Catalan Language Research Articles

Inseguretat lingüística o consciència normativa? Inseguretat i ús de la llengua entre els joves valencians

Summary: In this article we analyse the relationship between the use of the Catalan language in the Valencian Country and the linguistic insecurity of students in their last years of compulsory education (between age 14 and 16). Two different indexes have been produced: the first as regards the formal linguistic insecurity (the consciousness of the distance between the normative linguistic usages and the speakers’ own usages), and the second concerning the perception and the beliefs as regards this linguistic insecurity. The analysis of the results shows that those students who have the best linguistic competence and use the Catalan language most often, have a lower perception of their own linguistic insecurity but a higher formal linguistic insecurity. This contradiction could be interpreted as being a result of their better linguistic competence. The paper also offers some reflections on the theoretical concept of linguistic insecurity. [Keywords: Linguistic insecurity, linguistic usage, Catalan language, perception of linguistic insecurity, formal linguistic insecurity].

Actituds dels docents davant les noves situacions escolars multiculturals i multilingües: qüestions recurrents

Summary: Multiculturalism and multilingualism change the characteristics of linguistic exchanges among youngsters, and also between them and their teachers, in many of the classrooms of the Catalan education system. In this article, based on the analysis of data collected via ethnographic research methods (interviews and group debates, in which teachers express and compare their beliefs, attitudes and knowledge), we show three relevant and recurrent issues: the way of perceiving linguistic and cultural differences (which is regarded as a richness, but at the same time is conceives as a problem); the dilemma of integrating newcomers directly into the classroom or introducing them in specific phases; and the concern as regards, how one reaches a point where these students use Catalan as their habitual language in interactions beyond the classroom. [Keywords: Catalan language, multiculturalism, multilingualism, classroom interactions, students’ attitudes, teachers’ beliefs, ethnographic method].

"Algherese? Sì, ma solo per scherzare." Zum Gebrauch katalanischer Versatzstücke in der Jugendsprache von L'Alguer

Summary: In the northwestern Sardinian city of Alghero (l’Alguer), three distinct languages are spoken. Italian is the administrative language of the island; Sardinian exists in all its different variants; and, not surprisingly, given the centuries-long occupation of Sardinia by the Corona de Catalunya i Aragó, there is also Algherese or Alguerès, a Catalan dialect. The goal of the field research on which the following article is based was to collect data on the present-day use of Algherese and on the vitality of a local variant which must hold its ground on the one hand against the superiority of Italian in all areas of life and on the other hand with the help – or in spite – of the language-promotion measures of the Catalonian administration. Using the example of the local youth, this article sketches a social-linguistic description of the particular situation of the inhabitants, who to a certain extent find themselves between several linguistic and cultural contexts. Qualitative interviews with Alghero teenagers undertaken by the author in 2008 serve as the source and some excerpts are provided here. The fact that these interviews could only be done in Italian and not in Algherese or Standard Catalan provides one crucial observation: the natural everyday language of these young people, or the language in which one can address them, is Italian – and not the local variant of Catalan. The latter is used, at best, as a linguistic prop or to “spice up” particular expressions. Even so, or because of this, Algherese has an identity-creation function in peer groups. This is a characteristic feature that, despite the small number of concrete examples from the Catalan language, justifies placing this article in the larger context of Catalan youth idiom, which is the overarching theme of the contributions in this thematic issue. [Keywords: Sardinia, dialects, language policy, minorities, multilingualism, identity, sociolinguistics].

Usos lingüístics de l'alumnat d'origen estranger a l'educació primària de Catalunya

Summary: The recovery and preservation of the Catalan language initiated during the 1970’s has been a long process that has been backed by the positive attitudes of the whole population towards this language. However, in the last 10 years, the demographic composition of Catalonia has changed substantially. The article presents two studies about the linguistic uses of migrant students in primary education. The first study analyses the linguistic uses of 625 12-year-old foreign students in 53 different schools, whereas the second study is an ethnographic research about the linguistic uses of foreign students carried out in a school where 90% of the students are migrants. The results show that, little by little and no matter if Catalan is the language of instruction or not, Spanish is the socially dominant language usually used by most foreign students. The only variables which modify this tendency are the presence of a high percentage of Catalan-speaking students in the classrooms and the use of Catalan in the students’ social environment. [Keywords: Immigration, linguistic uses, Catalan language, school education].

