- 著者
-
橋内 武
Takeshi Hashiuchi
桃山学院大学国際教養学部
- 出版者
- 桃山学院大学総合研究所
- 雑誌
- 国際文化論集 = INTERCULTURAL STUDIES (ISSN:09170219)
- 巻号頁・発行日
- no.43, pp.51-70, 2010-12-24
This paper seeks to elucidate the recent language policies of the European Union and the Council of Europe. The European Union was founded upon the reconciliation between West Germany and France after World War II, while the Council of Europe has also been searching for world peace with human rights and good communication between nations. With its six member states, the European Economic Community recognized four official languages. As it developed with additional member states, the European Community, later renamed European Union, increased its official languages. The European Union now maintains its multilingual policy: it consists of 27 member states with 23 official languages. Some states have regional, co-official languages recognized by the European Commission. Both translation and interpretation are big official business in EU institutions such as the European Commission, the European Council, the European Parliament, and the European Court of Justice. Moreover, the EU supports multilingualism in education, cultural exchange, and labor migration. Its language education policy has been influenced by the proposals made by the Council of Europe. The Council of Europe has developed its language education policy in three stages : (1) The Threshold Level provided a functional basis for language learning. It led to notional syllabus and the communicative approach to language teaching. (2) With its can-do statements, the Common European Framework for Reference of Languages is a new model for describing and scaling language use and the different kinds of knowledge and skills required. (3) The most recent development is the emphasis on intercultural citizenship and the proposal of a new paradigm named Platform: all education and human development must be based on language. In short, the European Union is a multilingual supranational agency, which now encourages intercultural citizenship and a command of both "plurilingualism" and "pluriculturalism"- terms recently coined by the Council of Europe's Language Policy Division.