texts are marked by discursive characteristics typically found in legal and political discourse and belong to a genre – legislative discourse – which has remained under-researched in Catalan linguistics in recent years.
Using textual statistics and a lexicometric analysis conducted with Lexico3, this study demonstrates how lexical choices shifted over the course of the process of drafting and approving the ASC of 2006. Based on lexicometric criteria and discursive analysis, this paper describes the vocabulary used in this process. It also puts forward the theoretical and methodological approaches used for this research and describes the four types of amendments identified.

Keywords: lexicometry, lexicology, autonomy statute, discourse analysis, legislative discourse.