What does Brexit have to do with language learning – if anything? Ursula Lanvers (University of York) analysed the claim that Britons’ reluctance to learn foreign languages is fundamentally xenophobic, and found no evidence for it. Rather, people thinking ‘English is enough’ is a more likely explanation for our poor language learning record. Journalism that talks down Britons’ capacity for language learning can be harmful, she argues.
Like all linguists I know, my immediate reaction to the Brexit referendum was a mixture of outrage and despondency. Once semi-emerged (never fully) from this, I was struck by one observation in particular: newspapers and online media had started to speculate that language learning would further decline in a post-Brexit UK. Some argued that our unwillingness to learn languages, and Leave voting, all came from the same ideological corner – that of xenophobia. Others still claim that now we finally have a reason to learn languages: post-Brexit, we can’t rely on our trading partners being super-proficient in English, right?
Is there any evidence for these claims? What links – if any – between Brexit and language learning can we make? Is the way these discussions could be helpful in addressing the UK language learning crisis?
Hannah Doughty, Amy Thompson and I set out to address these questions, looking at the public discussion in the immediate aftermath of the referendum (June-November 2016). The UK language crisis does not just mean that we don’t learn enough languages, and not well enough: the fewer and fewer who do come from increasingly privileged backgrounds (Coffey 2016; Lanvers 2017a&b). UK language competencies demonstrably fall well behind those of our European neighbours, but how do we account for this? If our unwillingness to learn languages is indeed linked to some form of Euroscepticism and/or xenophobia, why do we not see a similar ‘language-phobia’ in the other corners of Europe where Euroscepticism and xenophobia also abound? The global dominance of English, making us too lazy to learn other languages, is an alternative explanation.
Across the UK, we could find no links between the referendum vote outcome and any language learning data (e.g. language learning policies), and even the most inward-looking European countries (lacking ‘international openness’, see Eurobarometer 2012) had better language competencies than the UK. Conversely, all Anglophone countries currently suffer similar language learning crises similar to the UK’s (Lanvers 2017b); moreover, our poor learning outcomes, compared to other European countries, can be explained by systemic educational differences: fewer language lessons, and less demanding curricula. In a word, the ‘English is enough’ explanation is underpinned by evidence, the xenophobia/Europhobia argument is not. How is this expressed in public discourse?
Discourse analysis of public debates on Brexit and language learning
We used critical discourse analysis to analyse 33 public texts (online and in journalistic publications) on Brexit and language learning that appeared immediately after the referendum results. Most were written by academics, some by journalists, politicians, and commercial language learning providers. We found that some texts ‘essentialise’ the British as inherently incapable of learning languages, with an accusatory undertone. Such texts also linked Brexit-voting/Europhobia generally to unwillingness to learn languages, despite little evidence to underpin this link. Such texts harbour the danger of further discouraging those already demotivated to learn any languages. Pupils from less advantaged backgrounds are very much underrepresented in language study at GCSE, A-level, and university, and such texts might further undermine learner confidence in learners from such backgrounds.
A smaller amount of texts took a positive, can-do stance, seeing Brexit as an opportunity to rejuvenate language learning, and perhaps learn different sets of languages. Commercial providers, but also some journalists, emphasise the heightened need for languages post-Brexit, as well as novel, accessible and practical ways to acquire language skills. Finally, politicians also refrained from blaming the British for their lack of language learning, but make very clear political demands to safeguard learning opportunities post-Brexit, such as in school exchanges with Europe.
Why does it matter how we talk about language learning? It matters very much how we frame (lack of) opportunities for language learning post- Brexit, as new evidence shows that pupils’ already poor motivation to learn languages has already declined further since the referendum. This decline was more noticeable in schools with pupils from predominantly less advantaged backgrounds. Thus, texts which ‘essentialise’ the British as poor linguists not only rely on intangible links between Brexit votes and attitudes to language learning, but risk reinforcing the social divide in language learning. ‘Opportunistic texts’, by contrast, could offer a much-needed confidence boost in language learning.
Finally, this study is based on 33 texts only, all of which emerged within six months of the referendum. The findings thus represent a snapshot of the public thinking on the issue at that time.
This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Brexit blog, nor the LSE. It is based on Lanvers, U., Doughty, H., & Thompson, A. S. (2018). Brexit as Linguistic Symptom of Britain Retreating into its Shell? Brexit‐Induced Politicization of Language Learning. The Modern Language Journal, 102(4), 775-796.
References
Coffey, S. (2016). Choosing to Study Modern Foreign Languages: Discourses of Value as Forms of Cultural Capital. Applied Linguistics, amw019. DOI: 10.1093/applin/amw019.
Lanvers, U. (2017a) Elitism in language learning in the UK. In (eds D. Rivers & K. Kotzmann) Isms in language education. Berlin: De Gruyter (pp. 50–73).
Lanvers, U. (2017b) Contradictory Others and the Habitus of Languages: Surveying the L2 Motivation Landscape in the United Kingdom. The Modern Language Journal 101(3), 517–532.
Ursula Lanvers is a lecturer and Programme Leader for the PhD Programme in Applied Linguistics at the University of York.
