La «unitat de la llengua catalana» com a fet 'científic' i com a 'argumentum ex auctoritate': revisió crítica

Abstract

The "unity of the Catalan language" has been one of the most controversial issues in the country of València since 1975. Catalan and international linguistics have always postulated this "unity", from a non-sociological and diachronic point of view, starting from structural and historical considerations. This reasoning is partly equivalent to the old argumentum ex auctoritate. The author calls for a contextualization of the polemic and a critical assessment of the "scientific" discourse; he defends the thesis that the argumentum ex auctoritate, based on a purely structural level, is unsuitable for scientific discussion and has no part in the actual creation of the Catalan language community. Moreover, from his specific sociological and epistemological point of view, he considers this traditional way of reasoning detrimental to scientific inquiry.