Purpose:
The Consortium for Linguistic Normalisation (CPNL) is a public body created from the common will of the Regional Government and numerous local, county and provincial councils with the aim of facilitating the knowledge, use and dissemination of the Catalan language in all areas and facilitating the learning of Spanish in collaboration with associations in the city.
To this end, the CPNL has a specialised team of staff and technical resources to meet the needs of training, consultancy and language management.
The Barcelona Centre for Linguistic Normalisation, based in Barcelona, has delegations in different districts (Ciutat Vella, Eixample, Sants-Montjuic, Les Corts, Gràcia and Sarrià-Sant Gervasi, Horta-Guinardó, Nou Barris, Sant Andreu and Sant Martí. The CNL of Barcelona also has a Self-Learning and Distance Training Service (SAFD) and a Language Reception Centre (being one at Espai Avinyó).
Stimulus/Rationale:
In order to avoid anyone in Barcelona, for whatever the reason, being excluded from knowing the language, the CNL offers language courses. In addition, the classes are an active example of diversity and the respect of difference. It is for this reason that the CNL has adopted intercultural dialogue as one of the strategic values of its educational project, in which new arrivals are acquainted with the characteristic traits of Catalan culture, not in terms of a single, homogeneous model but rather from the position of exchange, plurality, interaction and the miscegenation and hybridisation of culture.
Process:
The intercultural perspective:
The Barcelona Centre for Linguistic Normalisation carries out specific programmes offering Catalan courses for groups with low language skills. Some examples:
- Free courses for linguistic reception
- Resources and courses at a basic level for the Chinese and Pakistani communities.
These course offers are disseminated through the specialist media of particular migrant groups.
In addition, the CLN facilitates the teaching of the languages of origin in schools - out of school hours – providing this is in response to a request by the parents. Another relevant programme is the one providing people from immigrant groups the skills to be “qualified disseminators” of their languages of origin and provide them the tools to promote the teaching of their languages of origin amongst immigrant groups.
CLN also promotes and provides support to the different programmes of language pairs that exist in the city, both in the exchange of Catalan as well as in the languages of origin of immigrants.
The CLN has drawn up a protocol for the translation of foreign languages for the Barcelona City Council.
Last, but not least, the CLN promotes Espai Avinyó as a reference for the dissemination of cultural activities in Catalan amongst students who are learning it and as a space for intercultural stimulation. And it also collaborates with the network of Libraries in the city to offer courses and resources to learn Catalan.
Impact:
The Barcelona Centre for Linguistic Normalization (CLN) welcomes over 17,000 students from 127 different countries every year.
More than 25,000 language pairs have already taken part in the Barcelona CNL and almost 850 organisations and establishments have collaborated.
Key reference documents:
