NOVES SL. SPRING 2002. INSURANCE COMPANIES AND LANGUAGE USES, ATTITUDES AND SERVICES (6)


	Sociolingüística catalana



			Insurance companies and language uses, attitudes and services, by Institut DEP and Joan Solé i Camardons

CONTINUA

3.2. Advances and obstacles to the use of Catalan

Eight out of ten insurance companies believe that the use of Catalan in Catalonia has advantages; the remaining companies do not see this potential in Catalan.

According to managers who consider the use of Catalan to be advantageous, the main reasons for this privileged position include: commercial reasons, concerning competition with companies that do not use it (89.5 %), and the advantages of adapting and becoming closer to the society at which their business activity is targeted (10.5 %).

Figure 4. How do you think that using Catalan in a company like yours in Catalonia has advantages?

The managers of UCEAC companies do not see any disadvantages in using Catalan in Catalonia (80 %), although 20.8 % did point out that this led to an increase in costs due to duplication where both languages are used (40.0 %). The second most common disadvantage lies in the difficulties relating to the rest of the organisation outside Catalonia (33.3 %) and, finally, these companies come across the opposition of certain customers when they initially use Catalan (26.7 %).

The most common reason for never using Catalan in the spheres we have analysed is the centralisation of work and documentation outside of Catalonia and across Spain, where Spanish is the main language (62.7 %). Another important reason for never or hardly ever using Catalan is the tradition of speaking in Spanish (25.4 %), since the majority of staff in many of these companies are Spanish-speaking (13.6 %); these factors act as obstacles, ensuring that Catalan is never used in these companies.

Table 7. Why do you think that your company hardly ever or never uses Catalan in certain areas?

Reasons	Never	Scarcely or hardly ever
Centralised system of work and documentation outside Catalonia, across Spain	62.7	20.7
Habit of using Spanish in the first place	25.4	19.0
The company is mainly Spanish-speaking	18.6	27.6
Our customers do not require us to because their habitual language is Spanish	13.6	58.6
The use of Catalan doubles production costs	10.2	5.2
Some external suppliers are habitual speakers of Spanish	10.2	1.7
Lack of education in Catalan leads to inability to work in this language	8.5	15.5
Documents have no bilingual option	5.1	5.2
We advertise in the media in Spanish or our management is Spanish	3.4	13.8
Other	1.7	1.7
Basis (never or hardly ever use Catalan)	59	58

MULTIPLE

3.3. Plans to increase the use of Catalan

Among UCEAC companies there is a strong desire to increase the use of Catalan in the future, as stated by 62.4 % of companies who took part in this study. Of the remaining enterprizes, 30.6 % do not share this plan for the future, and 7 % have no plans in this area.

The reasons leading managers to increase the use of Catalan in these companies are external and include, firstly, the continued process of the application of the Language Policy Act (60.0 %) and secondly, social and market demands (42.2 %).


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