English in Europe: Volume 1 Attitudes towards English in Europe

356 Pages·2015·3.22 MB·Language and Social Life [LSL]; 2

by  Andrew Linn (editor), Neil Bermel (editor), Gibson Ferguson (editor)

AndrewLinn,NeilBermel,GibsonFerguson(Eds.)
AttitudestowardsEnglishinEurope
Language and Social Life
Editors
David Britain
Crispin Thurlow
Founding Editor
Richard J. Watts
Volume 2
Attitudes towards
English in Europe
English in Europe,Volume 1
Edited by
Andrew Linn
Neil Bermel
Gibson Ferguson
ISBN978-1-61451-735-1
e-ISBN(PDF)978-1-61451-551-7
e-ISBN(EPUB)978-1-5015-0069-5
ISSN2364-4303
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
ACIPcatalogrecordforthisbookhasbeenappliedforattheLibraryofCongress.
BibliographicinformationpublishedbytheDeutscheNationalbibliothek
TheDeutscheNationalbibliothekliststhispublicationintheDeutscheNationalbibliografie;
detailedbibliographicdataareavailableontheInternetathttp://dnb.dnb.de.
62015WalterdeGruyter,Inc.,Berlin/Boston
Typesetting:RoyalStandard,HongKong
Printingandbinding:CPIbooksGmbH,Leck
♾ Printedonacid-freepaper
PrintedinGermany
www.degruyter.com
Series preface
The biggest language challenge in the world today is English. School children
are expected to learn it, and the need to succeed in English is often fired by
parental ambition and the requirements for entry into higher education, no
matterwhattheproposedcourseofstudy.Onceatuniversityorcollege,students
across the globe are increasingly finding that their teaching is being delivered
through the medium of English, making the learning process more onerous.
Universities unquestioningly strive for a greater level of internationalization in
teaching and in research, and this in turn equates with greater use of English
by non-native speakers. The need to use English to succeed in business is as
much an issue for multinational corporations as it isfor small tradersin tourist
destinations, and meanwhile other languages are used and studied less and
less.Ontheotherhand,academicpublishersgetrichonthemonolingualnorm
of the industry, and private language teaching is itself big business. In the
marketofEnglishtherearewinnersandtherearelosers.
The picture, however, is more complicated than one simply of winners and
losers.What varieties of English are we talking about here, and who are their
‘nativespeakers’?IstheresomethingdistinctwecanidentifyasEnglish,orisit
merelypartofarepertoireoflanguageformstobecalleduponasnecessary?Is
thelooming presence ofEnglish anidea ora reality, andinanycaseisit really
such a problem, and is it really killing off other languages as some commenta-
tors fear? Is the statusand roleof English the same inall partsof the world, or
does it serve different purposes in different contexts? What forms of practical
support do those trying to compete in this marketplace need in order to be
amongstthewinners?
These are all questions addressed by the English in Europe: Opportunity or
Threat?project,whichranfromJanuary2012toOctober2014.Thisinternational
research network received generous funding from the Leverhulme Trust in the
UKandwasapartnershipbetweentheuniversitiesofSheffield(UK),Copenhagen
(Denmark) and Zaragoza (Spain), Charles University in Prague (Czech Republic)
and the South-East Europe Research Centre in Thessaloniki (Greece). Each of
thepartnershostedaconferenceonadifferenttopicandwithaparticularfocus
on English in their own region of Europe. During the course of the project 120
papers were presented, reporting on research projects from across Europe and
beyond,providingforthefirsttimeaproperlyinformedandnuancedpictureof
therealityoflivingwithandthroughthemediumofEnglish.
vi Seriespreface
TheEnglishinEuropebookseriestakestheresearchpresentedinthesecon-
ferencesasitsstartingpoint.Ineachcase,however,papershavebeenrewritten,
andmanyofthepapershavebeenspeciallycommissionedtoprovideaseriesof
coherent and balanced collections, giving a thorough and authoritative picture
of the challenges posed by teaching, studying and using English in Europe
today.
ProfessorAndrewLinn
Director,EnglishinEuropeproject
Table of contents
Seriespreface v
GibsonFerguson
Introduction:AttitudestoEnglish 1
I Attitudes towards English in Society
OliviaWalsh
1 AttitudestowardsEnglishinFrance 27
MarcDeneire
2 ImagesofEnglishintheFrenchpress 55
BjarmaMortensen
3 PoliciesandattitudestowardsEnglishintheFaroestoday 71
ZoiTatsioka
4 AttitudestowardsEnglishlanguageuseonGreekTV:
athreatornot? 97
II Attitudes towards English in Universities
BeyzaBjörkman
5 AttitudestowardsEnglishinuniversitylanguagepolicydocumentsin
Sweden 115
AnnaKristinaHultgren
6 EnglishasaninternationallanguageofscienceanditseffectonNordic
terminology:theviewofscientists 139
ClausGnutzmann,JennyJakisch,FrankRabe
7 CommunicatingacrossEurope.WhatGermanstudentsthinkabout
multilingualism,languagenormsandEnglishasalinguafranca 165
MariaKuteeva,NiinaHynninen,andMaraHaslam
8 “It’ssonaturaltomixlanguages”:AttitudestowardsEnglish-medium
instructioninSweden 193
viii Tableofcontents
JosepSoler-CarbonellwithHakanKaraoglu
9 EnglishasanacademiclinguafrancainEstonia:students’attitudesand
ideologies 213
III Attitudes towards English in Schools
UlrikkeRindal
10 WhoownsEnglishinNorway?L2attitudesandchoicesamong
learners 241
AnnaJeeves
11 LearningEnglishincontemporaryIceland–theattitudesandperceptions
ofIcelandicyouth 271
ChrysoHadjidemetriou
12 EnglishinLondon:OpportunityorThreat?EnglishandCypriotGreekinthe
GreekCypriotcommunityofNorthLondon 297
SueGartonandFionaCopland
13 TeachingEnglishtoYoungLearnersinEurope:teachers’attitudesand
perspectives 321
Index 345
Introduction