The aim of the paper was to provide a review of policies being pursued with the objective of achieving generalised and fully normalised use of the language in all domains within Catalonia. Attention was paid also to describing the activities of the II International Conference of the Catalan Language which had been held, in Catalonia and in other Catalan-speaking regions in Spain, France and Andorra, in April and May of the same year. In these circumstances the Society felt that it would be appropriate to pub- lish a version of the lecture in its collection of Occasional Papers.
The pro- ject, however, suffered a series of technical setbacks which prevented it from being fulfilled within the reasonable time originally anticipated. When the possibility of publication was revived some years later, it was clear in discussions that the situation of the language had already evolved so much since that a thorough revision of the original text was called for. It was also clear that other commitments, at that time, prevented Miquel Strubell from undertaking this work and reassuming single-handed responsibility for the project.
Robert had supervised Jude Webber's undergraduate dissertation on progress towards linguistic normalisation in Catalonia since the Language Normalisation Act. He approached the A-CS about the possibilities of publishing this research; contact was established between the two authors through the agency of the Society, and a combined effort produced the necessary revision and adjusted focus on the original material.
The present publication is thus the product of a gratifying Anglo-Catalan collaboration. Our study is structured in three complementary parts. The main text is a narrative account of the main processes in the normalised use of Catalan that have developed in the last few years, with emphasis placed on steps taken through language planning in its main areas of implementation.
The appendixes reproduce English versions of the main legal instruments, Catalan and Spanish, under the terms of which the normalisation process is being conducted. As complements to this material we also supply: Finally, we suggest further reading, with guidance on access to the ever-expanding bibliography, for those wishing to pursue the subject in more detail. The fact is that, by its very nature, language normalisation in Catalonia is a process in constant development, and any publication on the subject will be in some degree 'out of date' by the time it appears.
Nevertheless, the authors hope that this volume will serve as a useful report on key issues, providing a framework in which the continuing process can be understood and meaning- fully followed. Another primary aim that we hope to have fulfilled is that of providing a basic tool to stimulate and facilitate further research on a topic whose importance is internationally acknowledged. We are grateful to Robert Pring-Mill and to Alan Yates for making our collaboration possible, and to the Anglo-Catalan Society for providing this opportunity for us to combine our perspectives on a common concern which is by definition shared by all members of the Society.
Its scathing assessment of the inadequate measures taken by both the Spanish and the newly instituted Catalan governments to restore Catalan to its position as national language reached a bleak crescendo: The s, however, brought a new vigour to language policies; some people might still attack them with the criticism 'too little, too late', but the prognosis today is much healthier and there is a greater commitment to raising the level of language consciousness, born of the knowledge that Catalan is still dangerously vulnerable if public support runs out.
More recent jeremiads serve, at least, as antidotes to any complacency on this last, important point. This is the context of the latest polemic between 'catastrophists' and 'optimists' covered in the book by F. The Catalan language has always been at the heart of Catalonia's struggle to affirm her political identity, and it has retained its vitality despite having been made a political hostage so often in the course of sanctions against Catalonia throughout the modern period.
Even so, in the new post-Franco democracy, the fight for proper understanding and recognition has been difficult and prolonged because attitudes towards language are often part of a broader cultural and political perspective. The reaffirmation of Catalan inevitably calls into question the status of Catalonia herself: In order to examine the state of Catalan today, we shall begin by exploring the historical and sociolinguistic backgrounds to the situation.
We shall consider then how normalisation policies have been put into practice and look ahead to the implications of Catalonia as an actively bilingual society with its own—normalised—language. Catalan is of a similar age to other Romance languages, having emerged gradually in the centuries following the collapse of the Roman Empire as the language of the people in the mountainous region joining the Iberian Peninsula to the rest of the continent.
Documentary evidence, albeit scant, proves that by the tenth century there existed a language now identifiable as Catalan. The Catalans gained de facto independence from the Franks at the end of the tenth century and gradually expanded their territory—first southwards in the Peninsula to cover the Valencian region, and subsequently eastward via the Balearic Islands—from then until the fifteenth century. By this time, Catalan had spread across the Mediterranean to Sicily, Sardinia and Greece and had become the official language throughout Catalan-speaking areas. It was in Valencia in that Trobes en llaors de la Verge Maria was published, the first book to be printed using a printing press in the Iberian Peninsula.
A long period of political and cultural decadence ensued, coinciding with the rise of Castile at the head of Spain's projection and subsequent fall, from the seventeenth century as an imperial power on a global scale. Following the year-long siege of Barcelona in and the subsequent defeat of Catalonia in the War of Spanish Succession, the use of Catalan was actively discouraged by an increasingly centralised Spanish state.
