A Língua Portuguesa nas Organizações Internacionais. Panorama Atual e Perspetivas de Futuro
The Portuguese Language in International Organisations. Current Overview and Prospects for the Future

Summary/Abstract: In the age of globalisation and of multiculturalism, international organisations are a window to the world of languages in a broader sense, as they mirror many of the conflicts and of the forces brought into play in the relationships between languages and cultures on the world stage. In this article, we will present an overview of the institutions that have Portuguese as one of their official/working languages, deriving some lessons about its implementation and seeking to identify strategies for its spread, founded on the three categories of language policy and planning - status, corpus and acquisition planning. Based on different approaches in language policy and planning and on the survey of statistic data on translation and interpretation, we argue that the expansion of the Portuguese language within these institutions is a viable project, as long as the right channels are chosen, and there are clear guidelines in terms of language planning. These should make the most of the cooperation between lusophone countries and place the adoption of Portuguese under a light of complementarity towards English, the hipercentral language, as a way for strengthening the status of Portuguese as a global language.

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