Jean-Marc Kremer (kremer.jm@wanadoo.fr)
Thionville, France
The project of building Europe
is unique in the history of our people. For a long time we believed in the myth
of the tower of Babel representing a curse for humanity;
in other words that the diversity and great number of languages, and thus the
lack of understanding between people, was a source of conflicts and wars.
What is the current state of our linguistic Europe
(limited to the European Union of 25) : how many first languages, how many
imported second languages, how many users for each of them, is there enough
room for a new European or international neo-language, what would it mean to
CPLOL. And especially for us language therapists in the context of free
circulation of professionals within the Union, keeping in mind the necessity
for a linguistic proficiency standard, the “qualifications” directive requires
of our profession (among others). These are a few of the questions raised in
this speech.
Key words: first language, second
language, multilingualism, Europe, Speech and
language therapy, CPLOL