Ljubljana University, June 2019 ‘Global’ English,

Transcript:Ljubljana University, June 2019 ‘Global’ English,:
Ljubljana University, June 2019 ‘Global’ English, and its implications for translation as one dimension of language policy Robert Phillipson Copenhagen Business School, Denmark Handelshøjskolen i København, Danmark Ljubljana in history and now Saint Jerome (Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymous) the patron saint of translators, the first translator of the Bible into Latin, was born in 347 A.D. near Ljubljana. RP ‘English Language Officer’ for the British Council in Yugoslavia, 1969-1972. Passed the exams in translation from CroatoSerbian to English and in oral proficiency in Serbocroat. Some translation experience between, French, Danish, Swedish and English. Not a translation specialist. Language professional identities and territories Language policy needs to be situated within wider political, social and economic contexts. This also applies to translation and interpretation studies, as exemplified in Michael Cronin’s book Translation and globalization. Cronin (page 3) writes than translation is ignored in ‘political science, sociology, and cultural studies’. I reviewed the book for the journal Language Policy because translation tends to be ‘forgotten’ by experts in applied linguistics, language policy, and Anglo-American language pedagogy. Neglect of translation in applied linguistics and language pedagogy Handbook of Language teaching Wiley-Blackwell (2009) the Index – does not include interpretation or translation. Routledge Handbook of Multilingualism (2012) the Index - nothing for interpretation or translation But there is one chapter is on sign language and public service interpretation the chapter on ‘Multilingual pedagogies’ (García & Flores) refers to the ‘grammar-translation method’ falling into disuse and being replaced by the behaviourist audiolingual method. This means that foreign language teaching was ignored. There are now was communicative approaches, cognitive approaches, Council of Europe benchmarking, etc. Why this marginalisation of translation? Nearly all Handbook ‘experts’ are based in BANA countries – Britain, Australasia, North America. Few are involved in foreign language teaching. Their expertise has been deeply influenced by Anglo-American efforts to establish ‘global’ English. Supported by doctrinaire ‘second language acquisition’. The prevailing pedagogy was monolingual and monocultural, and detached from translation and contrastive analysis. This facilitated ‘global’ careers for native speakers, the export of BANA expertise and UK/US textbooks worldwide that were supposedly ‘culturally neutral’. mea culpa – British Council 1964-1973. Zavod za Izobraževanje - in each of the six republics. English imposition and promotion Monolingualism nationally in European countries (‘one country, one culture, one language’), a doctrine that was imposed in settler societies (USA, Canada, Australia...). Linguistic imperialism in colonising empires. First conference on English as a