Si O No, Que Penses? Catalonian Independence and Linguistic Identity on Social Media

Ian Stewart, Yuval Pinter, Jacob Eisenstein

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

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 publicationProceedings of the 2018 Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics
Subtitle of host publicationHuman Language Technologies
EditorsMarilyn Walker, Heng Ji, Amanda Stent
Place of PublicationNew Orleans, Louisiana
PublisherAssociation for Computational Linguistics
Pages136-141
Number of pages6
Volume2
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 2018

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