Breaking the Language Barrier: Towards
a Multilingual Information Society in Europe
1. Introduction
Through language we communicate at the social level to convey
information and express emotion. The flexibility of language comes
to the fore in diplomatic negotiations and trade talks. Clarity
of language is essential in instruction manuals for installation,
operation and maintenance of appliances in industry or at home.
Scientific and technical research results must be communicated
in comprehensible language.
Language has a profound effect on many aspects of modern society.
Languages play an important
role in fostering the social cohesion of countries or regions.
A significant part of the common cultural heritage of a people
is language-based - for example its poetry and other literature.
Language is the main instrument in making our democracies function,
for instance via open debates and discussions, and freedom of
the press. At the economic level, languages determine markets.
Think of the additional costs of translation for international
trade and of dubbing and sub-titling in the European media industry.
2. Languages in the emerging information society
In the information revolution
which is today heralding the emergence of the information society,
computer-based information and communication technologies (ICTs)
are giving the individual the power of instant worldwide access
to information through a combination of written text, graphic
images and sound. Language will, in some form, be at the core
of the screen-based multimedia communications that are likely
to become an intrinsic part of life both at the workplace and
at home.
As the role of information in
society increases - in business and administration, in research
and education - equal opportunities for everyone to access information
become a key issue. Clearly, languages play an important role
in this respect. Europe's linguistic heritage endows the European
Union with over 40 indigenous languages and major language variants
spoken by its 380 million citizens. The rapidly increasing use
of ICT tends to favour those languages which can easily be handled
by the technologies concerned. However, an information society
based on only a limited number of languages would pose the risk
of developing into a two-tier society (against which the Bangemann
Report pronounced a warning) composed of those who master the
languages concerned in order to participate actively and those
who do not.
For Europe, a dual challenge exists:
to maintain its linguistic and cultural diversity and to ensure
equal opportunities for businesses and citizens alike to participate
fully in and share the benefits of the new information age. These
challenges were clearly recognised by the European summit in Corfu
in June 1994 when the linguistic and cultural aspects of the information
society were stressed. To meet these challenges, it is essential
that the European information society remains multilingual. The
people of the Union, with their different languages, cultures,
history and educational systems, should be able to communicate
with each other and the external world in ways that allow them
to live and work together in an effective, productive, tolerant,
democratic and cohesive way in their common European "home".
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