ONE-WAY BILINGUALISM: THE OBSTACLES TO INSTITUTIONAL COMPLETENESS OF SPAIN'S LANGUAGES

This article applies the notions of one-way bilingualism, territorial niche (Jean Laponce) and institutional completeness (Raymond Breton) - developed in the Canadian literature in the fields of political science and sociolinguistics - to the analysis of language policies in Spain. After reviewing these concepts and their context of occurrence against the background of the processes of recognition of the French-speaking minorities in Canada, this article focuses on the Spanish constitutional framework and the corresponding legislation and case law to see how they have contributed, since the 1980s, to a one-way bilingualism, with Castilian as the "common" and default language of Spain. This one-way bilingualism is, to a large extent, attributable to a set of legal mechanisms, such as the constitutional hierarchy of languages, the inaction of the state with regard to its legal duty to effectively protect Spanish languages other than Castilian, as well as limitations on the regulatory capacity of autonomous communities on matters pertaining to language policies, mainly through case law. In addition to these mechanisms, there is a conflicting conception of the co-existence of languages, according to which any further recognition of Spain's peripheral languages would imply an attack on the privileged position of Castilian. The article conclusion suggests overcoming this paradigm by thoroughly normalising all Spanish minoritised languages, following the example of Castilian, and by generalising greater linguistic equity.