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CURRENT AND PROSPECTIVE SITUATION OF ENGLISH IN EUROPE - Coggle Diagram
CURRENT AND PROSPECTIVE
SITUATION OF ENGLISH IN EUROPE
European governments recognize English as essential for international trade and economic competitiveness, so they promote educational policies to improve English proficiency.
In Europe, future demand for English (from 2025 onwards) will be influenced by:
demographic decline, which reduces the number of students
technological developments, such as digital learning, artificial intelligence, and machine translation.
In Italy, knowledge of foreign languages is generally poor, partly because of the dubbing of foreign films and TV programs and the presence of many dialects.
Nevertheless, English plays a central role in the Italian education system:
at university, English is often a compulsory subject in many degree courses.
since 2006, studying two foreign languages has been compulsory at school;
Bilingual or multilingual policies are the best solution, but they are expensive and difficult to implement.
At a global level, the future of English is marked by a conflict between:
the need for economic prestige (which supports English);
the need for cultural identity (which encourages the protection of local languages).
The United States plays a key role in the future of global English:
there is an ongoing debate about English as an official language;
at the same time, attention to the linguistic rights of minorities is increasing.
English is seen by many as a “social glue” that guarantees national unity;
In the future, different varieties of English (“New Englishes”) will continue to develop:
outer circle: varieties from former British colonies;
expanding circle: English used as an international lingua franca.
inner circle: native varieties (UK, USA, Australia, Canada, etc.);