doxa.comunicación | nº 29, pp. 43-60 | 45

July-December of 2019

Susana Guerrero Salazar

ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978

regard and does so, following Charaudeau’s terminology (2013: 189) through referred facts (the news), which become commented facts (opinion journalism comments the why and how of the event, offering analysis and diverse points of view) and in provoked facts (the press provokes the confrontation of ideas that contribute to social deliberation)1.

This is what has happened with certain demands that have transcended public opinion thanks to the communication media, such as the derogatory definitions of the words gallego (a person from Galicia), rural, judiada (Jewish behaviour), gypsy or charro (a person from Salamanca) that we see in the following headlines:

The BNG (The Galician Nationalist Bloc) requests that the RAE withdraw the definitions of “Gallego” (person from Galicia) to mean “silly” and “stammering” in its latest dictionary (Libertaddigital.com, 16-IV-06).

The rural community mobilise to demand that the RAE does not associate ‘rural’ as ‘uncultured’ (elmundo.es 4-V-11).

Jews ask the RAE to change the word ‘judiada’ (Jewish behaviour) in the dictionary. They believe the term to be ‘offensive’.The Academy refuses because it was used by Baroja or Galdós (elmundo.es, 22-VII-12).

The provincial Council unanimously approves requesting that the RAE review the term gypsy in the dictionary (20minutos.es, 19-XII-14).

PP and PSOE join forces for ‘charro’ (a person from Salamanca) to cease to mean ‘in bad taste’. A joint motion will be approved for the Royal Academy of Language to eliminate the third meaning of gentilicio (gentilic) (la gaceta de salamanca.es, 5-III-15).

From news of this kind a debate arises that is accompanied by linguistic assessments both explicit and implicit, individual or collective. Linguistic assessment is according to Cavaredo Barrios (2013: 46-47), the qualifying expression that can be applied to a particular linguistic phenomenon of any kind, that is, the verbalization of disapproving or approving judgments on the object of observation, which in the case at hand are certain academic dictionary definitions. The same assessments, as we will see, are extended, in many cases, to the Academy and its representatives.

The actions undertaken to change the definitions of a word, although a priori are harmless, could have consequences in shaping social processes, as concluded by van Dijk (1999:25) on analysing the relationship between action and process2. In fact, they have been criticised on numerous occasions, by Martínez (2008:58) among others, who considered them to be a “siege on the dictionary”:

[...] Thus a siege on the dictionary has begun, which is hardly more than a photograph of the lexicon of a language. In this way, gradually, the focus has been shifted from the social reality that had to be changed, to the linguistic expression that names it, and from this to the image that the dictionaries give of the language, and, firstly, the Dictionary par excellence : the DRAE (The Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy).

This seeks to put the high prestige and influence of the institution and its most popular work at the service of the cause. This is, once again to achieve power; power more symbolic than effective, because neither is the dictionary directly involved in the use and transformation of language.