Greenstein, Rosalind

Although my report on the place of language in the borderless university is not aimed specifically at academics or language specialists, the issues raised and the recommendations proposed for discussion are based in part on theoretical considerations about language, culture and society, pedagogy and didactics, and human and machine communication. When I sat down to prepare it I began, however, by simply jotting down a number of recommendations that came intuitively to mind.

Foreword

Although this report is not aimed specifically at academics or language specialists, the issues raised in it and the recommendations proposed for discussion are based on theoretical considerations about language, culture and society, pedagogy and didactics, and human and machine communication. For reasons of legibility, many of these more theoretical aspects have been put in appendices or in footnotes rather than in the body of the report. My personal position is that language diversity, for many reasons, is the only acceptable way forward, and I make no apology for that. Others may disagree. Language diversity does not, however, mean that a lingua franca should not or could not also be promoted, where appropriate. The aim of the report is therefore to provoke discussion, debate, disagreement, to provide the opportunity for practitioners and decision-makers to air their different views and hopefully work towards a common ground on which to build policies. References to certain recommendations are made throughout the report: they have been grouped together under various headings at the end.