The linguistic norm in Northern Catalonia and community members' attitude towards their own language

Abstract

Summary: Standard Catalan is based on the Central dialect and, specifically, on Barcelona speech. However, there are standard variants for all dialects, except for the Northern one. Furthermore, the sociolinguistic situation in Northern Catalan differs from that in other Catalan-speaking territories in that the language has almost disappeared. Some cultural activists are still trying to recover the Catalan language by using it in as many situations as possible. The objective of this article is to analyse the variety of Catalan – standard or dialectal forms – used in literature, the media, and education and what this usage demonstrates about Northern Catalans’ attitudes towards their own language. Keywords: Northern Catalan, standard Catalan, sociolinguistics, language attitudes