Kathryn Woolard

Double Talk: Bilingualism and the Politics of Ethnicity in Catalonia, first published in 1989, examines bilingual life and identity politics in Catalonia. It focuses on the relationship between Catalan, Spanish, ethnicity, and political authority.

Woolard shows that language choice is not only a matter of communication but also a way of expressing authenticity, authority, and political belonging. Her analysis focuses especially on Catalonia after political autonomy was restored in 1979 and 1980. [Stanford University Press](https://www.sup.org/books/anthropology/double-talk)

Singular and Plural: Ideologies of Linguistic Authority in Twenty-First Century Catalonia, published in 2016, analyzes changing ideas about who has the right to speak Catalan and what counts as legitimate language. It connects language ideology to nationalism, cosmopolitanism, and political discourse.

Woolard is Professor Emerita of Anthropology at the University of California, San Diego. She received her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1983. [UC San Diego](https://anthropology.ucsd.edu/people/faculty/emeritus-profiles/kathryn-woolard.html)