The limited and largely unacknowledged contribution of political science to the study of the relationship between language and society

Abstract

The article reviews the contribution of local political scientists to the study of the languagesociety relationship in the Catalan linguistic sphere over the past 15 years. Three main conclusions
are reached. Firstly, the contribution of local political scientists is rather slender; it does not have a comparative slant and is not always sufficiently connected to theoretical debates in political science worldwide. Secondly, this contribution has not had much impact on the development of Catalan sociolinguistics, which has traditionally been (and remains) controlled by scholars with a Catalan Language degree who show undeniable partisan attitudes. Thirdly,whereasmost of these Catalan sociolinguists have tried to “sociologise” their scientific endeavours, it is clear that so far they have not paid sufficient attention to the tools developed by political science.

KEY WORDS: Catalan language, Catalan sociolinguistics, political science, political theory, sociolinguistics.