Open AccessA Widely Spoken Lesser-Taught Language: Portuguese in British Higher Education
Author(s) -
Pedro Marques
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
revista de estudos anglo-portugueses
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.101
0eISSN - 2184-0687
pISSN - 0871-682X
DOI - 10.34134/reap.1991.208.2712
Subject(s) - portuguese , linguistics , language education , state (computer science) , spoken language , perception , position (finance) , sociology , psychology , computer science , philosophy , finance , algorithm , neuroscience , economics
This paper sets out to investigate the state of play of Portuguese language education in British Higher Education. Drawing on the cues provided by Portuguese studies lecturer Rhian Atkin in a 2016 talk, I bring together existing data on Portuguese language educationin the UK, and promotional and academic discourses on what the Portuguese language is to argue that there is a gap between the fact that Portuguese is one of the most widely spoken languages and its relatively peripheral position in the economy of world languages.This perception gap prevents the development of policies grounded on local realities, and the strengthening of the rationale for the learning of the language.