The Olympic Games in Barcelona 1992 as a factor of changes in Catalan nationalistic discourse of political parties

Interrelation between sports and politics in the specific case of the Olympic Games in Barcelona in 1992 offers a wide range of opportunities to strengthen nationalist tendencies of the Catalan society. This thesis examines how the organization of this event affected the development of Catalan nationalistic discourse of political parties. These changes are analysed on two levels. The first level is the evolution over time - the thesis compares the periods before and after the Olympics and looks at trends across each period. The second level is the development in the level of debate - the thesis looks at the category of political parties, at the category of Catalan politics and at the category of the Spanish nationwide politics, while it analyses the moves of the topics and trends across the levels. Thus, the thesis examines trends of the political discourse in the electoral programs, in speeches at annual meetings at the level of the Catalan parliament and in speeches at annual meetings at the level of national Spanish Parliament. The basic parameters of the research work are themes of language policy, cultural policy, the issue of state structure juristic reform, linguistic forms of the discourses and relation to the Olympic Games. The main basis of this work is the contribution of sporting events..