Obsessed with spelling mistakes: these are the memes about Catalan

BarcelonaHow do we use weak pronouns? When should we say by either for before the infinitive? Why do some people say smells like either I have toThe linguistic anxiety of Catalans also reaches internet memes. A pioneering study of these pop culture images, What do you want to tell me?, published in the Journal of Language and Lawanalyzed 87 language-related mems, and found that 40% of them dealt with spelling mistakes. There's a specific humor about the obsession with linguistic correctness that many Catalan speakers suffer. The remaining mems revolve around issues such as dialectal variations or regulations.

Following a call for proposals made in 2022 by Optimot, the official consultation service of the Department of Language Policy and the Institut d'Estudis Catalans, X users created and compiled 87 mems about language under the hashtag #ConcursOptimot14. Tudela (UPF and formerly UAM) and Guillem Castañar (University of Tallinn) have analysed the submitted mems, in substance and form. complex pronouns such as weak pronouns (33). The next group of mems mocks the academic criteria of institutions dedicated to language, such as the IEC and the Valencian Academy of Language (13). And there are a series of mems that deal with the presence of Catalan in other media and languages. And there are also mems (which are left out of the analysis) that joke about the conditions of the competition.

Ninety-three percent of the mems use internationally popular images (Batman, Tintin, Master Yoda, etc.), that is, global mems. The reuse of images is precisely part of the mems' appeal. Only 7% are made with images from Catalan iconography, featuring popular Catalan figures or historical moments, such as the brief declaration of independence. According to the study, mems can "contribute to disseminating knowledge about the Catalan language and promoting social engagement on this topic."