Issues:

Should all students be obliged, as a matter of justice, to use a non-native language as part of their university study? Should English-language students, specifically, be excluded from English-language international courses, to prevent unfair advantage? Should the number of languages of teaching be greatly increased, to include also non-standard dialects? Is an examination just or fair, if one student can use a native language, while others must use their fourth or fifth language? Are migrants (English speakers excepted) systematically disadvantaged at European universities? Is it just to give protected status (including education facilities) to some minority languages, but not to others?

Access to journals and conferences Issues of justice between speakers, arise also in selection procedures, for journals and conferences. The dominance of English-language publishing is well known. Less obvious is that publishers are also disproportionately located in English-speaking countries. English-language journals also, inevitably have editors and advisors who speak, read and write good academic English. It is not as easy to trace the language of conferences, but English is certainly the dominant language of conferences. A bilingual conference is usually in the teaching language of the host university, plus English. Organisers often require papers in English, even if most of those present understand other languages.

Issues:

The basic issue: is it legitimate for a journal to refuse an article on grounds of language? Is this refusal discriminatory, and possibly a criminal offence? Is this refusal morally equivalent to racism? Should journals, published in the EU, be obliged to accept submissions in all EU official languages? Is refusal of an article in French by a British journal, for instance, contrary to European law? Should there be quotas by native language, for journal editors, editorial boards, advisors and reviewers? Is it acceptable for a journal to refuse a person as editor/advisor, on grounds of language? Is a requirement to use one language for conference papers legitimate? Is lack of funds for translation a legitimate reason to limit conference languages? Should the EU fund monolingual conferences? Should a minimum number of EU languages be legally required at non-local conferences? Are existing conference language restrictions contrary to European law?

The language of publication

The long-term trend in journals is, once again, a combination of a dominant global publishing language (English), combined with limited-area journals in official national languages. In effect this fixes the language of contact as English. Multilingual journals are rare.

Issues:

Should the EU enforce (or subsidise) multilingual journals, or parallel publication? Is it acceptable to publish results of EU-funded research, in English only? Should research funds, in general, be conditional on multilingual publication? Is there a general moral obligation to multilingual publication? Does legal protection of minority languages bind journal publishers to some publication in these languages?

Section 2. Spelling workout

As a finishing touch to the final intensive reading unit of this Manual, below are offered two popular samples of the "Euro English" satire published on the website Orwell Today: www.orwelltoday.com which has been monitored by an independent researcher Jackie Jura, under the title EURO ENGLISH. You are sure to enjoy correcting humorous spelling mistakes:

Euro English

The European Union Commissioners have announced that agreement has been reached to adopt English as the preferred language for European communications, rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five-year phased plan for what will be known as EuroEnglish (Euro for short).

In the first year, "s" will be used instead of the soft "c". Sertainly, sivil servants will reseive this news with joy. Also, the hard "c" will be replaced with "k". Not only will this klear up konfusion, but typewriters kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced by "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20 per sent shorter.

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be Expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent "e"s in the languag is disgrasful, and they would go.

By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" by "z" and "w" by " v".

During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou", and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.

After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer.

Ze drem vil finali kum tru.

Jackie Jura received “a snotty-toned email” in response to a joke she had on the site entitled EURO ENGLISH by Author Unknown. It said that the author who inspired "Euro English" was none other than one of the greatest satirists in the history of the world, Mark Twain.

Here's the Mark Twain,s version:

A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling by Mark Twain

For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all.

Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli.

Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld."

More reading on the topic:

NU SPELING, by George Orwell

EURO ENGLISH MAYHEM, by Kate Gladstone & Jackie Jura

MEIHEM IN CE CLASRUM, by Dolton Edwards

TWAIN QUOTE NOT, by M. J. Shields

EURO ENGLISH, by Author Unknown

<http://www.orwelltoday.com/newspeak.shtml>

PART 2. THE SKILLS OF EXTENSIVE READING

MODULE 2-1. ENGLISH AS A CONTACT LANGUAGE OF INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION

Unit 2-1. PEOPLE ON THE MOVE

Guidelines for extensive reading of ESP texts

Extensive reading of ESP texts has not been emphasized in traditional English as a foreign or second language teaching. In Ukraine English instruction at the university level is usually the intensive reading course, which implies close study of short passages, including syntactic, semantic, and lexical analyses along with translation to study meaning. A plausible definition of extensive reading as a language learning procedure is that it is reading: (1) of larger quantities of material or longer texts; (2) for general understanding; (3) with the intention of gaining specific experience and acquiring special information from the text. (4) Extensive reading is individualized, with students being offered a choice of texts they would want to read; (5) the texts may or may not be discussed in class.

Text 2-1. PEOPLE ON THE MOVE

(Based on David Graddol’s English Next. Why global English may mean the end of English as a Foreign Language)

More people than ever are on the move. Between 1960 and 2000 the total number of international migrants had doubled to 175 million, representing nearly 3% of the world’s population. Many migrants seek a better life in one of the more developed countries which encourage the immigration of skilled workers to counterbalance their ageing workforce. This is changing the social and linguistic mix of the destination countries.

For example, London is now widely regarded as the most multilingual city in the world – a study in 2000 found that children in London schools spoke over 300 languages.

Historically, the movement of people has been the main reason for language spread. It still has important linguistic consequences today.