Most companies said that they often or always used Catalan in their corporate image and external signage (54.4 %) although a significant percentage of companies never use this language (23.5 %).

Observations made at the offices of the companies that participated in the study revealed that Spanish had a strong overall presence in external signage (49.2 %), whereas Catalan was present in 29.2 % of signs.

2.4. Internal communication and signage

Internal written communication

The proportion of companies that often or always use Catalan in internal written communication and those that hardly ever or never use it is similar with scores of 39.4 % and 35.2 %, respectively. In addition, one in four companies uses both Catalan and Spanish in internal written communication.

Internal signage

The diverse use of languages in internal written communication is extended to internal signage, where 45 % of signs are written in Catalan, 43 % in Spanish and 10 % in both languages. Thus, from our observations on the language of external and internal signage, we can affirm that the presence of Catalan is stronger inside buildings

Internal oral communication

In addition to the analysis of dealings with customers, the aspect of internal oral communication revealed the highest number of companies (85.9 %) often or always using Catalan. Only 5.6 % of companies hardly ever or never used Catalan in this area. All sizes of company studied primarily use Catalan in internal oral communication, although 10.6 % of small and medium-sized enterprizes hardly ever or never use it.

Through collation and direct observation of this type of documentation, we observed that payslips were most commonly drawn up in Spanish (80 % of cases), whereas the presence of Catalan in this area totalled 15.2 %. Moreover, 4.3 % of these documents are written in both languages.

2.5. Advertising and written communication with customers and suppliers

a) Advertising (press, radio and television)
Although a proportion of companies do not advertise (20.8 %), those that do, have chosen to use mainly Catalan, since almost 60% often or always use this language. The main difference between the two groups of companies is that large companies have more resources to allocate to advertising, whereas 34.2 % of small and medium-sized enterprizes cannot afford to do so.

b) Brochures and leaflets
Another way of promoting company products is the use of brochures and catalogues; here, the use of Catalan and Spanish is fairly level, with 44.2 % often or always using Catalan compared to 37.1 % who hardly ever or never use it. Additionally, 18.1 % of companies sometimes combine the use of Catalan and Spanish. Table 2 below compares the survey data with that obtained from company leaflets:

Table 2. The language of leaflets (direct observation)