After having lived in Paris for 19 years(1987-2006) i can assure you, that fluent english/ french i could count on one hand in the professional field (hi tech) and the general public in a miraculous best case scenario would be a shaky pidgin english.
English is mandatory for years yet so few have any competence in it, it’s fudged.
One example i experienced was a interview for a ‘ redacteur/ documentaliste’ job in paris. I was given a test in english, that was difficult and had every possible trick of the language, i had to correct it. At the end, i was corrected by a man who indeed pointed out some slight mistakes, or ways my work could have been better.
I duly acknowledged this, and asked what job he did prior .
” je ete professeur de anglais pendant 30 ans” -” wow ” i exclaimed, ” well im certain you could teach me a thing or two” and i carried on my banter for a couple of minutes in english.
His eyes were wide, and he was staring at me.
– i then realised, that he couldn’t understand what i was saying !
-though he had been a government paid english teacher for 30 years!
My accent is home counties, so no excuse.
The french fudge it, and even those who claim to be ” bilingual english” are far from it, its all bluff.
@Jason: my impression is that the French are proud of their language and expect foreigners in France to speak it. Here in Germany it is quite different and if you try going shopping with an English accent you can expect the shop assistants and sometimes even the homeless people on the street to talk English with you. Teenagers sing their favorite English pop songs with almost perfect pronunciation and if you are applying for a job your Lebenslauf (CV) should better say that you are good at English if you want an interview.
Amazing, even the photo still relates t the war! As if there is no other foreign language manual available…
And to compound, taking US manual. UK infuation with that period is running deep.
I was using irony. I took the photo. Ros, co-editor, LSE Brexit
And if you’re interested, it belonged to my grandfather, who went on to work at the UN.
@Ros, thanks for the photo. I wonder why the army chose to give a phrase-book a “restricted” classification. Were they worried some Russian spy who knew German would use the phrasebook in reverse to steal US secrets? I hope MI5 don’t arrest you for putting the cover on the Internet!
It contains some interesting phrases!
“The global dominance of English, making us too lazy to learn other languages, is an alternative explanation.”
This is a pretty dumb comment. You have failed to recognise the most obvious point. The reason why we are less likely to learn foreign languages is the ‘One-to-many’; Many-to-one’ conundrum.
If a Greek person learns English that helps him to speak to British people but also to French, Belgians, and Germans who have learnt English. If we learn Greek then it helps us to communicate to Greeks but not to French, Belgians or Germans.
Incidentally, this is part of the problem with Free Movement. The principle is that there is a balanced flow between countries. In practice because most Europeans learn English as a second language rather than any other language, then we get an unbalanced flow. If a Greek has learnt English at school would he or she prefer to work in the UK or in Italy? The risk is that we get unbalanced flow until such point as life in the UK becomes so unbearable that nobody would choose to live here.
There is a lot of sneering about English exceptionalism. With regards to language, we are exceptional, unfortunately the other members of the EU have no interest in the consequences of this.
Language is more important than many people realise, from my my perspective. English is my second language, and I’ve never found it expedient to learn a third, which is laziness, but native English speakers can do a lot more with their language than they do do. The vocabulary is vast and varied. Accents are a never-ending source of fascinating means to train the brain and to better understand other people’s perspectives.
Politically, economically, etc.,etc., to gain an ever greater understanding of how people communicate is, in a country purporting to be a democracy, very important. Language is a multifaceted political tool. In New Zealand, for instance, the People’s Republic of China’s Communist Party, has, for years, been pushing for Caucasian Kiwis to learn Mandarin. You wonder why. Beijing subsidises, or perhaps more properly said, organises Buddhist religion here with the building of Buddhist Temples. Much like US American culture flooded Western Europe after WWII, language is one of the main drivers in political, cultural, financial-economic expansion into countries and regions which are open to be so taken over. For some, to say “taken over” would be too strong a notion of what is happening. Of course, peoples, nations and regions are pushing back, but with money being the be all and end all in politics, especially geo-politics in those places where a-symetrical resistance to being taken over is not effective, or effective enough, money takes all where language made a, relatively, peaceful inroads. The French are overly defensive, however. An effective defense system includes being able to understand how your enemy operates and being able to deal with that. English is the language of the free world. That’s why Brexit will never go away as an issue until the EU project is brought to collapse, mostly by failing from within. Stasis is deadly. English is a living language and a world language. It has been remarked in Belgium that the differences between the Wallies and the Vlamings may be solved if all of Belgium were to adopt English as a first language, and, I think, that is a splendid idea. In order to survive as a sub-national grouping, three languages should be regarded as a minimum for the young to learn as a norm; the local or regional language or dialect, English and the national language. Some dialects are artificially kept alive. Westfriesian, the dialect in West-Friesland, not the west of Friesland province, is starting to sound like a parody almost. For historical purposes and as a hobby such dialects are worthwhile keeping alive, but it’s nothing like speaking it naturally every day. English, I have nominated as the language of the angels.
“Conversely, all Anglophone countries currently suffer similar language learning crises similar to the UK’s…”
Except in English Canada, where learning French is mandatory in schools.