Short presentation about the role of English within the countries of the European Union. Including a discussion on 'Euro-English' as a (possibly) emerging new variety of English.
5. “ Euro-English […] is now an established term, and notably the Euro- element has become shorthand for the European Union rather than for Europe as a whole.” McArthur 2003: 57.
6. Photo by Lynn Irving: http://jpgmag.com/photos/135742
9. English in the EU Business Science & Academia Technology Media Education (primary, secondary, higher education) Main working language of the EU
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11. “ Because of the current role of ‘Euro-English’ in the EU, it would be naive, certainly, to assume that legitimatisation, codification, and standardisation processes will not take place.” Modiano 2001:13 Or: “ Euro-English […] the Yeti of English varieties: everyone has heard of it, but no one has ever seen it.” Mollin 2006:1
23. Thank you! Any questions? This presentation is available online: http://www.slideshare.net/Beinhoff
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Notes de l'éditeur
How did English spread into Europe? Influence of GB and Ireland (mostly GB). After WWII influence of USA.
This is Braj Kachru’s famous ‘circle’ model where three groups of speakers of English are assigned to these concentric circles. There is some debate about whether this is a realistic description as for example the borders between the circles are normally not clear. Let’s have a look at the numbers (read them as they will be too small). The expanding circle is also the fastest growing of all.
The European Union: 27 member states 23 official languages English official language in GB and Ireland (L2 in others? Malta?) In the institution of the European Union: Need for fewer or even only one language when translators are not around.
“ English is the most important communication tool in Europe?” – Who agrees?
From Eurobarometer: English keeps on growing its share as the most widely spoken foreign language. Both French and German have also slightly increased their share compared to the situation in 2001. When looking at the overall situation within the European Union, English remains the most widely used language, followed by German and French . In the EU, English (34%) is the most widely known language besides the mother tongue followed by German (12%) and French (11%). Spanish and Russian are spoken as a foreign language by 5% of respondents. But careful with Eurobarometer surveys as they are based on: People reporting on their own performance (i.e. very subjective) It was conducted by the public opinion section of the European Commission taking a random selection from the population or electoral lists (depending on the country). The original purpose of the data obtained from these surveys was probably not to aid academic research What it does tell us, though, is that English is generally considered to be a very important language by a large proportion of Europeans.
We get more reliable numbers from Eurydice. Data for The Netherlands weren’t included in the report, but other sources give the percentage for the year 2007 with 92%.
Show of hands: Who thinks the persons in these videos speak Euro-English?
Modiano 2001:13 Because of the current role of ‘Euro-English’ in the EU, it would be naive, certainly, to assume that legitimatisation, codification, and standardisation processes will not take place.
English is widely regarded to be the language that is most likely to act as a bridge between the 23 official languages in Europe.
Refer to sound bits we’ve just heard. Mutual intelligibility: People will try to eliminate factors that impede intelligibility. L1 influence – only a few examples. live leave (vowel length contrast) think sink, tink, fink (substitution of consonant) Suprasegmental: e.g. ‘flatter’ intonation.
Now, I would like to leave the ‘teaching bit’ out for the moment. It is certainly a very important issue but we’ll focus on whether it can be described systematically.
using the same form for all present tense verbs, as in ‘you look very happy’ and ‘she look very happy’ (‘3rd person –s’) treating ‘who’ and ‘which’ as interchangeable relative pronouns, as in ‘the picture who’ or ‘a person which’ using ‘isn’t it?’ as a universal tag question (i.e. instead of e.g. ‘haven’t they?’ and ‘shouldn’t he?’), as in ‘You’re very busy today, isn’t it?’ not putting a definite or indefinite article in front of nouns as in ‘our countries have signed agreement about this’
Grammar: Use of progressive instead of simple present in ‘Where are you from?’ – ‘I’m coming from Sweden.’ Instead of ‘I come from Sweden’. The progressive indicated that the person has just arrived from Sweden btu doesn’t necessarily mean that this is her/his place of origin.
![English in Europe ,[object Object],[object Object],[object Object]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)