<i>Al seu rotllo</i>: aproximació al llenguatge juvenil català

Summary: The paper examines the lexicon used by young Catalan speakers by studying a night-time radio program called Prohibit als pares (‘Parents Not Allowed’), which the station Ràdio Flaixbac FM aired during the period of Sept. 2003–July 2006. The show targeted mainly young people and dealt with topics such as love, sex, friendship, infidelity or drugs. The published materials manage to convey the no-holds-barred nature of the program, rendering the text very close to the hearts of young people, who identify with what is said. Precisely because of the specific features of the show and the accurate rendition of the actual words used by these speakers (and not, as stated, because of the spelling, morphology or syntax), the corpus allows us to describe the colloquial lexicon of young people today: what type of lexical mechanisms are used (loanwords, derivations?), to what extent these mechanisms pertain to the Catalan language or are otherwise borrowed or new, etc. [Keywords: Catalan, lexicon, teenagers’ language, word formation].

Creating Practice and Knowledge Communities at University: A working Experience among Universities in the Catalan Language Area

Normal 0 21 false false false ES X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Tabla normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} En la societat actual, l'educació i la formació a través de comunitats de prà ctica, virtuals o presencials, es converteix en una prà ctica habitual que, amb més o menys fortuna, està essent experimentada en diferents à mbits formatius (a la universitat, a l'empresa, en el sistema escolar, en l'educació no formal, etc.). Partint de la idea que la missió de la universitat al començament del segle XXI continua essent la difusió del coneixement científic, considerem que la creació de comunitats de prà ctica és un repte necessari que han d'assumir tots els professionals de l'educació i la formació, ja que a través d'elles es pot, per una part, transferir i generar nou coneixement i per una altra, aconseguir millors prà ctiques en el camp de la investigació i la docència. Tot aquest plantejament ens permet avalar la necessitat de desenvolupar un treball que tingui com a finalitat la conformació d'una comunitat de prà ctica entre professors universitaris, novells o experimentats.

“Normal” in Catalonia: Standard language, enregisterment and the imagination of a national public

ABSTRACTScholars have long noted that the imagination of a national public hinges on ideologies of standard language. This study uses ethnographic and media data from Catalonia to reflect on this relationship, focusing on language professionals, the stewards of Catalan’s standard register. The ideological portrait of Catalonia that emerges is one of a national public that is precarious because a standard register of the Catalan language is taken to be the whole language. It is argued that the imagined failings of a Catalan national public suggest conditions for the successful imagining of a national public more generally. In particular, the projection of a taken-for-granted national public appears to depend on a language imagined as standard and homogeneous when contrasted with other national languages but as internally variable when examined within the national context. At one taxonomic level, registers are erased in order for one register imagined as standard and homogeneous to count as the named language in contrast with other named national languages. At a lower recursive level, these registers must be imagined to exist in order for the language and its corresponding national public to be able to account for “everyone” in the projected national public. When these conditions are not met, as in the case of Catalonia, the national public is imagined as fragile. (Language ideology, standardization, publics, enregisterment)*

La Literatura Com a Salvació i Com a Repressió.: Qüestions Nacionals al Voltant de Qüestió D'amor Propi de Carme Riera i D 'aquells Cels de Bernardo Atxaga

