Does the Catalan language have a social history?

Abstract

Over the last century, historical linguistics has produced notable studies on the formal evolution of the Catalan language.Moreover, in recent decades Catalan sociolinguistics has been developed, connecting theory and empirical description to language policy. However, a social history of the Catalan language has not been developed nor historical sociolinguistics,
strictly speaking, bar a few random examples. The reasons for this deficit are both internal (the limitations of the subject matter, the inertia and the stagnation of philological studies…)
and external (the socio-political andmarket constraints imposed on the Catalan language). We therefore propose to move towards a new paradigm in which the linguistic diachrony is integrated within social sciences, open to self-criticism and to overcoming ideological apriorism.

KEY WORDS: History of Catalan language, linguistic historiography, historical sociolinguistics.