Serveis lingüístics i normalització

Resum

The demographic, social, political and economic transformations which our society is going through have generated new communicative needs and deepened the complexity of the language process. The development of a language is by no means natural; rather, it is subject to the influence of a myriad of diverse factors: economic, political, sociological, and others. In this context, the aim of a language policy is to protect cultural identity and guarantee the language rights of those societies which are in a subsidiary or dependent situation vis-à-vis other societies, both economically and politically. Adequate mechanisms should be envisioned in order to bring the language code up to date and develop new models. Language services —defined as working units which, in an organization, manage and resolve the language needs of that organization— are an important part of the language normalization process, helping to make it more rational and more effective. In the face of the increasing social and economic complexity of our society (and consequently, the demand for a professionalization of language functions and jobs), language services can respond, both in the case of languages in the process of normalization and in the case of societies whose languages are already fully normalized, to the new necessities which have arisen.