Bernardo Atxaga and Carme Riera are two internationally consolidated writers whose novels have attained great popularity among critics and readers. This fact is especially important from a national point of view, since they employ languages in particular sociolinguistic contexts: Basque and Catalan languages respectively. The cultural tensions between the Spanish State and nationalities, like the Basque Country and Catalonia, was a controversial issue —and it persists as such—in the first years of the democracy. In the eighties and nineties the cultural awakening after Francoism made it possible for writers like Atxaga and Riera to defend national positions from a literary field. In this article, I analyze the role that literature plays as a tool for the defense of Basque and Catalan culture in Bernardo Atxaga's Aquells cels and Carme Riera's Questio d'amor propi. From the field of comparative literature, I offer a close reading of this metaliterary aspect in these novels, conducting a close reading of the intertextual net that the authors create in order to defend national cultures. The literary references that appear in both novels are far from accidental; they are carefully selected to stimulate a particular reading: literature as salvation in Cels, and as repression in Questio. In Cels, the main character, a former ETA member, struggles to reintegrate into a repressive society. She finds a way to escape from the repressive Spanish apparatuses in the different literary books that she reads. Conversely, in Questio, literature is presented as a means of repression. Spanish literature is perceived as a powerful mechanism to erode the future of Catalan culture, personified in the character of the writer Angela

The Inventive Crime Writers of Catalonia

Crime International BY J. MADISON DAVIS THE INVENTIVE CRIME WRITERS OF CATALONIA To say theCatalans have been tenacious with theirnative language and culture only partly gives themcredit forhow dif ficult thishas been over the years. Catalonia became independent in 989, and Catalan reached itsheight as a literary language in the four teenthand fifteenth centuries.How ever, theCastilian dialect began to dominate the literatureof theIberian peninsula in the consolidation of thekingdom of Spain. France bit off thenorthern territoriesofCatalonia in 1659, and Louis XIV banned the use of the language in legal docu ments in 1700. Then the Kingdom of Catalonia and Aragon lost its independence in 1719, after ithad sidedwith the losing side in the War of the Spanish Succession. Periods of nationalistic revival came and went, but afterBarcelona became the capital and one of the last redouts of the Spanish Republic, theFranco dictatorship suppressed the Cata lan language and any activities that could be taken to support Catalan nationalism. Poetry and otherbooks continued tobe published under the watchful eye of the fascist authori ties, however, and when the Franco regime ended, a new era of Catalan literature erupted. Now, there are many publishers in the language, and many popular books are pub lished inboth Spanish and Catalan, including translations fromEnglish authors. As David Leavitt remarked, "Still, Catalan writers face a daunt ing choice. The temptation towrite 101 Wprld Literature Today 3 in Spanish?a language spoken the world over?can be hard to resist when one's mother tongue is under stood only in an extremely circum scribed area."1 That they continue to do so is the result of more than just stub bornness. In a world of declining minority languages, Catalan remains strongpartly because itdoes have a strong literaryhistory?no less than Shakespeare, the great pickpocket of storymaterial, is known to have stolen from the Catalan chivalric romance Tirant lo Blanc. Another point in Catalan's favor is that its resemblance to French and Spanish makes it understandable to many speakers of those languages and not as alien as, for example, Basque. More important, however, Catalo nian artists and writers have not pre served the vigor of their language and culture by turning inward and recycling thepast. Theymaintain the vitality of their culture by embrac ing and digesting thenew. Catalans have looked outward for inspira tion,particularly toward Paris, but taken that inspiration home and made it their own. Barcelona ismost visibly one of the great cosmopoli tan cities of modernism, of course, with itsbuildings by Gaudi. After moving thereearly inhis formative years, Picasso regarded the city as his truehome, and JoanMiro was born there. As is true ofmany authoritar ian governments, the Franco regime did not encourage crime fiction and heavily censored that which saw light. In the opinion ofManuel Quinto, the fascists did not allow discussion of three things that are essential to the Spanish conception of the novela negra: "Freudian analy sis of characters, political corrup tion, and the economic tentacles of power."2 When Spain was restored to democracy in 1978, however, Bar celona became the most important center forevolving not justa Catalan but a Spanish form of crime fic tion.Manuel Vazquez Montalb?n (1939-2003) is themost famous of the Barcelonan crime authors to emerge in the late 1970s. Born in the city,he "is notable because he takes his characters, locations and backgrounds from experience, from the streets and barrios of a cityhe loves."3 Though writing in Castil ian,Vazquez Montalb?n refused to work within the conventional forms of any genre and, like many Catalan crimewriters, experimentedwith the boundaries. To this end, he created the idiosyncraticdetective and gour mand Pepe Carvalho. Carvalho's passionate obsession with foodwas said to reflectthe author's own and may have contributed to the inter national success of the novels. These are much more than harmless cozies with a few recipes appended, how ever. As Quinto implies, social and political commentary is the essen tial saffron in the paella of Span ish crime writing. Crime writing without these elements is regarded as trivialbymost Spanish commen tators, including Vazquez Montal b?n himself,with Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie often regarded as mere puzzle-makers...

