Reconfiguring Europe - The Contribution of Applied Linguistics - Constant Leung

Reconfiguring Europe - The Contribution of Applied Linguistics - Constant Leung

The devil in the kaleidoscope: can Europe speak with a single voice in many languages?

Reconfiguring Europe - The Contribution of Applied Linguistics - Constant Leung

Arturo Tosi [+-]
University of London
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Professor Arturo Tosi Emeritus Professor (Modern Languages) School of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures Royal Holloway, University of London

Description

I would like to address the question raised in the subtitle: can Europe speak with a single voice in many languages? In the course of this chapter I shall attempt to answer the question from a linguistic point of view. This doesn’t mean that I am not aware of the political side of the problem: the problem of a Europe that cannot speak with a single voice because of a lack of consensus. It is simply that I have more to say about multilingualism. In upholding the values of a multilingual Europe I shall return to some linguistic situations that are becoming increasingly important in contemporary Europe; and, in particular, language contact and language transfer, interlanguage and error analysis. I should like to do this in memory of the scholarship of Pitt Corder, to whom this chapter is dedicated. In my conclusions, I intend to suggest a possible new direction for applied linguistics to promote the preservation of language and culture diversity. I hope this will be a useful contribution to our conference which is devoted to the role of linguistic research in the reconfiguration of Europe. But now, without further ado, let me begin by introducing a notion that is central to most of the issues I have just mentioned: I speak of the devil of course!

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Citation

Tosi, Arturo. The devil in the kaleidoscope: can Europe speak with a single voice in many languages?. Reconfiguring Europe - The Contribution of Applied Linguistics. Equinox eBooks Publishing, United Kingdom. p. 5-20 Sep 2006. ISBN 9781845530907. https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/view-chapter/?id=29257. Date accessed: 09 Dec 2024 doi: 10.1558/equinox.29257. Sep 2006

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