CURRENT CIRCUMSTANCES AND FUTURE CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

Nowadays Catalan is taught and studied in many European and North American Universities. The field of Catalan sociolinguistics is especially strong in a moment in which language contact, globalization, and language ideologies play an important role in society and academia. The study of Catalan in Spanish universities outside the Catalan-speaking area is still deficient. In fact, one of the future challenges should be the increase in the teaching of Catalan all over the Spanish State at all levels so that monolingual Castilian speakers could become more familiarized with the multilingual situation of Spain.

Catalan scholars and speakers must invest time and energy making sure that Catalan is considered an anonymous language that is not limited to mark the authenticity of native speakers. An anonymous language is ideologically considered the language of everybody and of nobody as it is considered mainly an instrument of communication. An authentic language underlines the separate identity of a certain group and it is not considered adequate to become a global language (Woolard, 22-30). While the process has already started quite successfully, particularly in Catalonia, it is still important to emphasize that Catalan can be the language of everybody and nobody. This process implies using Catalan in every sector of society.

It is also important for the future of the language to increase the contact between the different Catalan-speaking regions, especially in mass media and cultural events. For example, recently there have been agreements between the Catalan and the Valencian Governments to broadcast their respective public TV channels in both Catalonia and Valencia. This move may help enhance the contact between the Philological Section of the Institut d’Estudis Catalans, founded in Barcelona in 1907 and the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua, founded in Valencia between 1998 and 2001. Both institutions oversee the codification of the Catalan language.