LANGUAGE EDUCATION IN AUSTRIA: PROPAGANDA OF MULTILINGUALISM

In a modern globalized world the knowledge of foreign languages is the paramount and necessary condition for mutual understanding. The Council of Europe and the European Commission acknowledged and supported the idea of learning foreign languages. Multilingualism appears to be not only the key component of the European identity, but also the educational aims of the European schools. In March 2002, the heads of state and government of the European Union held a meeting and signed the agreement, called for the establishment of a linguistic competence indicator. The conclusion of the agreement runs: “Children at an early age must learn at least two foreign languages”. National and foreign scientists, such as I. Biletska, N. Bondarchuk, A. Buzovskyi, T. M Burda, M. Vynarchyk, L. Zaitseva, K.-B. Boeckmann, H. Reich investigated the problem of bilingualism and multilingualism. M. Vynarchyk researches the problem of bilingualism in France and N. Bodnarchuk investigates the problem of bilingualism in Austria. I. Biletska and A. Buzovskyi investigated the system of bilingualism education in the USA and Europe. H. Reich describes a general conception of a lingual education. The goal of the article is to characterize a language education in Austria aimed at multilingualism. The goal of the article requires the fulfillment of certain tasks: 1. To give the definition to “multilingualism”. 2. To analyze the researches of the phenomenon of multilingualism by the Austrian scientists. 3. To characterize ethnic minorities in Austria. Austrian scientist K.-B. Boeckmann in his work “Languages in an Educational Programme instead of German as the Second Language” singles out the term “a language diversity”. The term “a language diversity” means the process of functioning of the German language, as the first one, a native one for pupils in Austrian schools, as well as, the second and the third language for pupils-immigrants. In his work K.-B. Boeckmann singles out the term “a standard language”, “a state language”, “an educational language”, “a national language”, “an official language”. In the project of The European Centre of Modern Languages (Graz, Austria) the definition to the term “language (languages) of education” is given. The language of education can be a native language – German for the native Austrians; the language (languages) of education – German may be the second language for the ethnic minority groups in Austria and the foreign language for children of immigrants. The scientists from Austria make researches aimed at giving a scientific ground for the term “multilingualism” in educational programmes. A general conception of a language education in Austria consists in the propaganda of multilingualism.