Introduction

3 Catalan Literature Introduction by Lawrence Venuti How should a reader approach a sampling of a foreign literaturein translation? With what expectations, what ways of reading? Should we allow our previous experiences with a foreign language or culture towell up and saturate our responses, regardless ofwhether those experiences are purely personal (gained through actual or armchair travel) or academic (accumulated through a course of study)? This approach won't be much effectivewith Catalan literature,unfor tunately,since themere word "Catalan" remains unfamiliar tomany anglophone readers. The Catalan language isnotwidely taught inanglophone countries, and too littleof the literature has been translated, most of ittucked away in thebacklists of small and university presses. Should we then allow our immersion inour native language and literatureto influencehow we read a selecti?n of trans lations?This influence seems virtually impossible to avoid, insofar as our knowledge of Catalan contexts is limited and the translations presented here are written in English. What the reader knows of the literary traditions inhis native tongue instantly fills the gaps inhis knowledge of the foreign literature, just tomake sense of the texts. Yet this reaction casts doubt on any notion of impartial reading, any possibility of understanding and judging theCatalan poems and stories in terms that are distinctly Catalan rather than anglophone. And the translated status of the texts is all too likely tovanish, made invis ible by the sheer familiarityof the language. The most promising course may well be to gravitate towardwhat isdifferent in thewriting?different from what we know, from what we usually prefer inworks written originally inEnglish, staving off a too quick dismissal of the foreignor a too quick assimilation to native traditions. The very idea of "sampling" a foreign lit erature should likewise give us pause. How rep resentative can the selection be when defined by exclusions as well as inclusions, when constrained by arbitrary factors like the availability of books and space limitations? Frank O'Hara's poem "The Day Lady Died" (1964) displays a remarkable sophistication and catholicity of taste, embracing themost selectively elite (Hesiod and Verlaine, Strega and Gauloises) as well as the most mun danely popular (theNew YorkPost and jazz, ham burgers and malteds). But when O'Hara mentions buying themagazine New World Writing "to see what thepoets / inGhana are doing these days," he isblithely oblivious of editorial constraints, too ready to readmetonymically, toowilling to take a part of theGhanaian literaryscene forthe whole. O'Hara's cosmopolitanism is resolutely mod ernist, driven by what is attracting attention in his moment, by thenew and the famous (he also mentions Genet, Brendan Behan, Richmond Lat timore). He values an immediacy of response, even iffleeting. Yet shouldn't the reader of any foreign sampling be concerned about why the writers are presented?that is, the editor's selec tion criteria? Shouldn't we consider the crucial mediation of translating? (Would O'Hara have noticed theHesiod ifLattimore hadn't rendered it?)And shouldn't we expect a historical perspec tive, however truncated, so as to grasp the tradi tions fromwhich individual texts emerged and perhaps departed? Catalan: a Romance language currently spo ken by approximately ten million people in an area stretching from Roussillon in south ern France and the country of Andorra, through Catalonia in northeastern Spain to Valencia and Alicante along the eastern Spanish coast, and including the Balearic Islands, principally Ma llorca, Menorca, and Ibiza. Although the language of autonomous regions in Spain, although taught in schools and used inprint and electronicmedia, Catalan occupies a minor position in relation to Castilian, the language of the central government inMadrid, universally known as Spanish. Here theminority is a community whose language is not just spoken by fewer people but carries less political power and cultural prestige than the major language. Every speaker ofCatalan speaks Castilian, but not vice versa. In 2007 Catalonian publishers brought out 8340 new Catalan titles,1742 ofwhich were trans lations (21%). Among the translated languages, Castilian ranks first with 794 books, English sec ond with 499, and French thirdwith 154. Since the year 2000, Catalan translations of English language books have averaged 500 per year. In 2007, DV contrast, British and American publishers togetherbrought out 6 translations fromCatalan in the...

