In #MyEurope we don’t have to be dragged closer to the #EU – we are the union
In #MyEurope the right issues are solved at the right level - #EU or national
In #MyEurope #EU citizens have full political rights
In #MyEurope #EuropeDay is an #EU wide public holiday
#MyEurope acts as one #EU internationally
In #MyEurope we defend our currency and territory together
In #MyEurope we have the most modern Bill of Rights (Charter) plus empowerment of #EU citizens
In #MyEurope the internal market becomes a reality
In #MyEurope netizens’ rights are respected
In #MyEurope net censorship proposals are thrown on the scrap heap
In #MyEurope language rights are protected, multilingualism is promoted and everyone learns #English
Ralf Grahn
Showing posts with label multilingualism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label multilingualism. Show all posts
Sunday, 9 May 2010
Friday, 7 May 2010
My Europe Week: Dumbing down films by dubbing
In the previous Grahnlaw blog post My Europe Week: Why language rights and multilingualism?, we found good reasons for both linguistic rights for EU citizens and for learning foreign languages (multilingualism).
The EU’s language policy has commendable aims: It promotes multilingualism and aims for a situation in which every EU citizen can speak at least two foreign languages in addition to their mother tongue.
The policy documents and resolutions on language learning are heavily weighted towards curricula and mobility programmes for students and teachers.
Excellent, but life is larger than school. Informal language learning is mentioned almost in passing.
The spectre of dubbing is haunting Europe
“The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away”. Should we bless our temporal lords?
It is all very well to adopt resolutions on language learning. But to miss out on the zillions of hours spent in front of television sets or watching films?
Within the European Union, in the French, German, Spanish and Italian speaking markets films and television soundtracks are generally dubbed. Instead of the original soundtrack watchers hear local actors.
Dubbing makes for effortless viewing, but for an unaccustomed outsider the experience is often hilarious, even surreal. More seriously, dumbing down film and TV soundtracks is a wasted opportunity of enormous proportions.
See the Wikipedia article Dubbing (filmmaking) for a sad map of (Continental) Europe.
What is the use of European quotas, if the viewers are left in their comfort zone, instead of being offered pleasurable challenges and wider views?
How can we build European public spheres, if a majority of EU citizens escape daily contact with other European languages?
In general, the Dutch and the Nordics are perceived to have better language skills than other Europeans. How much is this explained by original soundtracks and subtitles, even for those who lack higher formal education?
In principle, the United Kingdom seems to offer original soundtracks. However, the Brits are not generally famed for speaking foreign languages. We have seen reports about the further decline of formal language learning. How much does the absence of dubbing depend on programmes being almost exclusively in English, anyway (UK & US)?
Is Europe a continent of missed opportunities for mutual understanding?
My Europe Week
The emerging European public sphere offers us contemporary opportunities for cross-border communication about our common future and our shared concerns. Bloggingportal.eu and My Europe Week are but two small examples of a growing trend towards common understanding.
Europe Day 9 May 2010 is worth a Mass for a better future.
Ralf Grahn
The EU’s language policy has commendable aims: It promotes multilingualism and aims for a situation in which every EU citizen can speak at least two foreign languages in addition to their mother tongue.
The policy documents and resolutions on language learning are heavily weighted towards curricula and mobility programmes for students and teachers.
Excellent, but life is larger than school. Informal language learning is mentioned almost in passing.
The spectre of dubbing is haunting Europe
“The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away”. Should we bless our temporal lords?
It is all very well to adopt resolutions on language learning. But to miss out on the zillions of hours spent in front of television sets or watching films?
Within the European Union, in the French, German, Spanish and Italian speaking markets films and television soundtracks are generally dubbed. Instead of the original soundtrack watchers hear local actors.
Dubbing makes for effortless viewing, but for an unaccustomed outsider the experience is often hilarious, even surreal. More seriously, dumbing down film and TV soundtracks is a wasted opportunity of enormous proportions.
See the Wikipedia article Dubbing (filmmaking) for a sad map of (Continental) Europe.
What is the use of European quotas, if the viewers are left in their comfort zone, instead of being offered pleasurable challenges and wider views?
How can we build European public spheres, if a majority of EU citizens escape daily contact with other European languages?
In general, the Dutch and the Nordics are perceived to have better language skills than other Europeans. How much is this explained by original soundtracks and subtitles, even for those who lack higher formal education?
In principle, the United Kingdom seems to offer original soundtracks. However, the Brits are not generally famed for speaking foreign languages. We have seen reports about the further decline of formal language learning. How much does the absence of dubbing depend on programmes being almost exclusively in English, anyway (UK & US)?
Is Europe a continent of missed opportunities for mutual understanding?
