Posts tagged ‘Rosemary Salomone’

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April 25, 2016

Salomone Presents at UN Symposium on Language and Sustainable Goals

On April 21st, Professor Rosemary Salomone presented a paper on “Educational Equity,

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Rosemary Salomone

Sustainable Development Goals, and the Commodification of English in the Global Economy” at the Symposium on Language and Sustainable Goals sponsored by the Study Group on Language at the United Nations in cooperation with the Centre for Research and the Documentation on World Language Problems. The abstract of the presentation is as follows:

As English increasingly becomes the dominant lingua franca worldwide, it presents opportunities, challenges, and threats to primary and secondary education. Now widely used among non-native speakers who share neither a common language nor culture, English is no longer a language for ethnic or national identification as languages are conventionally considered. It is an economic skill, a marketable commodity, and a form of cultural capital. At the same time, neo-liberal approaches focusing on competition, efficiency, and accountability have likewise promoted the marketability of education itself. This paper examines the confluence of these forces as they relate to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals on “quality education” (4), “decent work and economic growth” (8), and “reduced inequalities” (10).  It maintains that the interplay between language and education is key to the success of development efforts to eradicate economic and social inequalities especially in emerging economies. To support that proposition, it focuses on select countries in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, all struggling with the implications of the “rise of English” for language policies in schooling. In the end, it concludes that both inequitable access to quality instruction in English and the widespread provision of primary education in a language that children do not understand are together denying equal rights to educational opportunity to millions of children while overlooking the value of indigenous languages as vehicles for building regional and rural economies.

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March 14, 2016

Salomone on the Rise of Global English

Professor Rosemary Salomone has posted her essay, The Rise of Global English, Challenges for

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Rosemary Salomone

English-Medium Instruction and Language Rights. Here is the abstract:

This essay examines the spread of English as the dominant lingua franca world- wide, its educational impact on language rights, and the underlying tension between globalization and national identity. Focused on Western Europe, but with broader implications, it draws on overlapping controversies in May 2013 in France and Italy over the use of English as the medium of university instruction. It uses the public debates surrounding these events to critically explore the legal, cultural and pedagogical issues endemic to English medium instruction, but also to address deeper tensions between globalization and linguistic diversity within Europe. In doing so, it further considers the implications of global English for the rights of linguistic minority children and for European policies promoting multilingualism or “mother tongue plus two” in the interests of European integration and job mobility. Though recognizing the utility of English as a common vehicle for global communication, the paper concludes that the “rise of global English” is not a zero-sum game, but rather demands measured strategies that reasonably balance the competing interests at stake and maintain a sense of proportionality.

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October 13, 2015

Salomone Gives Talk on Multilingual Graduate Education in Angers, France

On October 9th, Professor Rosemary Salomone gave a presentation on “Rights and Responsibilities in the Debate over

Rosemary Salomone

Rosemary Salomone

English as ‘Lingua Academia'” at a conference on Le Plurilinguisme, le Plurculturalisme et l’Anglais dans la Mondialisation at the Universite Catholique de l’Ouest in Angers, France. Her presentation focused on litigation now pending before the Constitutional Court in Italy challenging a plan adopted by Milan’s prestigious Polytechnic University to offer all graduate courses in English. The case raises questions of professors’ right to teach, students’ right to learn, academic governance, and the primacy of the Italian language as a matter of constitutional law.

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July 19, 2014

Salomone Speaks at International Political Science Association World Congress

Rosemary Salomone

Rosemary Salomone

Professor Rosemary Salomone will speak on Monday, July 21st at the International Political Science Association 23rd World Congress in Montreal. The topic of her paper is “Making New Citizens: Transatlantic Perspectives on Language, Belonging and Immigrant Schooling.” The following is a summary:

Policies on language and schooling in the United States and Western Europe reveal a decided concern for preserving social cohesion in the face of mounting immigration and cultural and religious diversity. This paper examines how that concern finds expression in contrasting discourses on linguistic pluralism and multiculturalism, how the apparent disconnect between the political rhetoric and reality affects the lives of immigrant students, how the distinct ways in which Europeans and Americans talk about language and immigration influence public attitudes and define the range of language policy options, and how the debate over the role of language in the schools, in one way or another, seems to ignore the impact of globalization and transnationalism and the connection among language, belonging, and citizenship. The discussion begins with the United States where the argument for maintaining immigrant languages, predominantly Spanish, in the schools holds diminishing support despite an unofficial “multiculturalism lite” as a heralded aspect of American identity. By way of contrast, it examines the challenges faced by Western European nations under competing pressures of global English for productivity and supranational directives on multilingualism for European integration and job mobility, while at the same time officially rejecting a presumably “thicker” form of multiculturalism as a politically destabilizing force.

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