Download - Российский комитет Программы ЮНЕСКО ...

In this particular aspect the Portuguese position on the Internet is clearly
different from the two centers which so far have determined the bicentric
character of this language: Portugal and Brazil. When comparing the scientific
productions in Portuguese language available on the Internet, there is a clear
imbalance between the two standards: the presence of scientific texts in
Brazilian Portuguese on the internet is many times superior to the presence of
Portuguese texts.
To explain this, some data have to be taken into account, which go beyond the
geographical and demographic differences between the two countries: Portugal
has a total area of 92,389 km 2 and about 10 million inhabitants, while Brazil has
8,514,876 km 2 and approximately 191 million inhabitants.
Portugal is a European country, which is part of the European Union since
1986. As such, since then the parameters of evaluation and funding of science
and technology in this country have been marked by certain standards by the
European Commission, who value scientific publication in English, at the
expense of publication in Portuguese.
Furthermore, in Portugal, given its size, geographic location, emigration
(which has always been a constant) and bet on tourism since the 60’s, the
teaching of foreign languages not only has been encouraged but also has had
very positive results: the literate population can express in one or two foreign
languages, often acquired outside the formal school system. Currently English
is the language preferred by young students and with more support at the
level of government structures. It is to be noted that the implementation of
compulsory teaching of English in schools from the third grade occurred in
2005 (Order 14753 / 2005 by the Minister of Education), to the detriment of
other languages so far studied in the education system, French and German.
All these factors contribute to the fact that a lot of scientific literature in
Portugal, especially in the areas of the hard sciences and technologies, is
produced primarily in English: this case is all the more visible when even in areas
in which Portugal was once a pioneer, as the nautical and ship construction, the
Portuguese language has ceased to be practically used and has been replaced by
English in a professional context.
In turn, the Brazilian government has not adopted policies of scientific
literature in the English language in the same way, valuing, also, the scientific
literature in Portuguese at the level of science funding agencies. On the other
hand, Brazil, an emerging country, has structural problems at the level of basic
education that are reflected in teaching and learning of foreign languages, very
deficient when compared with the case of Portugal.
91