The Content of CLIL and beyond: classifying typologies of microlanguages for teaching and learning purposes

When content is conceived as language and language is not the direct content of the learning process, the question of a language education extended to all school levels, all branches of academic disciplines and all professions is central to the development of a metalinguistic awareness which otherwise would escape most non-linguists. Matteo Santipolo proposes a detailed classification of the continuum of specialised discourse, which has the advantage of precisely indicating where CLIL Language can be located, i.e., between “Mediated” and “Didactic Jargon”. Santipolo even suggests replacing CLIL with JIL (Jargon Integrated Learning), the specific microlanguage used in communication between language and discipline instructors and neophytes. Aside from the didactic implications of this shift discussed by the author, his “modest proposal” seems to agree with a long-time cherished persuasion on the part of CLIL trainers and trainees, which is primarily advocated by the University Language Centres in Italy, that in CLIL contexts the L1/L2 needed is nothing but a professional language demanding its own dedicated certification rather than the ones for General Language.