Catalonia's political and linguistic history has clearly been a chequered pattern of supremacy, subordination and survival. Demographic expansion in the eighteenth century was the basis for renewed economic momentum in the industrial era. Against this background, Romantic nationalism high- lighted the pre-existing differentials between Catalan society and the rest of Spain.
In historical perspective, its significance was to have restored the Catalan language to a status and condition in which it could again be used as a natural vehicle of 'high' culture. This process was consummated in the modernista movement which succeeded it, fired by the conviction that cosmopolitanism was the essence of Catalan-ness and that this correlation should be visible across an entire repertoire of cultural expression.
By the beginning of the twentieth century Catalan culture in general, including literature in all forms, could stand on its own feet alongside its European counterparts. At the same time the embryonic political self- awareness was translated into an energetic movement of Catalan nationalism, centred in the Principality but reverberating across all the Catalan-speaking territories.
The language itself was subjected to a rigorous process of standardisation and modernisation to equip it, as it were, for service in a new era of collective self-affirmation. The movement of Noucentisme directed the participation of intellectuals and writers in an operation that was presided over by the grammarian- lexicographer Pompeu Fabra. The progress consolidated in the early years of the twentieth century did not, however, lead into an uninterrupted progression of political achieve- ment.
Under the presidency of the charismatic conservative leader, Enric Prat de la Riba, a degree of home rule was obtained with the amalgamation of the four Diputacions from each of Catalonia's provinces to create the autonomous Mancomunitat de Catalunya , the ancestor of the present Generalitat, Internal political tensions, however, and intense strain in the relationship between Catalonia and the central Spanish government persistently contradicted autonomist aspirations. In a climate of crisis and general instability, centralist opposition to home rule in Catalonia eventually triumphed in the form of General Primo de Rivera's bloodless coup in Inevitably, the Catalan language became a principal scapegoat for the ills afflicting Spain as a whole.
With the proclamation of the Second Republic in , Catalonia recov- ered a degree of autonomy unknown since Within the dispensations of the Republican Constitution, the Generalitat promoted the use of Catalan for education, administration, communications and culture; in short, Catalan for a time enjoyed a relatively normalised status of which it was to be violently deprived by the outcome of the Spanish Civil War of The years of the Franco regime were a period of severe repression—cultural genocide even, in the early stages—the effects of which only began to be countered as the regime slowly loosened its grip on affairs during the s.
In the post-Franco transformation of the Spanish state a most salient line has been the Catalans' unanimous reaffirmation of the political and linguistic legitimacy briefly attained in the s. Any scepticism concerning the justification of 're-normalisation' programmes in the newly democratic Spain of the late s and s can easily be refuted; Catalonia's credentials are evident.
Throughout the whole of the modern period, the history of the Catalan language has been one of a constantly renewed struggle to overcome its essentially vulnerable position as the first victim of fluctuations in Spain's centuries-old centre-versus- periphery dissensions. Discrimination is inevitable when one language is imposed upon another; the 'imposed' language is associated with official and correct usage while the other language tends to be down- graded and destabilised.
It is a salient feature of the type of bilingualism which has developed in Catalonia during this century.
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Large-scale immigration during the s and s, chiefly from the south of Spain, has meant that the population of Catalonia has come to be composed of two different speech communities with radically different— though gradually lessening—capacities to switch between languages. The combination of such social factors and the political suppression of regional languages perpetrated under the Franco regime has created an ambivalent situation: Yet this same 'inferior' language possesses all the credentials of a 'normal', fully-fledged language and is, moreover, the symbol of group identity.
When one section of the population is required to manipulate both codes, but the other is unwilling, or has no incentive to do the same, tension is unavoidable. Catalan is now official throughout the Principality of Catalonia the main area studied here , Valencia, the Balearic Islands and Andorra. Aranese, the Occitan language of the Vall d'Aran, is a special case, and has separate normalisation programmes.
According to some definitions, Catalan might be classed as a minority language, although this notion is obviously relativised by socio-political contexts. Danish or Norwegian are in no danger of being classed as such— they are official languages of independent states—yet each of them has fewer speakers than Catalan. The fact remains that Catalan is spoken today by well over six million people, and chiefly in a country where it has both authentic historical roots and a strong claim to linguistic supremacy.
There are no accurate figures for the total number of Catalan-speakers; immigration into Catalonia and the consequent rapid expansion of Castilian 'ghettoes' around Barcelona have complicated the matter because distinctions have to be drawn between those who merely understand and those who understand and use Catalan. The first language census did not take place until and was restricted to the province of Barcelona.
