2026-04-18T01:23:20Zhttps://recercat.cat/oai/request

oai:recercat.cat:10459.1/4661792025-10-27T19:08:17Zcom_2072_3622col_2072_479130

00925njm 22002777a 4500 dc Sabaté Dalmau, Maria author 2024-07-09 Catalonia has become a rich site to investigate minorised-language identity, with the reemergence of a movement calling for independence. Our case study analyses how pro-/anti-secessionist protests are (counter)-fought in urban Linguistic Landscapes. We approach LLs as identity-markers and place-makers delivering messages of political subversion/dominance where majority/minorised-language choice and utopian/dystopian discourse become crucial for understanding their meanings during social upheaval, with renewed nationalist protests linked to an independence Referendum. We employed a content analysis based on a semiotic/semantic interpretation and thematic categorisation of the data. We show that two antithetical “Catalans”/“Spaniards” identities reemerge which mobilise either utopian projects written in Catalan or dystopian visions in Spanish, through intertextuality. The former, categorised as pro-independence “political resistance LLs,” project a hopeful impossible to extend a liberating possible. The latter, pro-unionist “threats to Catalan protesters LLs,” reinstate order, enforcing the suppression of dissent. This reveals that ethnolinguistic identities are newly reconfigured/resignified, unpacking how a social-semiotics focus on language choice and utopia/dystopia can prefigure social conflict development. This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation under Grant PID2022-137554NB-I00; and Agency for Management of University and Research Grants under Grant 2021-SGR-00581. Linguistic landscapes Social conflict Nationalism Majority/minorised-language identity Utopian/ dystopian discourse Catalonia Political protest landscapes in Catalonia: language choice, utopian/dystopian discourse and “Catalans”-“Spaniards” identities