Results of European Multilingualism Policy in the First Decade of the 21st Century in Member States of European Union and Serbia Cover Image

Резултати европске политике вишејезичности у првој деценији XXI века у земљама чланицама Европске Уније и Србији
Results of European Multilingualism Policy in the First Decade of the 21st Century in Member States of European Union and Serbia

Author(s): Aleksandra B. Šuvaković
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, EU-Accession / EU-DEvelopment
Published by: Институт за политичке студије
Keywords: languages; language policy; multilingualism; EU; Serbia; interculturalism

Summary/Abstract: The idea of united Europe inevitably brings news also in the field of linguistics. Growing openness of markets among the member states, political cooperativeness and new development strategies at the global level have introduced the need of eliminating the language barriers among the Europeans. A determination is to give equal chances to all languages, without division to great and small languages. The goal of the paper is to present the results of language policies in practice during the first decade of the twenty-first century, both in case of the member states of the EU and the Republic of Serbia. Although our country is not a member state, analysis of the available data shows that the policy of our state is consistent with the European way of plurilingualism and interculturalism. There is no doubt that Serbia is determined for the internationalization of education in general, therefore the concept of introducing several languages is consistent with that. Such the educational policy is good and is based on the concept of knowledge exchange, with the early learning of foreign languages being the way to the accomplishment of the exchange. However, early learning of the English language in almost all primary schools in Serbia from the first grade will not make a contribution to the policy of plurilingualism. European integrations, the process in which our country has entered, is based on cultural differences. Therefore, it is necessary to introduce demonopolization of the English language and introduce other languages in the first educational cycle that will be the first foreign language (FL1).

  • Issue Year: 2018
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 99-113
  • Page Count: 15
  • Language: Serbian