'Indexing Romance Language Use?' Zur Anwendbarkeit eines aktuellen Theoriemodells aus den USA auf die soziolinguistische Analyse der romanischen Sprachen und insbesondere des Katalanischen

Abstract

Summary: Social indexicality and enregisterment are basic notions of a theoretical model elaborated in the USA, whose aim is to describe the relationship between the use of language variation and patterns of social behavior on a level of formal classifications. This analytical approach is characterized by focusing on the interrelation of social performance and language awareness. In our contribution we want to show how this modern methodology can give new impetus to the study of today’s problem areas in Europe like ‘migration and language’ or ‘urban life and language use’. In particular, we are interested in the case of Catalan which has been treated for some time by proponents of the North-American enregisterment theory. This leads us to indicate that explicit ways of social conduct like language shift or the emblematic use of linguistic forms can be interpreted with regard to the social indexicality of Catalan. We thus analyze them in a way which shows that authenticity and integration in Catalan society can be achieved to a considerable extent by practicing forms of linguistic enregisterment. [Keywords: Social indexicality; enregisterment; sociolinguistics; language variation; urban dialect; multilingualism; migration; Catalan]