The Syllabus of the Lecture Course “Linguistic Situation and Language Policy in European Countries”

Abstract

The syllabus of the discipline “Language situation and language policy in European countries” is an interdisciplinary review of key issues related to the problems of language policy in European countries and the current language situation in Europe. Classical methodological approaches to the study of these categories (sociolinguistic, legislative, institutional, medial, language teaching, etc.) as well as new ones (discursive, politically correct, pluricentric, economic, etc.) are analyzed. In addition, the course focuses on the specificity of language policy in some European countries, considering the variety of pluricentric European languages (e.g. the German language and German-speaking countries). The content of the program includes materials on the following topics: relationship between language and the state, language and society, language and power, definitions and typologies of language situations and language policies, language planning, language regime, minority languages, language rights, language contacts and conflicts. The course analyzes in detail the practices of language policies in European countries in various socio-discursive areas: legal regulation, language education, science, economics, media, applied terminology and others. The influence of the theory of political correctness on the development of language policies of European states is also discussed. The program is based on the author’s experience of lecturing at the Department of Linguistics and Intercultural Communication and the Translation Department of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Area Studies at Lomonosov Moscow State University.

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