The vice-principal of Studies and Language Policy at Universitat de València, Isabel Vázquez, has decided to award the 2020 Linguistic Rights Chair prize for the best doctoral thesis to Serena Simón Vives, for the work “The linguistic border between Alicante and Murcia: the contact of Valencian and Castilian in the region of the Vega Baja del Segura (Alicante)”.

The thesis, directed by Dr José María Jiménez Cano at Universitat de Murcia and qualified "excelente cum laude", deals with the sociolinguistic situation in the Bajo Segura region based on the linguistic contact and border between Catalan and Castilian. Thus, it focuses on the study of dialecticisms of Catalan-Aragonese origin and the analysis of attitudes towards both languages and the border identity of the inhabitants of the region.