The Census covered the whole of Catalonia, but in terms of linguistic analysis the Census is the most sophisticated to date because specific functions of language were separated to give a clearer picture of proficiency in Catalan. A full explanation of linguistic data from the Census of is included in our Appendix 5. A high-profile Generalitat advertising campaign to promote cultural identity declared: Even in terms of Catalan-speakers, rather than simply inhabitants of Catalonia, this is now beginning to look like a conservative estimate.
Language Consciousness and Attitudes Despite the fact that the majority of Catalan families continued to use Catalan at home and for informal social purposes during Franco's regime, his pro-diglossic propaganda was extremely pervasive. Close and constant contact with non-Catalan speakers has adversely affected language consciousness in Catalonia and this has been blamed for the relatively slow recovery of the social use of Catalan following the reaffirmation of its official status in In the light of the recent history of the Catalan language and the low levels of language consciousness, it is perhaps surprising that attitudes towards the Catalan language have proved so favourable.
There has been widespread support for the teaching of Catalan in schools, and knowledge of Catalan is regarded, by a high proportion of non-Catalans, as a stepping stone to better job prospects. The use of Catalan in public has usually been accepted and at best posi- tively welcomed. Among non-Catalans, however, bilingual solutions are often preferred. Catalan has taken on a higher profile through meetings of all kinds, from neighbourhood associations to parents' meetings at schools.
At the same time, such television programmes as Dallas in Catalan and the dubbing of some feature films into Catalan have helped to extend the impact and popular prestige of the language. Even when this is acknowledged, the question of returning Catalan to a position of prominence, or even proper parity, without promoting discrimination on linguistic grounds is a delicate one.
Speakers of other languages which have only a small international status have not considered the possibility of abandoning their languages, but have acquired other, necessary languages in, to use the Canadian educationist W. Lambert's term, an 'additive' way. Nevertheless, if Catalonia is to have two active languages, a very positive case can be made for additive bilingualism as the least detrimental policy to be pursued.
It can be seen as a matter of pragmatic expediency. Since Castilian seems here to stay, the only option is to depict Catalan as equally vital, but more vulnerable, and therefore in need of special protection. But motivation remains crucial. The non-Catalan population must feel the inducement both to learn and to use Catalan. In nearly all schools, motivation to learn Catalan has established a significant momentum, both because knowledge of Catalan is widely considered by non-Catalans as a way of enhancing job prospects and because the increasing use of Catalan as a vehicle of instruction makes it immediately relevant.
However, this is not matched by a similar motivation, or sufficient incentive, to favour Catalan in every kind of social context. There are few situations in which it is obligatory or essential to use Catalan; the 'comfortable' Castilian option is always available in an integrally bilingual context where compulsory education in Castilian for the best part of a century has virtually eliminated all monolingual Catalans.
Language Speaker Stereotypes At the beginning of the twentieth century, Catalonia with its capital, Barcelona, was a highly developed, advanced urban society. The cultured bourgeoisie was essentially composed of Catalan-speakers; immigration was usually confined to Barcelona itself and non-Catalan immigrants tended to learn Catalan. Following Franco's victory in , Catalonia was subjected to political rather than economic repression. As a result, heavy immigration into the Barcelona connurbation from rural areas of the poorest parts of Spain chiefly Andalusia and Extremadura , from about onwards, provided cheap labour at the lowest rungs of the urban social ladder.
The Catalan- speaker was therefore seen as a socially ascendent person by immigrants and by Spaniards in general. The Spanish-speaker in Catalonia, particularly if he had a regional accent was, and still is, socially downgraded. The Catalan situation can therefore be regarded as an unusual one in Western Europe where minority languages generally have low prestige.
The Socio-Psychological Perspective 21 Such a situation has tended to encourage integration on the part of non- Catalans. However, a numerically smaller, although socially and profes- sionally influential, sector of the workforce—including notaries, judges, magistrates, police, the military and, until recently, school teachers—have been, and to a considerable extent still are, appointed to their posts by a centralist selective procedure.
Their 'aloofness' from the Catalan question has obviously modified the earlier association of Catalan-speakers with prestige and a high profile. Research into language-speaker stereotypes, such as that carried out by Kathryn Woolard , of the University of Wisconsin, has proved revealing in terms of how the use of a particular language can indicate feelings about status and solidarity. Professor Woolard conducted matched- guise experiments in which listeners were asked to evaluate and describe the personality of several people speaking in Catalan and Castilian with diverse shadings of accent.
