The change in the map of linguistic representations in the early 20th century in La Veu de Catalunya

Abstract

A significant rebuilding of the Catalan language took place in the early decades of the 20th century. Associated with the process of building a national identity in which the Catalan language held a fundamental role, reflection and linguistic discourse acquired increasing importance largely owing to a newly created space: the mass print media.
This paper studies the campaign to promote the Catalan language that was launched in the newspaper La Veu de Catalunya by politicians and intellectuals supporting the positions of Enric Prat de la Riba. On the basis of this study, an analysis is made of the linguistic ideologies conveyed by that publication, and of the influence of public discourse on the creation of a new map of linguistic representations marking a major milestone in the social history of contemporary Catalan. 

Keywords: social history of the Catalan language, 20th century, identity and national print media, linguistic ideology.