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Results of
the orbservation
The data
collated gives us an insight into the situation, distribution, localization and the
features of the 62 associations working in the area of language (2) from which we have
obtained information.
Typologies according to the scope of activity.
Given the types of aims and the activities of the organizations, the majority of
associations forming part of this project were organizations focusing exclusively on the
defence and promotion of the Catalan language. In fact, over half of the organizations
fall into the category of language association. However, the study reveals that there are
also many associations within the area of culture in general that consider the language
question as one of the main subjects of their activity and aims. Almost one third of the
associations studied belong to the cultural association category. Table 1 below reveals
the number of organizations in each typology:
Table 1. Distribution of
organizations according to typology
TOTAL |
62 |
language associations |
38 |
cultural associations |
18 |
professional associations |
3 |
study association |
3 |
In
addition to these typologies, we can differentiate between different areas of activity. We
can see how the associations work to standardise the Catalan language in a large number of
fields of society. Figure 1 below indicates the proportion of the organizations that work
to promote and foster the language in general, and of those organizations that focus on a
specific area. Although the largest group is that of the general area category, the
table reveals a very significant proportion of organizations promoting the language in
teaching, with other areas such as institutions, mass media and music lagging further
behind.
From this
observation, we can deduce that the defence of teaching in Catalan is one of the most
significant fields in terms of motivating popular organization to defend the language.
Figure 1. Distribution of
organizations according to area
Territorial
distribution. As shown in Diagram 1 below, the language associations are
scattered all over the linguistic domain. Linguistic activism organizations exist in all
the regions created by the administrative division of the territory but their distribution
is not proportional to the number of inhabitants of each region. Perhaps the most striking
point is the large number of language organizations in the Community of Valencia, where 25
of the 62 organizations can be found. It is here that the revitalisation and defence of
the language has most strongly taken hold and spread at popular level, and this translates
into a multiplicity of language associations. On the other hand, the region administrated
by the Generalitat of Catalonia a much more powerful region than the others in
terms of territory and population numbers has only 13 language activism
associations. The reason for this may lie in the fact that a large part of Catalan civil
society renounced their activism after the restoration of the Generalitat of Catalonia and
the supervision of the defence of the language has essentially been passed onto
institutions in the autonomous regions.
Diagram 1. Distribution of
organizations according to region
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