Las aulas de acogida de la educación primaria de Cataluña el curso 2005–2006: sus efectos sobre el conocimiento de catalán y la adaptación escolar

ResumenLa creación de dispositivos específicos para la acogida del alumnado inmigrante de nueva incorporación a los sistemas educativos occidentales tiene cada día más importancia. Cataluña creó en 2004 las aulas de acogida como un instrumento para fomentar el aprendizaje del catalán y la adaptación escolar del alumnado. Estas aulas se ubican en escuelas e institutos y el profesorado forma parte del claustro. El alumnado desde su llegada al centro escolar reparte su tiempo entre el aula ordinaria y el aula de acogida. El artículo presenta los resultados de la evaluación de las aulas de acogida de la educación primaria el curso 2005–2006. Se utilizaron dos instrumentos, conocimiento de catalán y adaptación escolar. Los resultados muestran que la adaptación escolar y la lengua familiar del alumnado son dos variables que se deben de considerar para describir el conocimiento lingüístico en catalán del alumnado extranjero.

Language-in-education policies in the Catalan language area

The territories where Catalan is traditionally spoken as a native language constitute an attractive sociolinguistic laboratory which appears especially interesting from the point of view of language-in-education policies. The educational system has spearheaded the recovery of Catalan during the last 20 years. Schools are being attributed most of the responsibility for the (failure of integration) of past and current immigrant waves. There is a historical, demolinguistic and political fragmentation of the linguistic area of Catalan because at least 8 different national and sub-national authorities have a say in the definition of language policies in education. This circumstance has led to the establishment of a number of school models which deal differently with each of the challenges described before. In this contribution, an overview is produced of the main school models which are currently running in the Catalan language areas from a comparative perspective, highlighting their points in common and their differences. The article also provides a summary of available research results in connection with language learning, language practices, the impact on social integration and cohesion, and on academic achievement. It does review some of the challenges that will have to be faced by each system in the near future.

Adaptació escolar, actituds i aprenentatge del català en l'alumnat de les aules d'acollida de Primària i Secundària a Catalunya (2005-2006)

In the last years a very important amount of immigrant students unaware of Catalan, a language typical of the educational system of Catalonia, have arrived to Catalonia. To face this situation an organizational educative model, known as newcomers classrooms, was started in 2003. It aims at speeding up the access of immigrant students to Catalan conversational uses in order to facilitate their school integration. This article presents a study that evaluates the results of newcomers classrooms, using as data the whole number of students that attended them in the course 2005-2006: 10.043 pupils of primary education (of 591 schools) and 6.474 pupils of secondary education (of 332 secondary schools). For the research two sets of tests were used: one about the knowledge of Catalan and another one about integration and school adaptation. The results show that newcomers classrooms’ students manage to learn the Catalan language, but also show that there are differences between the several linguistic collectives, due to, among other factors, the attitudes towards the school institution and their self-esteem, as well as to the particular characteristics of their initial language. The study demonstrates that all these factors are related. In consequence, the explanation of the differences about the knowledge of Catalan can not be made from isolated factors but from their interaction.

The Impact of Peer Tutoring on the Improvement of Linguistic Competence, Self-Concept as a Writer and Pedagogical Satisfaction

After examining several conceptual elements of peer-assisted learning and peer tutoring, this article presents a study analysing the effects of peer tutoring — with fixed and reciprocal roles — in the improvement of curricular competence of Catalan language skills, self-concept as a writer and satisfaction with pedagogical assistance. The results, using curricular competence improvement as a control, show an increase in self-concept as a writer for all students who were given the opportunity to act as tutors; either in fixed or in reciprocal role tutoring. Only fixed tutees, but not reciprocal tutees, feel more satisfied with their peer tutors than with the teacher's help.

