Amber Bartlett (Bristol) p101-124
2018 Issue 1
Sondernummer zum Thema: Erasmus+: Potential für Lehre und Forschung
Gastherausgeber: Claus Ehrhardt (Urbino)
Abstract
The UK’s 2016 referendum vote to leave the EU cast doubt over its on-going participation in certain European initiatives and institutions, including the popular student exchange programme, Erasmus. Such uncertainty has provoked concern amongst many, not least as studies have shown that shortterm mobility periods can have considerable positive effects not only on students’ future educational and work-related ambitions prospects (European Union 2014) but also on their cultural and linguistic awareness (cf. Mitchell 2012; European Communities 2004; ESN survey 2014). However, until now the focus of such research has predominantly been on nation states and their languages, overlooking one of the founding aims of the Erasmus scheme ‘to promote a quantitative and qualitative improvement of the knowledge of the languages of the European Union, and in particular those which are least widely used and taught’ (emphasis added, European Parliament 1995). Indeed, the potential of an Erasmus period abroad to expose students to some of Europe’s least known and taught languages, namely regional and minority languages (RMLs), has not been investigated in research to date. Therefore, this article will use empirical data gathered from British students who have engaged in short-term mobility in France, Germany and Spain to illustrate the extent such mobility increases students’ awareness of RMLs in Europe.