CREAM MERINGUES VS A DIVINE T-SHIRT: CATALAN IDENTITY IN THE SPANISH SPORTS DISCOURSE

This paper aims to make a sketch in the investigation of the representation of the Catalan identity that is inextricably linked to FC Barcelona in the contemporary Spanish sports discourse from its linguistic perspective within the sociocultural premises. The corpus of the data we have analyzed is translated from the most important Spanish sports newspapers As, Marca, Mundo Deportivo and Sport in the range of 2012-2015, as well as from the books of publicist style, with a particular attention paid to some headlines of the articles to the Champions League Final, World Cup and UEFA Euro Cup. The methods we used are critical discourse analysis, linguisitic description with elements of sociolinguistic research. It was revealed that both newspapers and books of journalistic and artistic styles are filled with lexical units from Catalan language: from slogans up to toponyms, anthroponyms, or cultural realia. The lexical item lo catalán (“Catalan” and “Catalonia”) is incorporated into the broad range of speeches and written texts. The official status of this language is regularized in the Statute of FC Barcelona. The incorporation of the Catalan language is manifested in the discourse of players and coaches, Statutes of FC Barcelona, slogans, toponyms, anthroponyms and cultural realia. We also analyzed the role of deictic markers as an expressive dominant of the texts that constitute the fan-position of the above-mentioned sports newspapers. It was exposed the clear presence of two units of discourse madridismo and barcelonismo that have sociocultural meaning to define the tendency of the rivalry between two sports clubs that goes beyond the mere sport. Sarcasm, irony, and humor are the main communicative strategies of their construction in the contemporary Spanish sports discourse.