My Europe Week
The emerging European public sphere offers us contemporary opportunities for cross-border communication about our common future and our shared concerns. Bloggingportal.eu and My Europe Week are but two small examples of a growing trend towards common understanding.
Europe Day 9 May 2010 is worth a Mass for a better future.
Ralf Grahn
Thursday, 6 May 2010
My Europe Week: Why language rights and multilingualism?
If you are an English nationalist, you might want the United Kingdom to withdraw from the European Union, but the EU to cut administrative waste by adopting English as its sole language.
If your first wish came true, after UK secession English would be formally supported by the membership of Ireland, where Irish is officially the first language (although English dominates in practice), and Malta, where Maltese is the national language, but English is one of the two official languages.
Even today, English is not the most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union; German is, by a clear margin. As a percentage of the EU population, English and Italian share second position, followed by French just a percentage point behind.
Spanish and Polish share the next step downwards, with Dutch a level below.
For an overview, I recommend that you read the Wikipedia article Languages of the European Union.
What makes English special among the 23 official EU languages is the ability of 51 per cent of the population to speak it (to a degree).
Linguistic diversity
According to the Lisbon Treaty, the European Union has an obligation to respect its rich cultural and linguistic diversity (Article 3 TEU).
There is an EU Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth, Androulla Vassiliou (despite Wikipedia’s failure to update).
The EU’s language policy promotes multilingualism and aims for a situation in which every EU citizen can speak at least two foreign languages in addition to their mother tongue.
Comments
In my view, the European Union exists in order to serve its citizens, not the other way around.
Legal acts, legislative proposals, policy proposals and important media communications have to be translated into the official languages of the union.
We must have the right to know the law of the union, which binds us directly or indirectly, and we have to have possibilities to participate in the democratic life of the EU.
As EU citizens, we have the right to address the institutions in any of the treaty languages and to obtain a reply in the same language (Article 20 TFEU).
Despite the manpower and cost, interpretation and translation are necessities, not targets for cost-cutting.
The positive multilingualism agenda goes further. If we learn foreign languages, we can exercise our freedom to move and to reside more freely, or just land a better job without leaving our home turf.
In a Europe where national identities have been constructed, monuments erected, (school) history books written and political careers established on the basis of “glorious” slaughter of the maximal number of neighbours, there is a categorical imperative for a deeper understanding of their experiences and cultures, beyond the practical benefits of language learning.
The emerging European public sphere offers us contemporary opportunities for cross-border communication about our common future and our shared concerns. Bloggingportal.eu and My Europe Week are but two small examples of a growing trend towards common understanding.
Europe Day 9 May 2010 is worth a Mass for a better future.
Ralf Grahn
Update 6 May about 13:30 EET: There are now 41 posts on Bloggingportal.eu's web page dedicated to #MyEurope Week.
If your first wish came true, after UK secession English would be formally supported by the membership of Ireland, where Irish is officially the first language (although English dominates in practice), and Malta, where Maltese is the national language, but English is one of the two official languages.
Even today, English is not the most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union; German is, by a clear margin. As a percentage of the EU population, English and Italian share second position, followed by French just a percentage point behind.
Spanish and Polish share the next step downwards, with Dutch a level below.
For an overview, I recommend that you read the Wikipedia article Languages of the European Union.
What makes English special among the 23 official EU languages is the ability of 51 per cent of the population to speak it (to a degree).
Linguistic diversity
According to the Lisbon Treaty, the European Union has an obligation to respect its rich cultural and linguistic diversity (Article 3 TEU).
There is an EU Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth, Androulla Vassiliou (despite Wikipedia’s failure to update).
The EU’s language policy promotes multilingualism and aims for a situation in which every EU citizen can speak at least two foreign languages in addition to their mother tongue.
Comments
In my view, the European Union exists in order to serve its citizens, not the other way around.
Legal acts, legislative proposals, policy proposals and important media communications have to be translated into the official languages of the union.
We must have the right to know the law of the union, which binds us directly or indirectly, and we have to have possibilities to participate in the democratic life of the EU.
As EU citizens, we have the right to address the institutions in any of the treaty languages and to obtain a reply in the same language (Article 20 TFEU).
Despite the manpower and cost, interpretation and translation are necessities, not targets for cost-cutting.
The positive multilingualism agenda goes further. If we learn foreign languages, we can exercise our freedom to move and to reside more freely, or just land a better job without leaving our home turf.
In a Europe where national identities have been constructed, monuments erected, (school) history books written and political careers established on the basis of “glorious” slaughter of the maximal number of neighbours, there is a categorical imperative for a deeper understanding of their experiences and cultures, beyond the practical benefits of language learning.
