Conceptualizing national emergency language competence

Abstract

National emergency language competence (NELC) can be understood as the capacity to use language to cope with domestic and international public emergencies. NELC constitutes the foundation of and guidance for the provision of emergency language services. Based on a review of emergency language services and language competence development, this paper proposes a theoretical model for constructing NELC along the following four dimensions: emergency stage, language tasks, non-linguistic resources, and types of emergency languages. The paper concludes with suggestions on the planning and development of NELC.