Language Learning Policies in the Age of World Englishes- a Case of Historic Exceptionalism?

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Abstract Summary

This paper presents text corpora analyses of political and public discourses on foreign language (FL) education alongside statistical data on actual uptake. It does so by comparing both declared (official) FL policy, debated policies and actual uptake of FL learning in a number of different European political entities: Ireland, the 4 nations of the UK, 4 Laender of Germany, and the EU. It thus compares FL education policy making in Anglophone and non Anglophone nation states, as well as those belong to the EU, and not, and addresses the questions:

1. Between Anglophone and non-Anglophone nations, and those part of the EU, and not, how do FL policies compare in respect of:

policy and curricula demands for compulsory FL learning?

rationales as expressed in curricula policies?

2. How do political (parliamentary) and public (journalistic) debates differ in these respects in these nations?

3. Concerning practised policies, does actual uptake match policy? Does this differ between Anglophone and non-Anglophone entities? How is the learning of a diversity of FL other than English safeguarded?

The paper reports on a longitudinal project which examined political debates, journalistic texts and actual FL policy documents using Critical Discourse Analysis and Corpus Lingusitics, combined with latest uptake statistics.

Submission ID :

AILA110

Submission Type

Oral Presentation

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[SYMP08] AILA ReN - Language Policy Research Network World Congress Syomposia

Argument :

In the context of Global English, and ever-increasing opportunities for (online and offline) English lingua franca communication, the learning of languages other than English (LOTE) is in decline. Anglophone countries in particular have seen language learning uptake decline over the last decades , and across Europe, we observe a drop in the learning of languages other than English. The trends indicate that Global English necessitates a rethink of rationales for learning LOTE- but to what extent do we see evidence of this in discourses around language policy and planning? This book investigates how different nations respond to the changing landscape of language learning, purposefully contrasting two perspectives: that of Anglophone countries (selecting two large Anglophone countries: UK and Ireland), and two non-Anglophone countries/entities. For this perspective, one large European country, Germany, and, as a large pan-national representative, the European Union, are selected. The language education policy of the European Union is chosen as a representative of a concerted response to the Global English challenge. Moreover, the book will investigate discourses at top-down as well as bottom-up levels:

public news discourses (gathered via Nexis searches)
political discourses (at the appropriate level, e.g. in UK, at the level of the 4 nations)
language education policy documents

and compare these discourses to statistics on actual uptake of languages, especially LOTE.

The discourse analysis will use a range of text tools: Corpus Linguistics (keywords, keywords in context, collocations), Critical Discourse Analysis, thematic analysis, and metaphor analysis.

The project bridges theoretical and empirical sociolinguistics and language, multilingualism, education policy and planning, and language ideology.