Verbal Morphology and Identity in Majorca: The Manifestation of Attitudes in Writing

The Spanish island of Majorca presents a complex case of multilingualism with clashing identities linked to the presence of both Catalan and Spanish on the island. Both sociopolitical and demographic factors have played an important role in shaping the sociolinguistic reality in Majorca; the end of the Franco dictatorship in 1975 allowed the use of Catalan in public life, so both standard and regional varieties have coexisted in Majorca. Speakers vary not only by their own language dominance, but by their language(s) of education and personal identification with Majorcan cultural autonomy and a separate, Majorcan linguistic identity. A considerable body of literature has concentrated on the political and linguistic changes of the last few decades in Catalan-speaking regions and on the circumstances in which Catalan and Spanish are used. Thus, much sociolinguistic research has been devoted to language attitudes in Catalonia (Badia i Margarit, 1969; Doyle, 1996; Sanz, 1991; Strubell, 1984; Woolard, 1984, 1989; Woolard and Gahng, 1990), Valencia (Blas-Arroyo, 1994; Ros i Garcia, 1984; Triano-Lopez, 2005, 2007), and Majorca (Melià, 1997; Pieras, 1999). These studies have focused on the social evaluation, competence, and use of Catalan and Spanish in these Catalan-speaking territories; however, at the dialectal level, the attitudes of these bilinguals towards the standard variety have been relatively underinvestigated. While Standard Catalan (SC) is present in the Catalan media and in the education system through textbooks, Majorcan Catalan (MC) is present in the local media in Majorca (except in written texts) and is the language spoken on the island; because SC and MC are used in mutually exclusive contexts, more research on non-standard varieties of Catalan and their influence on regional identity is merited. As a result of using SC in the classroom and through the Balearic government’s promotion of a well-established –however not undisputed– standard variety, there has been a significant improvement in the ability to write in Catalan, compared to earlier generations who were not exposed to Catalan in the classroom. However, Majorcans must today address the differences between the standard they are expected to use in writing and the local dialect, MC, which they typically use orally. Since language is intimately linked to identity, given that speakers embrace the identity of a particular community, or group within the community, through the language they use (Gumperz & Cook-Gumperz, 1982; Bucholtz, 1999; Spolsky, 1999), Majorcans may resist, in writing, using the forms of SC that differ from MC and which they associate with another community (i.e., Catalonia). Particularly, for Majorcans who strive to reinforce their identity separate from Catalonia, using the less-standard written forms may be preferable; Jaffe (2000) elaborates that “written forms of a language and its varieties are in themselves selective representations of the meanings of linguistic differences and similarities [and this] selection process makes statements about the status and relationship between languages, language varieties, and their speakers.” Furthermore, Doyle and Song (2005) claim that a speaker’s identity is more deliberately represented in writing than in speaking, and specifically, in multilingual communities, writing is not just about conveying content but is also about the representation of self (Ivanic, 1998). This representation is always within a comparative framework; that is, the non-standard has meaning in comparison to and in contrast with the standard variety. For Majorcans, a non-standard orthography based on the local dialect (MC) can be in competition with the standard variety (SC). This study considers the variation in writing between morpheme reduction (typical in spoken MC) and morpheme maintenance (typical in SC) in first person singular present indicative verb forms. Other varieties of Catalan include an overt morpheme (in SC, -o, for example, compro ‘(I) buy’), but MC has only a null morpheme, e.g. in MC, compr ‘(I) buy.’ These orthographic