LINGUISTIC VARIATION AND NORM:PARALLELISMS AND DIVERGENCES BETWEEN SPANISH AND CATALAN

Abstract

This article analyses the presence of dialectal linguistic variation in the academic norm or model of standard Spanish and Catalan language. This variation becomes manifest through the acceptance of normative alternatives, a phenomenon also known as polymorphism. The study focuses on the written language, with special emphasis on the orthographic, morphological and syntactic levels, and analyses the contents of the main academic works in the two languages. The fact that they are languages with different sociolinguistic situations affects the way the possible polymorphism is conceived, as well as the way it is applied, since the defence of a single standard model clashes with the permissiveness of allowing more than one standard model for reasons that have to do with geographical identity.