What is it about?
The UK has always needed people who speak other languages and understand other countries. Now that negotiations to leave the EU have begun, we have more need than ever of such people. Without them, our country will struggle to renegotiate its cultural and commercial relationships with the rest of Europe, and will struggle to build new relationships with other international partners. Initially, the result of the Referendum vote encouraged a spate of public hostility towards languages other than English. If sustained, this would make it more difficult to develop our country’s capacity to engage with the wider world, just when we have greatest need. More recently, evidence has emerged that the prospect of Brexit has prompted larger numbers of people to start learning other languages, whether through formal classes or through informal routes. If this is sustained it could help to close the gap between our language needs and our capability. The two dozen essays in the book aim to spell out what language capability the UK is likely to need in in the new climate, how well prepared we are, and what we can do to be better prepared. There is no area of social life where languages have no impact, and we look at a selection of areas where language needs are a prominent issue. Language capability can take many forms and we focus on the main ways in which language support is provided across the UK. The discussion is designed to respond to the particular circumstances of the UK in the period of uncertainty opened by the Referendum. This does not mean that all of the language issues are unique to the UK. On the contrary, we share many of then with other English-speaking countries, with other European countries, and with other countries around the world. That could be the basis of another book.
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Why is it important?
The Brexit process is dramatically changing the UK's place in the world and there is an urgent need to equip enough people to be able to engage with the rest of the world. Language is a big part of this, along with knowledge of the culture and society of our international partners, whether in Europe or further afield.
Perspectives
The UK has always needed languages, in the sense that enough people need to be able to engage proficiently with other countries, and with the increasing diversity of our own society. Brexit has made this more important, but also more difficult. This book is an attempt to marshal the evidence for that, and to argue that the UK needs a strategy to promote languages and language learning in all parts of national life, including but not confined to the education of young people.
Michael Howard Kelly
University of Southampton
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Languages after Brexit, January 2018, Springer Science + Business Media,
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-65169-9.
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