Learning Technologies and Status: The Case of Minority Languages in Europe

Περίληψη

This paper explores the ways in which learning technologies are helping to improve the status of
minority languages in Europe and draws on the findings of three research projects – the
Multilingual Resources for Children Project, the Multilingual Word Processing in the Primary
School Project and Fabula: Bilingual Multimedia Storybooks for Children. It is argued that the
new technologies have a modernising effect on languages that are sometimes perceived as old
fashioned and unglamorous by younger learners. Equally important, they permit solutions to a
range of problems associated with print media, which help perpetuate the lower status of minority
languages.