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Listeners downgraded in-group speakers when they used the out-group language for example, Catalans downgraded Catalans who spoke in Castilian: A prestige factor was identified and when the results of all speakers are considered, the use of Catalan shows no stigmatisation, but actually bestows significantly more prestige than does Castilian. If, as this research indicates, impressions are formed largely on the basis of who is speaking the language, rather than the place where the language is spoken, the task of language planners is further complicated. In the matched-guise experiments, the high prestige which was associated with Catalan reflects the relatively lower socio-economic status of most Castilian-speaking immigrants.
Thus the status of a language is primarily due to the stereotype people have of the speaker rather than to the way in which the language is used. In Professor Woolard's experiments, speakers felt greater solidarity when speaking or hearing their own language. Since a higher degree of solidarity did not result from using the other group's language, a non- Catalan-speaker might feel discouraged from attempting to speak Catalan.
There is still a widely-held feeling among non-Catalans that Catalan is a language for Catalans only. Linguistic campaigns have sought to allay people's fears, encouraging them not to feel embarrassed or intimidated about speaking their language by seeking to promote a sense of common identity. Even so, less obvious fears persist, such as the loss of one's own—non-Catalan—ethnolinguistic identity or the potentially different scales of acceptability by which a non-Catalan's knowledge of Catalan and a Catalan's knowledge of Castilian are judged.
Language speaker stereotypes act not only across languages but also within them. Speakers of the Western variety of Catalan including Valencian have mixed feelings about Eastern Catalan speakers. Because of the importance of Barcelona, which is in the Eastern area, the Eastern accent has a generally accepted high-status value. Western Catalan speakers naturally attach little solidarity to the Eastern accent and the Barcelona- based Catalan television station TV3 was initially criticised for doing little to represent the Western accent in its programmes.
Steps have since been taken to rectify the imbalance. Nevertheless, such reactions hint at the relationship existent in all languages between standard, or 'correct', usage and what are perceived as dialectal deviations. While written Catalan is virtually uniform, it is only recently that problems associated with definition and cultivation of an oral standard have begun to be focused objectively. Ethnolinguistic Identity and Interpersonal Language Behaviour Fluency in Catalan and place of birth are the variables which determine the self-identity of the population resident in Catalonia.
Those who would describe themselves as 'Spanish' rather than 'Catalan' appear to do so on linguistic grounds; those who see themselves as equally Catalan and Spanish seem to do so on the basis of where they and their parents were born and their usual language. In general, both for monolinguals and bilinguals, the principle of language accommodation usually applies.
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It is traditionally held to be anti- social for a bilingual not to use a monolingual's language, and indeed bilinguals in Catalonia have applied this principle for many decades when dealing with visitors from outside. But when applied to non-Catalans who have lived in Catalonia for ten or twenty years, and even to young Catalans born of non-Catalan parents, this norm conflicts with the principle of social integration and the function of language as one of the chief ways of achieving such integration. Motivation to learn the language suffers; it is not perceived as 'necessary' for interacting with Catalans.
This is compounded by the tendency to equate 'non-Catalan' with monolingual, which sometimes makes Catalans respond in Castilian when addressed by a person speaking Catalan with a non-Catalan accent. Such a response, which can be termed 'ethnolinguistic accommodation', is often experienced by those learning Catalan as a second language who regard it understandably, although incorrectly as aggressive and exclusive. The difficulties for language-planners are exacerbated by the fact that many Catalans switch languages in such circumstances automatically and are therefore unconscious of their own behaviour.
Bilingual conversation, in which the speaker only switches from Catalan when the interlocutor does not understand, has been suggested as a necessary initial stage in the restoration of Catalan. In the long term, its value is not disputed, because it promotes at least passive bilingualism among non-Catalans, but in practice it is often contrived and might be seen as an obstacle to communication.
For it to succeed, even those Catalans who have taken a conscious decision to use Catalan regardless must resist the temptation to switch languages; and the new norm—'you must reply in Catalan if addressed in that language'—should not be imposed too hastily or inflexibly. In addition, it guarantees the officiality of other Spanish languages within their geographical territory and in accor- dance with their Statutes of Autonomy.
The text was a great step forward in many ways; it recognised that the wealth of language variety in Spain is a heritage shared by all Spaniards and which thereby attracts 'respect' and 'protection'. The relevant text is reproduced in our Appendix 2. It proclaims that Catalan and Castilian are the two official languages. The Statute failed, though, unlike the text, to make knowledge of Catalan a statutory requirement for members of the legal profession whereby they would have to operate a system of public law with Catalan and Castilian having notionally equal status.
Nevertheless, it stated that: In , the Language Normalisation Act was passed. Its importance was underlined by the patience and care with which it was drawn up. Despite the need for such legislation being identified as early as , the final version was not completed until Spring All political parties represented in the Catalan parliament agreed that the text should be worked out jointly, and, while still at the draft stage, it was submitted to the Generalitat's consultative body, the Consell Consultiu, for comment by legal specialists.
