The linguistic landscape of Catalan and content creators in the digital space

PalmaIn discussing linguistic landscape, we refer to the language –or languages– present on street signs, shop windows, restaurant menus displayed outside, or ephemeral signage, such as announcements of cultural events or papers stuck on street furniture offering domestic services. The study of the linguistic landscape was inaugurated in 1997 with the English article by Landry and Bourhis, which in Catalan would be Linguistic Landscape and Ethnolinguistic Vitality: An Empirical Study. These authors use the term to analyze the visibility and relevance of languages in shops and advertisements, based on the observation of written linguistic uses in the public space of Quebec. Their fundamental contribution was to consider geographical space as another domain of linguistic use, that is, as a platform for the sociolinguistic study of languages. Subsequently, the study of the physical landscape was joined by the sound linguistic landscape, which expands the concept to encompass everything that is heard in urban centers. Who among us has not stopped to listen, walking through the streets of Palma or our town, to notice which languages are spoken there? Sometimes, you smile inwardly with joy when you hear young people speaking good Catalan on Sant Miquel street.

The study of the linguistic landscape is part of applied linguistics and measures the hierarchies and mental or ideological representations of the languages present in a territory. It analyzes the place each language occupies in contact: what type of font is assigned to it, which appears first, and which is relegated or even ignored. On the ring road, for example, we see bilingual signs that reflect the language of the territory and the language of the State. The arrangement of each depends on the current regulations and the political will to comply with them, or not. And, if we walk through Palmanova or Arenal, we observe that many bars and restaurants have signage only in English or German. The linguistic landscape, in short, informs us about the economy of a place, about the linguistic policy applied there, and about the real and legal weight of each language.

Social networks

Furthermore: social networks have become a new framework for the study of the linguistic landscape, both written and spoken, because they make visible and audible what really happens on the street. A good example is one of the videos by the Majorcan influencer Àngel Aguiló, included in the series articulated around the recurring question Is there any Majorcan around here? and disseminated on Instagram. This video rightly becomes authentic ethnographic material on the linguistic landscape – visual and acoustic – of Jaume III street in Palma, an emblematic commercial axis that concentrates, in a few meters, a significant part of the city's economic and symbolic life. Many readers surely know this video, but allow me to describe the sequence. The visual narrative opens with the off-screen voice of the influencer saying: “Jaume III, Palma. Come on, mem.” Immediately after, Àngel Aguiló appears and asks the question: “Is there any Majorcan around here?”. A man's voice speaking in Spanish is heard and, immediately after, the bark of a dog. No one answers. In the background, a shop window in ephemeral lettering in English –Under the Christmas Tree– introduces another layer of global linguistic reference of cinematic reference. Despite the presenter's insistence, the question in Catalan goes unanswered. The sequence is eloquent: between the dominant language and the global language, the native language ceases to be audible in public spaces.

Another interesting case is that of the influencer known as Parisioproductions, who visits restaurants in the Part Forana in the section called Uep, on dinam? Often, these establishments have their name in Catalan, while the public menu outside the premises is presented in Spanish. This dissociation reflects, once again, the unequal status of languages in contact in Mallorca and highlights the fragility of the discourse that claims that two (or more) languages can coexist in harmony without structural tensions. In contexts of linguistic contact, there is always one language that imposes itself and it is usually the one with more political, legal, economic, symbolic (and demographic) power.

But what do these videos tell us and what role do their creators play in the linguistic landscape of Mallorca? On the one hand, Parisioproductions recovers and disseminates forms specific to Mallorcan Catalan, which are clearly evident in the series El mallorquí és preciós, which compares it with Spanish, using the discursive resource “Here they don't tell you te estás cogiendo a un clavo ardiendo, here they tell you t’estàs aferrant a l’emblanquinat”. If this is the soundscape it conveys to us, the visual landscape is also interesting, as it highlights the effects that literal translations have on speakers. Their videos show t-shirts or caps with a ‘don’t look slim’, which only makes sense if read from Catalan (‘no miris prim’). And what does this literal translation tell us? If we take a (socio)linguistic reading, it evokes that expressions like ‘posar-se com una moto’, instead of ‘encendre’s la sang’, generate an effect similar to ‘don’t look slim’’. Both creators show, explicitly or implicitly, the linguistic minoritization that Catalan is undergoing in our region.

Catalan becomes visible and audible

The paradox is evident and, at the same time, hopeful: while they note, in one way or another, the disappearance of Catalan in the Mallorcan landscape, at the same time they contribute to generating a new digital linguistic landscape where Catalan becomes visible and audible. In this sense, congratulations are due to the creators of content in Catalan.