Maties Segura Sabater, University Jaume I, Castelló de la Plana, Spain
Managing multilingualism at a university requires planning and coordinating linguistic usages. Valencian public universities have been symbolically important in the standardization process and recovery of the Catalan language, but their role is conditioned by the general evolution of the language in the region, by other Valencian institutions and by state and regional regulations on linguistic rights and duties affecting members of the university community. In the case of the University Jaume I, its own by-laws and other internal rules on the use of languages are also to be taken into account. In the daily activities at the University, problems, conflicts and complaints require that solutions can be found in those regulations. From the perspective of students, can they claim the right to higher education in Catalan? If the syllabus specifies that lectures will be given in any particular language, how can linguistic security be ensured in the classroom? If knowledge of the Catalan language is required to access jobs in public services, how can users demand that University personnel use that language when addressing them? What language skills can be required from teaching staff? And what linguistic knowledge should students possess when completing their course of study? This paper aims to analyze how to answer these questions from the application of current regulations and the principles governing language policies by commenting on practical cases.
Keywords: linguistic planning; normalization; linguistic security; linguistic subsidiarity