"The Ideology of Linguistic Naturalism: Reflexes and Reformulations in Contemporary Catalonia."  A presentation of the Research Focus Group on Identity.  Kathryn Woolard is Professor of Anthropology at UCSD.  Lane Room, Ellison Hall 3824.

Brief Abstract:
"In western societies in the epoch of modernity, linguistic authority in the professional as well as the political view has most often been underpinned by an ideology of linguistic naturalism.  Although such naturalism is commonly traced to the Romantic movement, it has been at the base of the questione della lingua  since it was first raised by Dante Alighieri in his De Vulgari Eloquentia.  This presentation addresses seemingly contradictory legacies of this linguistic naturalism, as well as emerging challenges to it, in the contemporary questione della lingua in Catalonia.  The talk is based on ethnographic data on public and political discourses about language as well as interpersonal language choice and identity-claiming in the Barcelona area."