EASIT. Easy Access for Social Inclusion Training.
This is Unit 2. Easy to Understand language.
Element 2. Legislation, standards and guidelines:
Introduction to the situation in Spain:
overview, recommendations, guidelines (part 2).
My name is Piero Cavallo and I have prepared this video lecture
in collaboration with Rocío Bernabé on behalf of the Internationale Hochschule
SDI München in Germany.
In this second part of the video lecture, we will focus on the national legislation
of Spain that regulates the equal rights for persons with disabilities,
as well as the use of Easy-to-Understand language.
We will review the fields of application of E2U language,
both in the public sector and in the private sector.
For both sectors, we will also review some of the manuals
and guidelines published, along with some of their projects.
From a national point of view,
in Spain laws and decrees have been enacted
to guarantee access to culture for everyone.
In Spanish, a law is called “ley”, and a decree is called “real decreto”
and it is not dictated by the king but by the Government.
For example, the article 44 of the Spanish Constitution of 1978 establishes that:
“The public powers will promote and protect access to culture,
to which everyone has the right”.
Law 51/2003 aims to establish measures to guarantee and fulfil the right
to equal opportunities for people with disabilities.
The Royal Decree 366/2007 by which are established
the conditions of accessibility and non-discrimination
of persons with disabilities in their relations with
the General State Administration.
In particular, article 13 establishes that the documents
and forms have to be written
in a simple and direct language, without the use of acronyms or abbreviations.
The most commonly used documents should have simplified versions
for people with intellectual disabilities or problems with written comprehension.
Generic guidelines are included in the “Orden PRE/446/2008”.
The Royal Decree 1494/2007 refers to the services related
to the information society and social communication media.
The Royal Decree 1544/2007 regulates the basic conditions of accessibility
and non-discrimination for access and use of modes of transport
for people with disabilities.
The third additional provision from the law 10/2007 refers to
the access to reading, books and libraries for people with disabilities.
Lastly, the 2003-2010 Accessibility Plan suggests
a set of proposals to address problems in relation
to accessibility to all types of environments, products and services.
One of the first field of application of E2U language in Spain was the legal
and public sector.
The change began in the 1980s following the awareness of the need
for a clearer and more accessible bureaucratic language for all citizens.
Specialised journals on administrative language
have been published since then,
providing guidelines and models of documents in Easy-to-Understand style
for all the co-official languages of Spain.
In 1990, the Ministry of Public Administrations
first published the “Manual of administrative language style”
(“Manual de estilo del lenguaje administrativo”).
A few years later, the “Manual of Administrative Documents”
(“Manual de Documentos Administrativos”)
and the “Charter of Citizens' Right before the Justice”
(“Carta de derechos de los ciudadanos ante la justicia") were published.
A Commission for the Modernization of Legal Language was also created in 2009
during the Zapatero government.
The commission drafted a report with a series of recommendations
for the improvement of the legal language.
Other public and private institutions, such as universities, chambers of commerce,
town councils and banks started to employ language experts to draw up, correct
and translate their documents according to their style manuals.
In the wake of the laws and manuals issued by state institutions,
various associations have been created in Spain that deal with E2U language.
These associations promote Easy-to-Read and Plain Language and are engaged
in numerous projects also in collaboration with public institutions.
As we will see in a bit, they have also produced
several resources and guidelines.
Associations like: Cooperativa Altavoz, founded in 2013;
Plena inclusión, an organization network;
the Association “Lectura Fàcil”, first founded in 2003 in Barcelona,
now with several members in some of the Autonomous Communities of Spain;
and the “Instituto Lectura Fácil”,
are actively involved in the creation and adaptation of material, guidelines
and local and national promotion of E2U language,
also in collaboration with Public Administrations.
Some of the projects concluded by these associations are:
Easy-to-Read news portals like “Noticias Fácil”;
books portals like “Léelo Fácil”
and the Easy-to-Understand adaptation of classics of Spanish literature
like “Don Quixote” or “La Celestina”;
the E2U-adaptation of State and Public Administration documents,
such as the Spanish Constitution,
the “Norma Foral de Transparencia de Bizkaia”
(“Regional Transparency Regulation of Bizkaia”),
the First Municipal Plan for Citizens' Participation,
realized by the City Hall of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria,
the Election Programs for the General Elections of April 2019
and the traffic tickets issued by the City Hall of Madrid.
In Spain, there are no official guidelines regarding the creation
or adaptation of documents in E2U language.
In an initial phase, guidelines in Spain were directly translated from English,
without taking into account that the style of the two languages was, of course, different.
For example, with the syntactical structure of the Romance languages
it is very difficult to form sentences in just 15 words
(as the E2U guidelines for English suggest).
Because of this, it could be said that the functional equivalent
of 15 words in English is approximately 25 to 30 words
in the Romance languages.
Some of the associations listed before, as well as several experts of the field,
published guidelines on how to make language more accessible,
clear and easy to read.
Some of them are:
the “Decálogo sobre el lenguaje claro para las Administraciones Públicas”
(“Decalogue on clear language for Public Administrations”)
drawn up by Novagob;
the “Guide to the right of access to information in the Region of Murcia”,
and the “Practical guide to clear communication
from the Madrid City Council";
also, the “Guide to Cognitive Accessibility,
Easy-to-Read and Clear Language in the Local Public Administration”,
issued by the Institute Lectura Fácil
in collaboration with FEMP
(Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces);
and, lastly, the writing methods for an easy reading
realized by Óscar García Muñoz from the association “Dilo Fácil”,
the one realized for the CESyA
(Spanish subtitling and audiodescription center),
by Lourdes Moreno, and by Cristina Franco.
This video lecture has been prepared by Piero Cavallo
and Rocío Bernabé Caro
from the Internationale Hochschule SDI München in Germany.
You can reach Rocío Bernabé at
rocio.bernabe@sdi-muenchen.de
The project EASIT has received funding from the European Commission
under the Erasmus+ Strategic Partnerships for Higher Education programme,
grant agreement 2018-1-ES01-KA203-05275.
The European Commission support for the production of this publication
does not constitute an endorsement of the contents,
which reflect the views only of the authors,
and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use
which may be made of the information contained therein.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Partners of the EASIT project:
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
Università degli Studi di Trieste.
Universidade de Vigo.
Stiftung Universität Hildesheim.
SDI München.
Dyslexiförbundet.
Radiotelevizija Slovenija.
Zavod RISA.
EASIT. Easy Access for Social Inclusion Training.