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Based on a critical discursive perspective, this work analyses the ideology around the languages spoken in Italy, namely Italian and contested languages such as Lombard, Neapolitan or Sicilian, which are commonly referred to as ‘dialects’. The aim is to study how journalists construct, spread and justify a monolingual ideology that favours central nationalism (or macronationalism). Seventy-one articles have been examined, which were published online by the major Italian newspaper la Repubblica (www.repubblica.it) in 2011, the year of the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy. The analysis shows that journalists contribute to Italian macronationalism mainly through three discursive strategies: references to plurality, language hierarchisation, and suffering erasure. In the first strategy, contested languages are negatively framed as many, unintelligible and divisive. In the second, a categorisation such as ‘language/dialect’ is used which legitimises Italian and delegitimises contested languages by negating their very languageness. In the third strategy, narratives on the unification process are used that erase the suffering brought about by the eradication of contested languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses societal power relations and the way they are reflected in the public space of Galicia (Spain). It reflects on the struggles concerning the presence, contestation, and erasure of language(s) within the city of A Coruña, one of the main Galician cities. The three different spellings for the city name symbolize the struggle between social agents with different backgrounds, ideologies, and aims: linguistic conflict is thus homologous with the social conflict. Each spelling indexes different glottopolitical stances and traces different boundaries for different imagined spaces and communities. I focus on the 'war of spelling' and its impact on the linguistic landscape, highlighting the importance of diacritics in indexing identities. In the light of these two points, I address the tensions that can be detected in the production of the new city logo, which constitutes an attempt to erase the linguistic and social conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how the MoVimento 5 Stelle (M5S) in Italy and Podemos in Spain thematise the role of the State. We draw from a qualitative analysis of speeches of party leaders and party manifestoes in recent national elections. We argue that Podemos and the M5S coincide in reasserting the principle of popular sovereignty to overcome the present “post-democratic” condition and the distance between citizens and the State. However, they differ in their understanding of the State’s intervention on the economy and society. Podemos proposes a new interventionist state reminiscent of post-war social democracy. M5S has a more liberal view, conceiving of the State as a neutral arbiter of the free market. Furthermore, the two parties have different conceptions of the relationship between the State and the Nation. While adopting a patriotic discourse, Podemos has catered for demands of local autonomy, framing Spain as a “nation of nations” and has been adamant in defending migrants and refugees. The M5S has instead proposed a more nationalist discourse, as seen in tirades by party leaders against migrants and refugees. These divergences reflect the different positioning of these formations along the Left/Right axis and how this results in a more inclusive/exclusive view of the State. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This research note deals with the so-called “political ,” i.e. the use of instead of the or prescribed by standard orthography in the Spanish linguistic landscape. This feature can be linked to the “politics of protest,” indexing writers' anarchist stance or membership in radical, left-wing groups. In 2011, the Spanish bank Bankia used in the tagline of one of its advertisements:hazte bankero(“become a banker”). This re-semiotization of by Bankia has turned urban public spaces into a site of conflict and contestation. On the one hand, the bank trivialized a small but powerful symbol of political, grassroots dissent. On the other hand, it triggered resistance from groups traditionally associated with the use of , namely the 15M Movement (Movimiento 15MorM15M), who renounced to use it in its protests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we analyze, as an example of oral political discourse, the songs of two main Spanish politics parties, during the general 2008 elections. As other texts of political discourse (such as speech, interviews, meetings, posters, advertisings, etc.), these songs that accompanied the electoral propaganda are part of a public and ideological discourse aimed at the election of a candidate (perlocutive object). The elector voting for the candidate must believe that he is the best option available. Thus, the candidate's discourse is directed so the elector knows that the candidate and his party are the best options (legitimation), while it presents the opposing candidate as the worst one (delegitimation). The results of the analysis show that these strategies, quite typical in political discourse, have some new elements such as their resemblance to commercial advertising, i.e. the testimonials by famous people. Even if the political songs are a traditional genre with conventional communicative aims (propaganda and persuasion), they display some typical features in contemporary and postmodern communication: colloquiality, informality, "carnivalization", syncretism and hibridation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]