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Woolard is to talk about what legitimises a language in the eyes of the members of a community. As she has shown on other occasions, there are two linguistic discourses or ideologies in the modern western world that form the basis of linguistic authority: the authenticity discourse: the affirming of one's identity; and the anonymity discourse: the dilution of identity. Each gives rise to a type of relationship between a given variety of language and a given state of society. This distinction and the different manifestations of linguistic ideologies in general can be useful in terms of analysing the relationships between Spanish and the other languages used in Spain. Kathryn Woolard is a specialist in linguistic anthropology, language and ethnicity, bilingual communities, language ideology and political discourse in Catalonia and the United States. She is the author, among others, of the following: Identitat i contacte de llengües a Barcelona (Identity and Language Contact in Barcelona) and co-editor, alongside Bambi Schieffelin and Paul Kroskrity, of Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory. She is currently carrying out fieldwork in Barcelona, repeating previous research she herself has carried for over twenty years.

Chair in Multilingualism
The UOC and Linguamón-House of Languages jointly created the Linguamón-UOC Chair in Multilingualism in November with the aim of fostering research, training, information and documentation activities with regard to multilingualism as a tool for society's economic and social development. For this reason, the Chair aims to offer a forum for reflection on and analysis of the role of languages and multilingualism in Europe and in the process of society's globalisation. It also looks to offer an international framework for cooperation in academic training in this field.

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