The Bill was passed unanimously in April ; no votes were cast against it and there was only one abstention. The other Acts are all essentially similar and follow Catalonia's lead in establishing the lang- uages in question as the 'own language' of the autonomous region. The central government submitted the and Acts passed by the par- liaments of Catalonia, the Basque country and Galicia to the Constitutional Court. In the Court's decision, as far as Catalonia's Act is concerned, declared article 4.
The former empowered the Catalan government to take the initiative in taking cases to court in order to defend the use of Catalan, and the latter gave the Catalan text of an act preference over the Castilian version in the event of any discrepancy of interpretation. The Department of Culture of the present Generalitat defined the aims of its language policies as being to ensure that Catalan once again occupies its rightful place as Catalonia's own language through a process of normalisation based on the general acceptance of this objective, the collaboration of everyone and with the aim of avoiding conflict or confrontation.
Ultimately, measures which encourage oral proficiency alone remain token gestures; forms of bilingualism, whether practised by Catalan- or Castilian-speakers, in which Catalan is spoken to a degree but hardly written, threaten the future survival of a language which few people can write. In addition, the general impoverishment of language which results from its having been treated as socially inferior makes the 'normativisation', or the definition of a 'standard Catalan', increasingly difficult. It also handicaps proper linguistic evolution in such areas as the development of new terminology, vital if a language is to be seen as fully adaptable to the most advanced technological and social developments.
The pace has had to be gradual, with long-term educational strategies needed to achieve a situation in which Catalan might be deemed entirely linguistically 'normal'. The Generalitat is responsible for ensuring that the directives of the Language Normalisation Act are implemented in all areas and with particular focus where required.
Since it relies partly upon the local authorities for the actual application of policies, the Generalitat also has to coordinate operations globally, in such a way that interaction between its different instruments produces a coherent programme which can gain momentum. It had to provide, as was declared, the 'institutional impetus' for Catalanisation programmes and be itself a working model.
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Practically no civil servants from the period could be recruited since the majority had fled the country in Although such practical problems have meant that the pace of Catalanisa- tion throughout local administration has not always been uniform, official bodies of the Autonomous Community, at municipal and parliamentary levels, have all been committed to the enactment of linguistic normalisation programmes—chiefly in the form of adult education and publicity cam- paigns. These two fundamental activities are reflected in the two main bodies created by the Generalitat to foster the use and knowledge of Catalan: Through the Commission for Linguistic Normalisation and the Technical Network for Linguistic Normalisation, the DGPL also aims to ensure that Catalan is used progressively more correctly and appropriately within the Generalitat itself.
Lack of institutional support was highlighted and it was suggested that financial constraints had encouraged some councils to divert funds for linguistic normalisation to other, unrelated projects. A possible solution envisaged, and one which has increasingly gained credence, was the establishment of an autonomous body acting through the CNL. The DGPL would be relieved of pressure to oversee matters on such a large scale. This is now a reality: The Consortium is clearly, within this ambit, the most elaborate organisational body to date.
At present it numbers close to 30 local councils including Barcelona and all cities with over 50, inhabitants. Its president is the Director General for Language Policy, and the Directorate General's role is to establish the general priorities for the Consortium in planning the year's activities. It also provides specialist technical support. The Consortium clarifies the role of the Generalitat and the Town Councils Ajuntaments , described by the Federation of Municipal Councils of Catalonia FMC as 'pioneers of linguistic normalisation', and it fixes the levels of their financial contributions at 65 per cent and 35 per cent respectively.
According to the Draft Charter, Tesis per a debatre, advanced by the FMC concerning the finer points of the creation of the Consortium, this body should be the place where the different Town Councils agree on the linguistic policies to be applied throughout the country. Its principal target areas public administration, media, education, commerce and industry, cultural and social sectors, Catalan courses for adults are not new; evidently, normalisation programmes still have some way to go in all these areas.
The hope is that the Consortium will ensure a more effective administration of efforts and resources. Annual proposals and evaluations will be made and they will be implemented through the Centres for Linguistic Normalisation; these Centres will, in turn, be able to advance suggestions for further action.
In addition, the Consortium has designated as one of its main priorities preparation by the CNL of a thoroughly researched socio-linguistic map of Catalonia. The need for such a map was raised explicitly in the Language Normalisation Act. Educational campaigns in particular have combined different concerns in this way. Private companies have required a different type of encouragement, but the Generalitat has grasped the potential offered by some 38, establish- ments in the catering industry. The essential advisory services were set up to encourage the public prominence of Catalan in this important sector and to ensure that the Catalan which appears is standard and correct.
