The aim of the research group Linguistic Variation in Catalan (VaLingCat) is to describe and analyse the linguistic variation of the Catalan language in the Romanesque context. Linguistic variation is a phenomenon intrinsic to languages and can be studied form several perspectives. In this group we intend to study this phenomenon from various points of view, as well as some related topics in applied linguistics and sociolinguistics. Specifically, the scientific-technical objectives are:

• To study the processes of diachronic linguistic change and the origin and development of constructions. In this sense, we want to answer the motivations for linguistic change, analyse the mechanisms that cause it and describe the cross-linguistic regularities that are observed. Therefore, we approach the grammaticalisation (and constructionalisation) of several linguistic constructions, especially in the field of Catalan grammar (morphology, syntax, semantics and phraseology).
• To study the contributions of cognitive-functional linguistics and the grammar of constructions to explain the functioning of natural languages, especially as applied to Romance languages.
• Study informal oral language, both in dialogic and monologic interactions, with attention to dialectal variation, especially morphological, syntactic and phraseological aspects of Catalan.
• To elaborate textual corpora for the documentation, description and analysis of oral colloquial language.
• To study the Catalan lexicon and the written and oral neologisms that we document in Catalan, especially in formal registers, both following the mechanisms of word formation proper to Catalan as well as borrowings the others.
• To study diaphasic and stylistic variation in relation to standardisation processes. 
• To study the applications of the new contributions of theoretical linguistics and the linguistic description of Catalan to teaching and learning.

• Linguistics and teaching-learning of the Catalan language

  Study of the contribution of linguistics to the teaching-learning of Catalan, as a first or second language or as foreign language. Methodological applications in language teaching and learning (and the acquisition of language skills).

• Standard language and linguistic attitudes

  Study of the spread of the standard language in the Valencian Country (País Valencià) and related linguistic attitudes.

• Diachronic morphosyntax of the Catalan language in the Romance context

  Description and analysis of Catalan morphology and syntax, with a diachronic perspective. It aims to describe and explain the processes of linguistic change that affect Catalan grammar, such as verbal morphology, demonstratives, quantifiers, subordination, etc.

• Diachronic semantics and lexicology

  Study of semantic change in the Catalan lexicon, how the different meanings are structured, how they arise and change. It is also interested in semantic change in constructions, such as verbal periphrases or phraseological units. Application of linguistic theories (cognitivism, constructionism...).

• Synchronic linguistic variation and change in the Catalan language

  Diatopic and diaphasic variation and synchronic llinguistic change in the Catalan language. Elaboration of a dialectal and colloquial oral linguistic corpus of Catalan and study of the oral language in conversational and monologic texts.

• Catalan neology in the Valencian Country

  Study of the new words that enter the Catalan language, both through the mechanisms of word formation and through semantic change and borrowing from other languages.