The Case for a TLD for Wales

This article explores the rationales for creating specific top level domain (TLD) names to support minority languages and cultures, focussing specifically on the case for a TLD .cy or .cym for Wales. Some background information on domain names and Wales and the Welsh language is provided. Following on from this, the way identity may be constructed is explored and the importance of TLD's in terms of enabling individuals to perform their identity is highlighted. The issues that arise with using the current .uk TLD in Wales is explored. Finally the rationale for a .cym TLD for Wales as opposed to any other is considered. THE CASE FOR A TLD FOR WALES Over the last few years a number of campaigns have sought to establish top level domain (TLD) names on the internet for the use of particular minority groups. Examples include the campaign run by puntCAT to establish a .cat TLD for the Catalan language and culture and the campaign run by dotCYM to establish a .cym TLD for the Welsh language and Culture. In September 2005, and as the result of a long campaign by puntCat activists, ICANN approved the first top-level domain to be dedicated to a particular language and culture when it registered the .cat sponsored TLD name for the Catalan community (Atkinson, 2006). According to Gerrand (2006) it came into being only after considerable political wrangling within Spain, Catalonia and the ICANN. That such a campaign was thought worthwhile will be baffling to many internet users. According to Edwards (1994) most majority language speakers remain unconvinced of the desirability of officially-supported minority cultural and linguistic programmes. This article explores the rationale behind such campaigns, focussing specifically on the rationale behind establishing a TLD for Wales. It begins with a brief outline of what domain names are and how they are allocated. Next, some background on Wales and the Welsh language is provided. Following on from this, the various debates concerning the significance of a domain name to a minority groups and culture are explored. How identity is performed and achieved and a domain name may be significant in this process is foregrounded. The problems that arise with using the current .uk TLD in Wales is then explored and finally the rationale for adopting a g-TLD for Wales such as .cym, as opposed to any other g-TLD is considered. TOP LEVEL DOMAIN NAMES

Political oratory, power and authority in a medieval Mediterranean kingdom

Historical linguistic ethnography deals with verbal productions in the context of the conditions under which they came into being and the cultural meanings attributed to them at the time. The research procedure in ethnography is fieldwork, but historical linguistic ethnography is based on the examination of texts. Research, however, proceeds not from texts themselves, but from the questions addressed to texts. The linguistic/interactional material presented is drawn from political oratory in medieval Catalan society. The questions to be answered are: How did specific verbal practices interact with political life? What was the role played by codes, code-choice and code-switching? What were the sociopolitical factors that gave rise to and made sense of these verbal resources? In Catalonia, political oratory arose out of clerical oratory. The Church abandoned Latin as the language of preaching when a Catalan language fully separate from Latin developed the lexical and syntactic resources that enabled it to serve as a vehicle for complex discourse. At the same time, a Catalan proto-state was emerging. The political oratory in question was performed at the Cort, an incipient institution of political representation. This was simultaneously a political assembly, a frame defining participants’ roles, a communicative setting, a performance frame, and a traditionally patterned speech event. In this article a particular Cort is analyzed as one such complex event.

Maria Chapdelaine en Catalogne

Con este estudio nos proponemos dar cuenta de las peculiaridades de las ediciones en lengua catalana de la novela de Louis Hémon, Maria Chapdelaine, así como el lugar preponderante que ocupa dentro del conjunto de traducciones catalanas de la literatura de Quebec.

La lexicografía entre el catalán y el castellano (XVI-XIX) y su proyección en el Diccionari de Pere Labernia

The bilingual lexicography between Catalan and Spanish starts during the 16 th century and it develops in a constant progression until the present. It reflects the sociolinguistic situation of the Catalan language. The bridge between the ancient bilingual lexicography and the modern one can be represented by the Labernia’s Diccionari de la llengua catalana ab la correspondencia castellana y llatina . The article describes the generalities of the evolution of the bilingual Catalan-Spanish dictionaries (XVI-XIX) and focuses on the main features of the Labernia Dictionary.

Das integrierte Versorgungsprogramm für psychisch erkrankte Ärzte in Spanien - PAIMM

Die PAIMM ist ein Programm zur Hilfe für Ärzte, die an psychiatrischen Störungen, Alkohol- oder Drogenabhängigkeit leiden. Ziel der PAIMM ist es, eine gute Berufspraxis besser gewährleisten zu können: Ärzte mit psychiatrischen Problemen und/oder Suchterkrankungen zu begleiten, d.h. streng vertraulich spezifische und geeignete spezialisierte Dienste zu leisten und so weit wie möglich zu gewährleisten, dass die Ärzte in der Lage sind, ihre Patienten mit aller notwendigen Sicherheit medizinisch zu betreuen.

