LANGUAGE POLICY AS A TOOL OF THE “SOFT POWER” OF THE STATE: THE EXPERIENCE OF RUSSIA AND SPAIN

Abstract

The article compares the approaches of Russia and Spain to the use of language policy as a tool of “soft power” according to such parameters as: the prevalence of language, the main tools of language policy, reliance on historical influence, and the level of effectiveness. Russia and Spain use similar mechanisms – educational and cultural programs, grants and scholarships for international students, media support in national languages outside the countries. Both countries rely on the historical influence of their languages – Russian in the CIS and Eastern Europe, and Spanish in Latin America. It is noted that Spain uses the potential of the language more effectively to strengthen ties with its former colonies in Latin America. Russia relies on the high international status of the Russian language as one of the working languages of the United Nations and other major organizations, but Russia’s influence in the post-Soviet space has weakened. Spanish is in high demand in the USA, the EU and other regions of the world. There are relatively few weaknesses in Spain’s language policy – these are mainly the insufficient use of new technologies and the lack of open educational language resources.