Linguistic and language teaching Aspects of the subject "German as a Foreign language after English" and language policy and its Implications

Considering the linguistic plurality of the European Union and the linguistic, educational and political actions that will derive from it in future, this article concerns the special status of German as a foreign language after English (DaFnE) in Italy. In order to depict the background of present-day European – and Italian – multilingualism, a short overview of the European language policy with the most relevant treaties and decisions of the last 50 years will be given. With the White Books of 1993 and 1995 being viewed as the starting points of the European language policy, treaties and actions after the end of the 90s will be taken into particular consideration, i.e. especially the treaties and actions which systematically encourage the early acquisition of two foreign languages, much more in an EU which is increasingly being characterized by multilingualism. After the recent reform in the education system, Italy is following the European trend, too. Against the background of the possible language combinations for Italian language learners, in this article the language triplette Italian-English-German is considered. This specific example of triple language contact is characterized by the fact that the first foreign language is typologically similar to the second foreign language still to be acquired. It will be investigated whether and to what extent the knowledge of a Germanic language (English) may be considered the basis for transfer and interference when acquiring a further Germanic language (German). Aspects of contrastive linguistics will be presented and didactic and methodological implications for L3 acquisition in a formal setting will be discussed. Furthermore, the interest will lie on specific actions in the fields of future language and education policy in Europe and in Italy.