The Linguist

@CIOL_Linguists SPRING 2023 The Linguist 31 INSTITUTE MATTERS Language policy, as [CIOL Vice-President] Baroness Coussins says, is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. You can find a language strand in almost any public policy issue, but there's not a Ministry for Languages! So it's always a question of finding where the language element is – and it will be somewhere – and asking: Is it being taken account of? The answer is usually no or not enough. So that means finding out where responsibility lies and drawing attention to it. I think the APPG has done well at that. It has often managed to pick out an issue and show why it needs to be addressed. I've been lucky enough to do individual projects for the British Council – many of them school-focused, such as competitions and resource packs. I also organised the 12th Language and Development Conference in Senegal a few years ago. It was a whole new paradigm for me. For example, the importance of mother-tongue education and how you deal with official language policy for equity in hugely multilingual societies. The book I edited following this, Language and the Sustainable Development Goals, is free to download (cutt.ly/English4Ed). Fantastic! Now, something you've been working on, which is a significant step forward, is the UK-wide portal for all things languages. Where did the drive come from to make that happen? It was crystallized in the document 'Towards a National Language Strategy', which was led by the British Academy. It's worth looking at other people, other cultures and other places. And sometimes when you connect with other people, cultures and places you'll find yourself in a surprising situation. But hopefully, as a linguist, you've been exposed to dealing with surprise and difference, so you have a better chance of seeing the funny side. That's definitely happened to me. Lots of times! So my last (and favourite) question is, if you had to persuade a young person, or somebody else, to engage with languages, what would you say? For me, it's that it really does open up the world. Not necessarily in a literal way of 'You can speak French, so you can go to France'. It's more a question of mindset. I've been freelance for over 10 years now and in many jobs I haven't used my languages as such. But because I have been abroad and worked with international teams I am adaptable, and tend not to get too fazed by different ways of doing things. In fact, I enjoy that! So for anyone who's curious about the world it can only be a great thing to have languages. this document to get a sense of this positive national vision for languages. We have it at www.ciol.org.uk/towards -national-languages-strategy For a while now there have been several actors getting more strategic about supporting languages in the UK – CIOL being one of them. The challenge is organising these efforts. The Languages Gateway is a key part of that (www.thelanguagesgateway.uk). The idea is to get everything in one place – a one- stop shop for people to explore and then be redirected to those organisations and experts. My hope is that the platform gets all the main stakeholders to collaborate even more and think collectively: How can we present ourselves? How can we cooperate? Maybe notice there's a gap in provision somewhere and ask, can we fill that? We've seen some of those conversations happening already. You'll remember, John, that we looked into how STEM subjects have organised themselves over the last 20 years. They went through that process of working collaboratively and developing common messages and actions, even though they cover vastly different subjects – and it's been really successful for them. So I feel this is an important first step to get that kind of process coming together for languages. Have you had any funny or moving moments that language has unlocked? I could probably think of some funny ones… Language is, by definition, a connector – with A GLOBAL MINDSET (Clockwise from top left): Philip as a child visiting family in France; in Paris preparing to go freelance in 2009; in Dakar 2017 with the organisers of the 12th Langugage and Development Conference; in Bangkok for the 13th conference; and in Gabon for a British Council 'English Connects' project in 2018

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