Last Friday, the Institute for Catalan Studies (IEC) handed out the 2018 St George Awards as part of the 87th Portfolio of Awards and Study Grants, which recognise work and researchers in all areas of Catalan science and culture. Laia Rosàs, a language specialist in the Institute for Multilingualism’s Catalan Office, won the IEC Francesc de Borja Moll Dialectology Award for her work El parlar de la conca central de la Noguera Ribagorçana: fronteres dialectals a la Terreta [Speech in the Central Noguera-Ribagorçana Basin: Dialectal Borders in La Terreta]. This award, which is bestowed every three years, recognises the best doctoral thesis or research project on Catalan dialectology. This time, Laia Rosàs won for the doctoral thesis she defended at the University of Barcelona in 2016 and which explores the linguistic boundaries between the Catalan spoken in the county of Ribagorça and that spoken in the Pallars region, through a characterisation of the two variants in one geographic region, La Terreta, on the border between Ribagorça and Pallars Jussà. 

The award ceremony was presided by Joandomènec Ros, president of the IEC, together with Francesca Tur, minister of Culture, Participation and Sports of the Government of the Balearic Islands, and Mercè Conesa, president of the Provincial Council of Barcelona. During the ceremony, in which 54 prizes were awarded, particular note was made of the IEC’s commitment to Catalan language and culture and to the promotion of scientific research.