Help Catalonia. Save Europe': A Critical Discourse Analysis

On the 1st October 2017, a referendum on regional independence held in the Spanish region of Catalonia began a new chapter in European history which brought into question the ideas of state sovereignty, European identity and democracy itself. Whilst this turmoil is still ongoing, it is evident that its outcome will set a new precedent across Europe and the rest of the globe. This presentation will explore the way in which values are encoded and presented through discourse, within a video produced by a Catalan activist group, supporting Catalonian independence (Òmnium Cultural 2017). This investigation is underpinned by two critical discourse analysis tools. The first is transitivity analysis, which focuses on the ‘transmission of ideas’ through the formulaic use of lexico- grammar to assign agency and causation to represent events in a way that reflects specific world views (Simpson 1994: 88). This in turn, is related to the presentation and representation of social actors, which investigates ‘how the participants [sic] of social practices can be represented in English discourse’ (Van Leeuwen 2008: 23) As this is a video, the ideas coded through language then gain impact through the use of multi-modal messages, making the content more accessible, legitimate and personal (Paltridge 2012).