Abstract
In this paper, the various linguistic proposals regarding the educational environment described in the election programmes of the political parties and coalitions, which obtained representation in the Valencian Parliament following the May 2011 elections, are analysed. The consistency and coherence of the proposals are analysed from a sociolinguistic perspective, while taking into account language planning and policy theory. Additionally, from a critical discourse analysis perspective, these sets of proposals are compared to the general perceptions surrounding language which make an appearance in these election programmes.
The comparative analysis of the texts proposed by the different parties surpasses a mere assemblage of the parties proposals on the management of the status and corpus of the Catalan spoken by the Valencians. The starting point is the certitude that the comparison of the different proposals of the groups represented in Parliament complements the pre-existing and still current Valencian language policy. Although the real possibilities of accessing a government of the different parties is not analysed, by including the parties representing the current opposition to the Government we aim to establish the inherent limitations, the maximum and minimum threshold for language policy development in the short term.
Obviously, in order to study the Valencian language policy, it is necessary to analyse Spanish, the other official language spoken in the region, and one which is common to the rest of the Spanish state, to establish whether there are direct or implicit references to it. Regarding the educational environment, the situation is even more complex: the presence of English and its importance in the school curricula in a generalised discourse context which promotes its learning can be crucial in the design and use of the teaching languages in the Valencian educational system.
