La valoració dels coneixements de llengua catalana en l'accés a la funció pública local

Resum

Since there is no common process of linguistic normalization for the three communities in the Catalan speaking area, it is not always clear which are the applicable general principles for analysing the value attached to the Catalan language in the local sphere. Presupposing access to civil service in a broad sense (including not only entering the civil service and filling certain specific posts, but also receiving a tenured position in a job), the author discusses the possibility of promoting a greater use of Catalan through a discussion of five basic elements: 1) Casual (there are different justifications for requiring language knowledge for personnel in the civil service); 2) Personal (who is requiring Catalan competency and who it is being required of); 3) Time-related (when the knowledge of Catalan is given added weight —as a language of communication and as an element to be accorded extra value— in gaining access to the civil service); 4) Modal (verifying knowledge of Catalan before, during and after the exams are administered); 5) Material (differentiating between general knowledge and minimal knowledge, and between passive or active knowledge). Overall, the article makes it clear that there is a lack of homogeneity in establishing general criteria for the evaluation of language knowledge of local civil service personnel. There are sufficient factors for this uniform foundation of language requirements to become a reality, but for that to happen, a determined political will to enforce the language normalization policy is necessary —both on the autonomous government level and, above all, within the local entities. Such a process would normalize one of the domains which is closest to the citizen, and which the citizen is in greatest need of.