The Language Indicator System: Diagnosis and evaluation in language policy

Abstract

Monitoring is a key process in evaluating any public policy, including a language policy, as it allows the diagnosis of the situation of the respective languages, together with the establishment of action plans and the assessment of their effectiveness. The Government of Catalonia’s Directorate-General for Language Policy (DGPL, acronym in Catalan) possesses different tools for this purpose, including the Language Indicator System (SIL, acronym in Catalan). The Language Indicator System was created in 2006 and has been updated on a yearly basis. It contains a number of indicators developed by the DGPL and it is part of the Catalan Statistics Plan. SIL is currently conceived as a series of indicators which are translated into different products. To promote transparency, the main data are published yearly on the SIL website, especially the data describing the situation of the Catalan language. For the purpose of public policy evaluation, the data matrix is extracted from the Language Policy Report. This report is submitted yearly to the Parliament of Catalonia and to the Social Council for the Catalan Language, with the latter issuing an expert opinion on the situation of the language and on the political actions carried out in relation to it. The data are also published in various formats to ensure a wider dissemination under the title of “Facts and figures on the Catalan language”. This wider approach of the DGPL’s Language Indicator System is the subject of analysis of this paper.