In the summer away, the smell of barbecues too. But who knows that the word barbecue, derived from the word barbaque, we would come from an Amerindian language of Haiti through the Anglo-American to describe the device for smoking meat and the meat itself? That is to say the words flow like birds or bees, and that this movement that enriches the languages ??and cultures while throwing bridges between them, are an essential part of the global linguistic ecology. Accept the words of another is a way of accepting the other. The other fundamental element of the linguistic ecology, it is simply internal creativity of language which, as a view of the world continues to evolve with the vision that in a. But that’s another story. Stop inventing new words is a harbinger of a coming decline.
In his famous book The Adventure of French words from elsewhere (1997), Henriette Walter provides hundreds of examples of this linguistic ecology, and it is interesting to note that loans are not always sustainable and sometimes follow the effects fashion. She cited the many examples of French words of English origin, however, recent but now out of fashion such as, fashionable, surprise party, babies, kids, drink, ice-cream, milk bar, smart …
Many others will have only limited penetration and are more in the professional jargon.
But if the loans are only linguistic expression of a kind of language market, in the words of Louis-Jean Calvet where we exchanged good words like good ideas with a sort of natural attraction, the reality is sometimes brutal. To stick to the modern era include the exempledu Cambodia: if no one speaks neither French in Cambodia only study is that 1.7 milllion of Cambodia, whose population is the most cultivated, have been exterminated by the Khmer Rouge between 1976 and 1978 during the war against Vietnam. And if French is progressing in Anglophone Africa while English rose in Francophone Africa, is that the two parts of Africa communicate with each other besides the major African languages ??spoken in a transnational and are some of the lingua franca. Similarly, if French is growing in China, far behind the English, because China is interested in Europe, but also much to the French-speaking Africa . If the Chinese are anxious to promote the Chinese language, thanks to the accelerated development of Confucius Institutes around the world, the Chinese language is not for them the best way to be exported or to conquer markets. The FLL is an infinitely safer.
The term soft power proposed in 1990 by Joseph Nye means there is a new concept or is it a reinterpretation of a reality of all time? Briefly defined as the expression of a strategy of influence without the use of force, the princes did not wait for scholarly elaborations of the human sciences to practice soft power. Without going back to antiquity, and the Versailles of Louis XIV, almost out of history teaching in France, is a brilliant illustration.
However, if there is in modern times a new element in the use by the political power of soft power is precisely the conscious use of language as part of a strategy of influence. Until recently, the development of the language were more likely to follow the conquest. The missionaries and teachers took more soldiers. Today the soft power can be used alone – after all, all the cultural institutions of all countries of the world, how they are expressions of soft power – or it is combined with diplomatic and actions of forces.
Since the Second World War, the U.S. has increased to a very high level of development to handle the power and soft power with the key tools of promotion such as the American model, film and language.
But the world changes.
American soft power is permanently weakened today by three factors. The first is the military and cultural disaster has represented the adventurous equipped for the invasion of Iraq. The second is the global crisis that has more qu’ébranlé absolutism markets, dominant ideology of the past thirty years. The third is the emergence of a multipolar world.
In Iraq in Translation or The art of losing a war without knowing the language of his opponent, Mathieu Guidere showed the weakness had been the ignorance of the Arabic language by the troops and services for U.S. military operations in Iraq .
The Americans would they be about to come out of their linguistic and cultural isolationism? Some signs lend it to think.
August 23, 2500 before an assembly of soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines, Leon E. Panetta, U.S. Secretary of State for Defence, and made a key discovery: “We live in a global world, ‘he said. “We Have To Understand That world … if we are going to Be Able to not only defends this country, aim to extend our Relationships to Others so That We Can Work Together to Defend the world That we live in.”
“The Reality Is That We Have to Reflect the nation we live in and We Have to Reflect the world we are apart of, ‘he continued. “Languages ??are the key to understanding That world.”
Also it’s critical, He Said, to the Effectiveness of current US military operations.
“If we are going to advance Stability In Some Countries of the fighting we are in today, We Have to Be Able to Understand What Motivates Those Countries, What Motivates Their people, and to Understand Their Culture, Beliefs, faiths, ideologies, and hatreds loves. “So It Is crucial to our national security to Be Able to Have a strong language ability”.
Sign of the times during the summer school of the Movement of companies of France (MEDEF), Radio BFM, Fabrice Marchisio, a business lawyer in the office CVML, reported that the meetings in Japan with their Japanese counterparts are held in Japanese.
Another sign of the times: a lingua franca, known as the portugnol, a mixture of Spanish and Portuguese appeared over the last ten years in Latin America
And what about Europe? We must get back to some fundamentals.
First, we must emphasize that the rule of the EU institutions, multilingualism is. Whether the European Parliament, the Council of Ministers, the Economic and Social Committee and Committee of the Regions, Council Regulation 58/01, founder of the languages ??of the European Union applies, the institutional rule is multilingualism, that is to say, the respect for official languages ??of member states. Despite the many breaches which OEP has never private to state, it should be noted that the principle of multilingualism is applicable and must be forcefully reasserted.
Side of the Council of Europe, which has always played a pioneering role in this area, we must remember the European Cultural Convention of 19 December 1954 , which has set the goal of developing mutual understanding between the peoples of Europe and reciprocal appreciation of their cultural diversity, to safeguard European culture, to promote national contributions to the common cultural heritage of Europe and in this respect the same fundamental values ??by encouraging, in particular, the study of languages, history and civilization of the European peoples.
We should also remember the important recommendations adopted by the Committee of Ministers of March 17, 1998 , which called for the development of a policy of multilingualism on a large scale, particularly in the field of education and to identify ways to achieve . This recommendation states had a real political program for the promotion of multilingualism which the news is intact but requires political will of national governments. The road will be long, but do not despair.
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Soft power et plurilinguisme europ?en