The problem of languages: Socio-discursive imaginaries on linguistic diversity in Spain

Abstract

In Spain, linguistic diversity has often been presented as a problem, to the point that there are different discourses (public and private) that reject the languages of the State other than Spanish, as Catalan. In this article, I analyze the discourses against linguistic diversity that circulate through the social network X (formerly Twitter), as well as the arguments used to justify them. The starting hypothesis is that in a part of Spanish society there is a socio-discursive imaginary that understands linguistic diversity as a problem, given that it questions the hegemony of the Spanish language and the unity of the state. Thus, based on a corpus of X posts, obtained through a digital ethnography method, the article reports on the different ideologies on languages and linguistic diversity that have been documented, such as debates about the value of different languages, the interested relationship often established between “regional languages” and nationalism, as well as the dichotomy between languages of the world (Spanish) and local languages (the rest), strongly linked to the concepts of anonymity and authenticity.