Hør dog hvad de siger - Note-to-Self: Trials & Errors

On the other hand, if South Americans are not only perceived as poor speakers of English, but
also poor in economical terms, we get that:
It is poor countries that speak Spanish, it is not a significant language [Inf3, 35.39].
In other words, the size of a language is not simply to do with the number of speakers that use
it as a first or second language, it is also to do with the economic potential of the speakers.
I believe that German has an enormous influence here in Europe. In the EU they are, as
they say, the motor, and the German economy… And internationally it is also a big
player. [Inf22, 19.10].
Therefore it is not quite as simple as saying that English is considered the only language
worth learning. Rather, English is the default language; learning other languages requires an
explicated reason in a way English does not. Note, however, that although the informant in
the last excerpt takes his starting point in German (the language), all of his data are in support
of Germany (the country). There is nothing to say that the German economy could not take
English as its working language.
We see thus how the reason for promoting the teaching of ‘international languages’, deals
universally with the (economic) utilitarian use of the languages 57 . However, the utilitarian ra-
tionality that promotes English first and other languages secondly does not apply to the other
categories of languages in a straightforward way. If we want to learn why Danish is evaluated
the way it is, we need to introduce other kinds of arguments and presuppositions into the dis-
cussion. Danish draws upon a completely different ‘rhetorical context’ (Billig 1987) from the
international languages. To assume that they are evaluated in a one-dimensional space (such
as the one a 5-point scale represents) misses out on the more essential and interesting aspects
of the ideological make-up of the informants.
There are three ways to arrive at the promotion of Danish: 1) The maintenance of the
Danish language and the Danish cultural roots, 2) the need for a ‘correct’ use of the national
language, 3) the promotion of general linguistic awareness. We will look at the three in turn.
The ‘cultural discourse’, as it were, draws simultaneously on issues of personal identity and
linguistic diversity, as well as nationalistic blut-und-boden rhetoric.
57 With one or two exceptions to prove the rule, viz. promotion of German to increase pupils' general linguistic
awareness, since there has been a tradition of teaching German with more explicit focus on grammar than has
been the case in teaching English and Danish.
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