The emerging European public sphere offers us contemporary opportunities for cross-border communication about our common future and our shared concerns. Bloggingportal.eu and My Europe Week are but two small examples of a growing trend towards common understanding.
Europe Day 9 May 2010 is worth a Mass for a better future.
Ralf Grahn
Update 6 May about 13:30 EET: There are now 41 posts on Bloggingportal.eu's web page dedicated to #MyEurope Week.
Sunday, 20 September 2009
And the next EU Commissioner for multilingualism is …
When Bulgaria and Romania became members of the European Union on 1 January 2007 – well into the term of the first Barroso Commission – Meglena Kuneva from Bulgaria became Commissioner for consumer protection and the Romanian Leonard Orban was made the first Commissioner for multilingualism.
Consumer protection is potentially important for 500 million consumers in the European Union and the European Economic Area, but from an administrative point of view this field can only try to influence internal market legislation, not shape it. Supporting, supplementing and monitoring activities offer the Commissioner a modicum of visibility.
Through no fault of Orban, the Commission post for multilingualism became a byword for the “bloated” Commission the current Nice Treaty and the amending Lisbon Treaty wanted to trim in a union with 27 member states (and potentially more).
The word “multilingualism” does not appear in the existing treaties, although languages are important for the European Union and its citizens: treaty languages, official languages, working languages, translation, interpretation, publishing, cross-border communication, language teaching, language learning, business opportunities…
***
According to merit
In the Czech Republic, President Vaclav Klaus has opposed the will of the Parliament by refusing to sign the ratification instrument of the Lisbon Treaty, and a supporting fringe of supporters among the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) – defeated in the democratic arena after a protracted circus - have promised to delay ratification by a new legal challenge against the amending treaty, once cleared by the Constitutional Court.
They do not expect to win their legal challenge, just to sabotage the ratification process.
The Czech situation is partly an internal constitutional mess, but it has implications for the rest of Europe.
The European Union is structurally about as robust as a house of cards – founded on multiple unanimity requirements. In order to function even tolerably, the EU needs a high degree of cooperation between the member states.
Destructive behaviour should not go unnoticed. Countries should be judged on their merits.
If the Czech constitutional system is unable to sort out the ratification issue without delay, the Czech Commissioner should be awarded the multilingualism portfolio 2009 (if there is going to be a Czech Commissioner).
Ralf Grahn
P.S. Even if the supporters of ex-leader Vaclav Klaus are a fringe group within the ODS, the Civic Democrats in the European Parliament as a whole have joined the new anti-European political group the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), together with the UK Conservative Party of David Cameron and William Hague and the Polish Law and Justice Party (PiS) of the Kaczynski twins.
Consumer protection is potentially important for 500 million consumers in the European Union and the European Economic Area, but from an administrative point of view this field can only try to influence internal market legislation, not shape it. Supporting, supplementing and monitoring activities offer the Commissioner a modicum of visibility.
Through no fault of Orban, the Commission post for multilingualism became a byword for the “bloated” Commission the current Nice Treaty and the amending Lisbon Treaty wanted to trim in a union with 27 member states (and potentially more).
The word “multilingualism” does not appear in the existing treaties, although languages are important for the European Union and its citizens: treaty languages, official languages, working languages, translation, interpretation, publishing, cross-border communication, language teaching, language learning, business opportunities…
***
According to merit
In the Czech Republic, President Vaclav Klaus has opposed the will of the Parliament by refusing to sign the ratification instrument of the Lisbon Treaty, and a supporting fringe of supporters among the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) – defeated in the democratic arena after a protracted circus - have promised to delay ratification by a new legal challenge against the amending treaty, once cleared by the Constitutional Court.
They do not expect to win their legal challenge, just to sabotage the ratification process.
The Czech situation is partly an internal constitutional mess, but it has implications for the rest of Europe.
The European Union is structurally about as robust as a house of cards – founded on multiple unanimity requirements. In order to function even tolerably, the EU needs a high degree of cooperation between the member states.
Destructive behaviour should not go unnoticed. Countries should be judged on their merits.
If the Czech constitutional system is unable to sort out the ratification issue without delay, the Czech Commissioner should be awarded the multilingualism portfolio 2009 (if there is going to be a Czech Commissioner).
Ralf Grahn
P.S. Even if the supporters of ex-leader Vaclav Klaus are a fringe group within the ODS, the Civic Democrats in the European Parliament as a whole have joined the new anti-European political group the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), together with the UK Conservative Party of David Cameron and William Hague and the Polish Law and Justice Party (PiS) of the Kaczynski twins.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Subscribe To Grahnlaw
Posts
All Comments
