Catalonian independence and linguistic identity on social media

Ian Stewart, Yuval Pinter, Jacob Eisenstein

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

Political identity is often manifested in language variation, but the relationship between the two is still relatively unexplored from a quantitative perspective. This study examines the use of Catalan, a language local to the semi-autonomous region of Catalonia in Spain, on Twitter in discourse related to the 2017 independence referendum. We corroborate prior findings that pro-independence tweets are more likely to include the local language than anti-independence tweets. We also find that Catalan is used more often in referendum-related discourse than in other contexts, contrary to prior findings on language variation. This suggests a strong role for the Catalan language in the expression of Catalonian political identity.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationShort Papers
PublisherAssociation for Computational Linguistics (ACL)
Pages136-141
Number of pages6
ISBN (Electronic)9781948087292
StatePublished - 1 Jan 2018
Externally publishedYes
Event2018 Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Human Language Technologies, NAACL HLT 2018 - New Orleans, United States
Duration: 1 Jun 20186 Jun 2018

Publication series

NameNAACL HLT 2018 - 2018 Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Human Language Technologies - Proceedings of the Conference
Volume2

Conference

Conference2018 Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Human Language Technologies, NAACL HLT 2018
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityNew Orleans
Period1/06/186/06/18

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Linguistics and Language
  • Language and Linguistics
  • Computer Science Applications

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