Collaboration with the Generalitat on the part of restaurants, cafes and bars results not only in the award of a diploma for display but also in direct publicity. Similarly, campaigns to encourage the conversion of shop signs into Catalan had to be made attractive in commercial terms. The accompanying market research has yielded important information about the presence and use of Catalan within Catalan businesses and attitudes towards its use. At the same time, the Generalitat has endeavoured to promote familiarity with Catalan beyond Catalonia.
It is interesting to observe that, just as normalisation has fostered a practical interest in educational methodology, the catalanisation of terminology has encouraged attention to a whole range of specialist linguistic uses, including the legal, administrative, scientific and technological. In this regard we should acknowledge the importance of Termcat, a project jointly sponsored by the Generalitat and the Institute of Catalan Studies to set up a data-base of terminological materials available for public consultation. The consistent objective of all these initiatives is to strengthen the position of Catalan as a language capable of adapting to all modern requirements.
In this respect, all of the target areas are equally important. Nevertheless, there are certain key sectors where normalisation must be achieved and must be seen to be effective in order to gain public support and therefore safeguard the overall success of the programmes. Education is one such key area; it teaches standardised and correct usage and at the same time can help to educate attitudes, especially as 'l'escola catalana', a school environment teaching entirely in Catalan, becomes a reality for more children.
State education is the responsibility of the Generalitat and as such was the focus of the earliest normalisation initiatives.
Catalonia's education strategies, particularly those aimed at adults, have had to be broad-based. While gaining confidence in the language, immigrants also gain access to a culture most had previously considered marginal to their own, with the resulting improvement in their children's prospects of instant integration. Catalans whose formal instruction in their own language had been proscribed under Franco can acquire full literacy. Education is, therefore, a vital dual-purpose instrument which guarantees that an ever-increasing proportion of Catalonia's population will become fluent in Catalan, while making as many people as possible receptive to the need for normalisation and the ways in which this can be achieved.
Linguistic Normalisation in State Schools In the fifteen years leading up to , Catalan had not managed to recover more than a fraction of its previous position in schools. It was the medium of instruction in only a handful of private schools, most of which were in Barcelona. It was, however, taught as a subject in Catalonia proper thanks to the efforts of Omnium Cultural, a cultural, non-profit-making organisation once banned by Franco.
Following Franco's death, many local councils gave the organisation financial support for the teaching of Catalan in schools. It made Catalan a compulsory subject in pre-school, pri- mary and secondary education although this was not extended to the final year of secondary education and the upper levels in technical education until two years later. More importantly still, it acknowledged the possibility of Catalan-medium education. Similar decrees made Catalan compulsory in the Balearic Islands and in most of Valencia, although the traditionally Castilian-speaking areas of the interior were at first excluded.
In general, progress here has been slower: Catalan has only been taught in all primary schools since By , the year of the Language Normalisation Act, a minimum pres- ence of Catalan was guaranteed and provision had been made for at least one subject to be taught through Catalan in primary schools. In , university entrance examinations also incorporated tests in Catalan. The Language Normalisation Act responded to the need for a more coordinated approach by defining a series of minimum standards and the framework for continued change.
In accordance with the status of Catalan as Catalonia's 'own language of education' it stated categorically: Educational centres are obliged to make Catalan the normal vehicle of expression, both in internal activities, including those of an administrative nature, and in external ones. The teaching of Catalan was essentially a stepping stone; it was made an explicit requirement of the Language Normalisation Act with the firmest intention that Catalan should be used progressively as pupils' mastery of it increased. Measures to enforce this followed swiftly after the Act was put into effect; by September , further legislation stipulated the teaching of either social or natural sciences in Catalan in the middle cycle year olds of General Basic Education EGB and both in the higher cycle year olds.
Two subjects were to be taught in Catalan in secondary schools, from a choice between natural sciences, history and mathematics. In the schools for Vocational Training FP at least two subjects, totalling not less than five hours, were to be taught in Catalan. The use of Catalan would then be extended in subsequent years to cover an even bigger part of the curriculum. Education 35 Clearly, Catalan could never have come to dominate schooling over- night.
Nevertheless, given the heightened public receptivity and greater prominence afforded to issues of language normalisation, we might perhaps have expected either a more generalised or a more accelerated progress. Even today, there is a degree of haphazardness in both the extent and the manner of teaching done in Catalan. Virtually all schools conduct some teaching in Catalan, according to recent official data, but between the legal minimum of two subjects and the maximum possible, all subjects, there are quite a number of variations, including those schools which are said to be teaching 'progressively in Catalan' that is, with Catalan-medium teaching in the youngest classes, moving year by year up the school.
