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Political protest landscapes in Catalonia: language choice, utopian/dystopian discourse and “Catalans”-“Spaniards” identities Sabaté Dalmau, Maria Linguistic landscapes Social conflict Nationalism Majority/minorised-language identity Utopian/ dystopian discourse Catalonia 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. 2024-07-09 info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion https://doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2024.2375067 1035-0330 1470-1219 https://hdl.handle.net/10459.1/466179 eng info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/AEI/Plan Estatal de Investigación Científica y Técnica y de Innovación 2021-2023/PID2022-137554NB-I00/ES/EVOLUCION DE LAS IDEOLOGIAS LINGUISTICAS EN LA FORMACION DEL FUTURO PROFESORADO DE INGLES DESDE UNA PERSPECTIVA ELF/ Reproducció del document publicat a https://doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2024.2375067 Social Semiotics, 2024, vol. 35, núm. 4, p. 559–580 cc-by (c) Sabaté Dalmau, Maria, 2024 Attribution 4.0 International info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Taylor and Francis Group