18 The Linguist Vol/56 No/6 2017
www.ciol.org.uk
FEATURES
It was a busy period for language-related news. How much
January
A study from Sussex finds that a
lack of language provision for
refugees in the UK is blocking
integration. Service providers claim
funding cuts have led to three-year
waiting lists for English classes,
following the Casey Report's
recommendation that migrants
should learn English on arrival.
The White House takes down
the Spanish version of its website.
That was the year
March
The Unite union calls on the
British government to investigate
how interpreting contracts are
awarded, and whether a "race to
the bottom" in outsourcing is
affecting patients, after one of 14
NHS providers goes bust, leading
to cancelled appointments.
It is revealed that our
ancestors had spoken-language
skills 25 million years ago.
July
Language GCSE entries in
England and Wales fall by 7.3%:
10% in French, 13.2% in German
and 1.8% in Spanish. A-levels
drop 1.2% for French and 4.2%
for German. This follows findings
from the Language Trends survey
in June of a startling inequality
between North and South, with
just 43% of pupils in the North-
East taking a language.
February
The Australian Prime Minister
Malcolm Turnbull speaks
Ngunawal in Parliament just days
after Aboriginal politician Bess
Price objects to the fact that she
is not permitted to use her native
Warlpiri in Parliament. A database
of indigenous terms is launched a
few weeks later, and indigenous
languages are introduced to the
NSW high-school curriculum.
April
Machine translators are found to
give prejudiced output, as
research from Stanford and Bath
shows how they learn sexist and
racist language from web users.
The dominance of Mandarin
takes a leap forward as the
Chinese government sets a target
for 80% of citizens to speak the
language by 2020, requiring
135 million people to learn it.
August
The BBC World Service launches
a digital Pidgin service for West
Africa – the first of 11 new
languages to be introduced in the
service's biggest expansion since
the 1940s. Following this £289m
investment, the BBC News is
broadcast in 40 languages.
More A-level language students
gain top grades as the 'unfair'
grading system is addressed.
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