Galician sociolinguistics. Problems and research

Abstract

In this paper, we present a brief and perhaps partial overview of Galician sociolinguistics as well as a necessarily provisional assessment. The overview sets out to present a “state of affairs” rather than a catalogue of current studies. We attempt to illustrate the dense historical background of how our field of studies has developed in Galicia, from the most significant results achieved and from the debates of widest scope. We ask the reader to kindly bear with us if we stop to analise in detail the considerations that were raised and the questions that were posed initially, as both define the field of work and build the intellectual framework in which Galician sociolinguistics has developed over the past few decades. Given the character of the work, a very succinct bibliography is presented. Moreover, it is true to say that there is a certain sense of historic justice as this “state of affairs” is published in Barcelona and Galician sociolinguistics has taken its inspiration from its Catalan counterpart.

Key words: Galician sociolinguistics, state of affairs, bibliography.