Subalternity and Linguistic Dispossession: On the Planning of the Galician-Portuguese in the Autonomous Galicia

  • Roberto Samartim Universidade da Coruña, Spain
DOI: https://doi.org/10.18543/ced.2473
Keywords: subalternity, Galician-Portuguese language, linguistic substitution, linguistic planning, glotopolitics

Abstract

We start from the centrality attributed in the analysis to the concept of subalternity (Gramsci), and we review the bibliography and the different positions related to the planning of the corpus, the status, and the acquisition of Galician in the autonomous period (1981-2021). After identifying the normative and ideological elements on which subalternity rests in each of these three areas of linguistic planning, we summarize the positions and programmatic proposals of the main groups that participate in the political-linguistic debate in autonomous Galicia. We review the legal-political framework enshrining the «subordinate co-officiality» (Carvalho Calero) and regulating the presence of Galician in compulsory education from the end of the Franco regime until decree 79/2010 currently in force. We synthesize the process of coding Galician in contemporary times in relation to the groups involved, the alleged coding criteria and the results regarding the relationship between Galician, Portuguese and Spanish. We confirm that the socialisation of linguistic and ideological materials subordinated to Spanish (also not referenced in the other Galician-Portuguese norms) means a break with the idea of a central language in the tradition of pre-autonomous Galicianism and minimises the impact of the linguistic interference of Spanish in Galician, at the same time that it does not provide sufficient materials to stop it and reverse it. We conclude that the idea of language and the autonomous legal-political framework enshrine subalternity and explain the progress of the linguistic-cultural interference and substitution process that leads to the linguistic dispossession that threatens the Galician community today.

Received: 30 April 2022
Accepted: 20 May 2022

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Author Biography

Roberto Samartim, Universidade da Coruña, Spain

Permanent Lecturer in the Department of Letters of the University of A Coruña (UDC). PhD in Galician Philology, degree in Portuguese Philology and DEA in Classical and Medieval Studies from the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC). He was co-director of Agália. Revista de Estudos na Cultura (2010-2016), Vice Dean of the Faculty of Philology at the UDC (2011-2013), General Secretary of the Associação Internacional de Lusitanistas (AIL, 2011-2014), Communication Manager at the AIL and Editor of www.plataforma9.com (2014-2018). Linked to the Grupo de Estudos Territoriais (GET) at UCD and the Rede Galabra (USC and UMinho groups), he studies the functioning of cultural fields (namely literary) and the political and ideological processes related to them, applying empirical, systemic and sociological methodologies. Among his research interests are the study of female participation in the literary system of the Portuguese Renaissance; the study of the construction process of the Galician literary / cultural system in the transition from the Franco regime to the autonomous regime (particularly, the relations that the agents involved maintain with other cultural systems in the Hispanic and Portuguese-speaking areas); or the study of the process of linguistic-cultural elaboration in the Autonomous Galicia. Since 2012, his research has also focused on the study of the impacts of discourses related to the Ways of Santiago on the local community of Compostela, regarding their relationship with touristic practices, policies and cultures linked to the phenomenon of pilgrimages.

Published
2022-07-22
How to Cite
Samartim, Roberto. 2022. “Subalternity and Linguistic Dispossession: On the Planning of the Galician-Portuguese in the Autonomous Galicia”. Deusto Journal of European Studies, no. 04 (July), 69-105. https://doi.org/10.18543/ced.2473.
Issue
No. 04 (2022): SPECIAL ISSUE. Linguas minoritarias e futuro de Europa. Minority Languages and the Future of Europe
Section
Articles

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