(Re)building the lexical standard of Valencian Catalan: an attitudinal study

Abstract

The dissemination of the standard form of the language has not always been easy for such languages as Catalan. Even so, the standard form of Catalan has taken root among the Valencian people with a certain success (Segura, 2003; Baldaquí, 2015). Recently, however, the publication of the Diccionari normatiu valencià (DNV, AVL) has marked a partial change in the lexical component of the standard language for Valencian Catalan. This paper deals with some words which do not appear in the prescriptive dictionary (Diccionari de la llengua catalana, DIEC2, IEC), such as clevill, gasto, roín and ximenera, but which are indeed included in the DNV, as well as other words which are secondary forms in the DIEC2 but primary in the DNV, thus giving preference to vacacions, parat, catxerulo and entropessar as opposed to vacances, aturat, milotxa and ensopegar, to give some examples. This study is based on surveys among young Valencians. They have been asked about their lexical preferences regarding some words in the standard form of the language. Our aim is to assess the degree of introduction and dissemination of different words and the attitudes young people show with respect to them. Following a cognitive sociolinguistics approach (Geeraerts, Kristiansen & Peirsman, 2010), the findings of this study show that the standard form of Valencian is prototypically formed by the words of the general standard form of Catalan and of the so-called convergent standard.

Keywords: prescriptivism, language standardisation, language academies, cognitive sociolinguistics, attitudes, lexicon, Valencian Catalan.