The implications of such inconsistency are potentially serious. This is borne out by the results of an evaluation of attainment in Catalan carried out by SEDEC half-way through the school year, testing over 1, pupils in the fourth year of primary schooling at schools where Catalan had been taught in accordance with the Decree. On a scale of 0 to , the pupils achieved an average of Other similar surveys indicated that pupils attending where at least part of the curriculum was taught through Catalan had higher levels of oral expression than those who had only studied Catalan as a subject for four years.
This supports the notion that the recovery of Catalan in a school environment will largely depend on the use of Catalan as a medium of instruction. By the time the Language Normalisation Act was passed, some three- quarters of primary schools had already incorporated Catalan into the cur- riculum as a teaching medium, but full integration was not complete until the academic year.
This initial slowness reflects the difficulties, often practical e. Practical difficulties were compounded by the shortage of Catalan-speak- ing teaching staff. In , they accounted for only 52 per cent of pre- school and primary-school teachers, and the figure was much lower for the more critical province of Barcelona. It was also lower in primary than in pre-school classes and in state schools than private schools.
Officially organised in-service training or reciclatge courses began in the academic year , the year in which Catalan first became a compul- sory subject. The Language Normalisation Act stressed that: In accordance with the demands of their educational duties, all teachers must master both official languages and stipulated that Catalan universities provide courses and other means to ensure that all students and teachers who do not understand Catalan may learn it. Reciclatge schemes were primarily designed as a supplement to a teacher's professional training, with the emphasis on stimulating oral proficiency.
Despite their qualifications, many teachers were still reluctant to use Catalan in the classroom. Other intensive teacher-training programmes included the 'Font Rosella experiment', first practised in Sabadell in and in which non-Catalan-speaking teachers were replaced by trainee teachers for one term, releasing them to use the school timetable for their own linguistic retraining. This permitted the introduction of Catalan in a coherent manner into an area densely populated by immigrants and was successful enough to be continued in subsequent years. Perhaps its success was due to the separation of its twin objectives, namely teacher training and the introduction of Catalan.
Similar in approach, the Plans for Permanent Institutional Training consisted of a two-part immersion and consolidation scheme based on cooperation between the Town Councils, teacher-training centres and services of the Directorate General for Primary Education. They too provided in-service linguistic training for the teacher who was, periodically, replaced by a student teacher. The obligation for teachers to demonstrate knowledge of, and ability in, Catalan has proved to be a delicate subject; several courts have found any entrance requirements for administrative posts which stipulate working knowledge of Catalan to be 'discriminatory' against non-Catalan-speakers.
A big step forwards in this quarter is expected from the February 28, Constitutional Court ruling that it is legal to make working knowledge of Catalan a job requirement for prospective civil servants including teachers in Catalonia. In terms of normalisation policies, the Language Normalisation Act pro- posed a compromise which could be accused neither of attacking the 'cultural heritage' of non-Catalan-speaking immigrants, nor of prejudicing the full official rights of Catalan within the autonomous community of Catalonia: Infants have the right to receive their early instruction in their usual language, be it Catalan or Castilian.
Perhaps the most satisfactory way of achieving as quickly as possible the objective of full Catalan schooling was offered by the 'immersion' pro- grammes. Begun in —84, they were designed to deal with the specific socio-linguistic situation in the industrial belt around Barcelona, and other areas with a majority of non-Catalan-speaking residents. Since such children receive little contact with Catalan in their home environment, nursery schooling, and in some cases, the initial stages of EGB were conducted entirely in Catalan.
The advantages included the harnessing of a child's optimum linguistic ability at an age when his or her capacity spontaneously to read in Castilian would not be damaged. It was also suggested that Catalan phonetics, which present greater complications than those of Castilian, would serve as a useful preliminary to the study of other languages. Tests have proved that immersion programmes have no negative effect whatsoever on the normal development of a child's comprehension and thought. Immersion programmes now cater for 70, pupils in the years age range, and enjoy full parental support.
From outside Catalonia, however, vociferous objection to these developments is raised by supporters of the Spanish language. As a brief aside, we might observe that the normalisation of education has not overlooked pupils with particular learning difficulties or disabilities. It is encouraging to note that education in Catalan has been advocated for profoundly deaf children, although not for entirely positive reasons.
This would be the most appropriate context for the acquisition of the second language Such a policy at least implies that deaf children will be adequately prepared to participate in, and benefit from, the normalisation of Catalan as this has an increasing impact on Catalan society. Catalan Courses for Adults Adult education is obviously quite different from ordinary schooling because of its voluntary character, but linguistic normalisation pro- grammes in Catalonia have required a constant dedication to adult courses since positive attitudes from non-native adult speakers of Catalan are vital for the rapid realisation of the language planners' goals.