Escribir la catalanidad. Lengua e identidades culturales en la narrativa contemporánea de Cataluña (review)

Reviewed by: Escribir la catalanidad. Lengua e identidades culturales en la narrativa contemporánea de Cataluña Helena Buffery Escribir la catalanidad. Lengua e identidades culturales en la narrativa contemporánea de Cataluña Tamesis, 2005 By Stewart King In many ways Escribir la catalanidad is a timely intervention in contemporary debate over the status and limits of Catalan literature, though its terms of reference are similar to those used by Kathryn Crameri (Language, the Novelist and National Identity in Post-Franco Catalonia, Oxford: Legenda, 2000). In general, King gives an enlightening account of the origins and reasons for the debate, as well as proffering a range of eclectic readings of contemporary narratives that reflect different attitudes to Catalan culture. Opening with a quotation from Salvador Giner, he clearly grounds his work in sociological approaches to culture. Nonetheless, the scope of his study means he can give little more than a brief overview of the status and history of Catalan culture, focusing on its contested status and claims to a postcolonial condition. The central problem for King is that the limited postcolonial approaches to Catalan literature thus far fail to adequately explore the multiple valencies of Catalan culture, most especially where that culture is expressed in Castilian. Drawing on the theories of Benedict Anderson, chapter 1 looks at the development of the myths of Catalan cultural autonomy, in particular in relation to Spanish culture. Ranging from the eighteenth century to the aftermath of the Civil War, King explores how language became the centre-piece of Catalan identity, considering in particular how and why writers in Castilian are elided as non-Catalan. Defending their right to be considered Catalan writers, even though their literary language is Castilian, King presents them as a challenge to any easy identification between language and identity. Chapter 2 explores further this "greu problema de la identitat," tracing a brief history of the presence of Castilian in Catalonia—from the Casp constitution onwards. Negotiating the definitions of Catalan literature presented by a series of literary histories, King aligns himself with more expansive representations such as that of Rubió i Balaguer (Humanisme i Renaixement, Barcelona, 1990). Indeed, he claims that 'Catalan' writers in Castilian occupy a third space from which to challenge the norms of Spanish and Catalan literature. At the same time, he recognizes the uneven power relations between Catalan and Castilian, examining both the treatment of Catalan literature in translation in chapter 3 and representation of the experience of non-Catalan speaking immigrants in [End Page 222] Catalonia in chapter 4. Although he recognizes the values of texts like Paco Candel's Els altres catalans (1964) in addressing different discourses of integration, assimilation and exclusion, he argues that they do not achieve a 'satisfactory' discourse of inclusion. Chapter 5 centres on how the key myths of Catalan unity and hegemony—from the Senyera and the Segadors to excursionisme and the Catalan language—are deconstructed in Juan Marsé's El amante bilingüe (1990) and Montserrat Roig's L'òpera quotidiana (1982). Drawing on the theories of Judith Butler to explain the theatricality of both texts, King shows how Roig, in particular, offers some liberation from rigid definitions of cultural identity. Yet in chapter 6 he uses Ramon Pallicé's reading of the War of Succession in Cap de brot (1982) alongside Manuel Vázquez Montalbán's exploration of the diverse effects of the Spanish Civil War in El pianista (1985) to show how cultural identity is in fact determined by historical experience, tracing its relationship with the present. These diverse strands of analysis are woven together in the final chapter in calling for a redefinition of the relationship between Catalan literature and identity. Drawing on interdisciplinary theories and approaches associated with Cultural Studies, King ultimately wishes for a vision of Catalan literature that might include Manolo Reyes as well as Colometa, intertwining different authors and texts to achieve "una visión compleja, múltiple y a menudo conflictiva de la Cataluña y la catalanidad que todos escriben" (166). Whilst it is undoubtedly important to look at Catalan literature in (multi-)cultural terms, and to recognise that most literature in Catalan represents only a part...