The Making of Catalan Linguistic Identity in Medieval and Early Modern Times
The historical relationship between the Catalan and Occitan languages had a definitive impact on the linguistic identity of the powerful Crown of Aragon and the emergent Spanish Empire. Drawing upon a wealth of historical documents, linguistic treatises a
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The Making of Catalan Linguistic Identity in Medieval and Early Modern Times ‘In this masterful interpretation of diverse historical texts, Lledó-Guillem renews our understanding of catalanisme by exposing the ideological interstices between Catalan, Occitan, Valencian and Castilian throughout the centuries, from the Battle of Castellammare to the formation of the Spanish Empire. His response to longstanding questions of language and identity in the Iberian Peninsula in relation to other key areas of the Mediterranean sheds new light on today’s acrimonious debates around Catalan nationalism.’ —Andrew Lynch, University of Miami, USA and Editor in Chief of Heritage Language Journal ‘Lledó-Guillem’s skillful combination of careful textual analysis and sophisticated conceptualization makes a productive contribution to the interdisciplinary reshaping of the humanities in the twenty-first century. Lledó-Guillem stands on the shoulders of traditional philology but develops an original intellectual outlook shaped by his concern with theories of language, culture, and power. This book makes a major contribution to the development of Iberian studies and fills a major gap in the glottopolitical history of the Iberian Peninsula.’ —José del Valle, The Graduate Center—The City University of New York (CUNY), USA ‘This is a most thoughtful, innovative, and timely study of Catalan language – one that emphasizes its relationship with Occitan and Spanish, as seen through a series of Medieval and Early Modern texts. It brings out the connections between the linguistic, the ideological, and the political, while discussing how linguistic ideologies are closely associated to identity, community, nation, state, morality, and epistemology. It will be a book of interest to scholars in many fields.’ —Núria Silleras-Fernández, University of Colorado at Boulder, USA
‘Vicente Lledó-Guillem’s The Making of Catalan Linguistic Identity in Medieval and Early Modern Times could not be more timely, given Catalonia’s declaration of independence from Spain in October of 2017. The Catalan language, central to the identity of Catalonia and the Catalan people and banned by the Franco regime, has become one of the rallying points of the independence movement. Using a sophisticated analysis of historical, linguistic, and, especially, literary texts, Lledó-Guillem shows how the linguistic history of Catalonia and the attitudes of the Catalonians to their language are directly relevant to language policy and politics today. He traces the vicissitudes of Catalan’s status as the language of high culture and of the state in the complex relationship between Catalan and Occitan in the països catalans, from the thirteenth century, when Catalonia faced off against France as one of the great powers of the Mediterranean world, through its eclipse in the first half of the sixteenth century as a subaltern portion of the Spanish empire, to the attempted revindication of Valencian as the true heir to Occitan in the second half of that century.’ —Charles B. Faulhaber, Un
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