They also compensate, to a considerable extent, for distortions from the past. A whole generation of Catalans were educated in schools where Catalan was banned by the Franco regime, a deficit steadily being rectified in adult- hood. In fact, in 10 years over , adults have attended Catalan courses.
With the full official backing provided by the Language Normalisation Act, adult Catalan courses have flourished. Thanks largely to their main in- strument, the Generalitat's multi-media course Digui, digui Non-vocationally orientated courses have adopted a communicative approach appropriate to the needs of the Castilian-speaker resident in Catalonia.
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A review of the teaching programmes during the academic year highlighted their tripartite thrust: There is now a special board which issues certificates of proficiency in Catalan. Provided that political and socio-cultural factors ensure the continuance of linguistic normalisation, it is tempting to assign a time limit to the life span of open-access adult Catalan courses. If indeed no child completes EGB until he can demonstrate proficiency in both Catalan and Castilian, then today's generation of school children ought, ultimately, to eradicate the future need for such programmes.
Nevertheless, public attitudes remain the decisive factor: The current levels, suggesting that two-thirds of Catalonia's population still cannot write in Catalan, show that the struggle is by no means over yet. VII MEDIA Catalan is increasingly being used in the press, in publishing, on television and on the radio, and the situation is more satisfactory now than at any time since But there are particular problems associated with normalising the media: They do, nevertheless, guarantee a more effective transmission of the needs and aims of linguistic normalisation to a greater proportion of the population than does any other single method or campaign.
Despite the strength of its previous journalistic tradition, Catalonia had virtually no autochtonous media in its own language when autonomy was re-established. Advances have been rapid, and Catalan has also been directly incorporated into new communications technology as it has evolved internationally. The Press The press in Catalonia is the longest established means of public information communication and is the most effective means of popularising Catalan as a written language.
Alongside the array of national and local newspapers written in Castilian, these totals are depressing, but it is encouraging to note that El Punt is the leading newspaper in Girona in terms of sales, and that its local competitor, the Diari de Girona, at present bilingual, is planning to become fully Catalan in the near future.
At the same time, however, sociolinguists highlight the negative implications of code- switching in oral communication; is the dual presentation of Catalan and Castilian in the press an indirect reflection of this characteristic of speech already acknowledged as potentially deleterious? The most effective way to normalise the press might appear to be through targeting general information dailies for conversion to Catalan. There are, in fact, more periodicals, municipal information bulletins and free press publications which are predominantly Catalan in preference to Castilian, ensuring that the reader receives a regular supply of material.
Indeed this local press output in Catalan has a circulation as wide and sales as high, in daily terms, as the third-largest daily newspaper in Castilian. How- ever, the size of the market, which is thoroughly bilingual at this level, prevents this from becoming a major growth area. The use of Catalan in any type of publication carries some element of risk since it will be hard to equal the commercial success of Castilian counterparts.
The market remains, then, a difficult one to expand. Commitment to linguistic choice ensures, in the case of Catalan, that a significant Spanish market can never be cultivated, although in theory such a 'closed market' should also have the positive effect of ensuring an efficient circulation and prominence within Catalonia itself. The outlook is bleak, not because of the quality or nature of the publications themselves, but because of external factors: Such publications find themselves unable to meet the costs involved in investigating the news which state-wide publications can report.
A similar problem was faced by TV3, the Catalan television channel, when it was denied entry into the European Radiodiffusion Union and thus access to international news pictures. New initiatives have been able to take advantage of modern technology and methods, and yet Catalan is apparently still far from holding its own in the periodicals market. The Catalan press seems to be linguistically 'normal' insofar as it exists.
What distorts the picture is the abnormal context in which it finds itself. Television In the Language Normalisation Act, the presence of at least one television station broadcasting habitually in Catalan was guaranteed. At present, Catalonia has her own channel, TV3, which has been transmitting since late and a more recent Canal The campaigns since to convert Spanish Television's TVE-2 into an autonomous channel ultimately failed, but since it has been possible to disconnect the channel from the Spanish network and to broadcast programmes in Catalan during the afternoons, although advertisements in Castilian are still shown during that time.
TVE-1 broadcasts the midday news in Catalan on weekdays. The creation of TV3 made possible the unprecedented step of broadcasting in Catalan at peak viewing time. Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more about Amazon Giveaway. Temari d'oposicions al Cos Advocacia de la Generalitat de Catalunya: Set up a giveaway. There's a problem loading this menu right now.
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