This house would establish English as an official language in all EU member states - poll result and report card

With honor to address the final report for this debate here, I'm going to provide some comments as objective as possible to the topic in the following text. [Continues below the fold.]

by RH

Generally speaking, the proposing side sticked to the points in the rebuttal speech. And their closing speech was full of fancy. However it's a pity that the opening speech wasn't convincing enough both in the aspect of language and the evidences it has offered.

As for the opposing side, their appealing opening speech won them many votes in the very beginning, but later they failed to pose some rebuttal points. Luckily an excellent closing speech made up for this loss. I suppose that you win this debate. Congratulations!

To be followed, I will analyze the debate in details. I hope my comments here can reveal an unbiased and objective sense.

The first proposer presented a nice and neat opinion. Yet it needed further discussions for him to apply the points in the field of economics. Concrete figures would be much more convincing than his general points. The same goes for the discussions about environment protection. Plus, it would be clearer to make the latter part an independent paragraph. Next, I don't think it true to say that “nearly no one speaks Esperanto despite the 150 years of its existence”. At least till now, there are 10,000 to 2,000,000 active or fluent speakers. Furthermore, it needs to add some references that there isn't a single sound which can't be pronounced by any other language native speakers. Totally speaking, the first proposer has proposed some good points, but he lacked profound development of them.

The first opposer gave us a speech somewhat academical. We can easily recognize his two principle points in the first paragraph. Moreover, we can find numerous hyperlinks in his script.  But why will Greece, Italy and Spain go bankrupt if we establish English as an official language in their countries? I have to admit that I don't really understand the undermining logic. It seems to me that the author tried hard to defense the point that replacing native official language with English did harm to the diversity of culture.

When it comes to the rebuttal speech, the proposer's speech stood out and caught readers' eyeballs. The Towel of Babel acts as a hook is really interesting. MS directly questioned the opposers by pointing out that establishing English as an official language doesn't mean English has to supplant national languages. What's more, realizing the lack of the concrete methods to effectuate the motion, MS has suggested to set up English as a compulsory class for children more than six years old. I also notice that, again, the proposing side put forward the problem of Esperanto, but actually it’s not necessary to repeat the trivial point,

MH has given a speech inspiring and enthusiastic. However, it's a pity that I didn't find out the convincing rebutting points. In regard to the arguments, MH strictly sticked to the motion’s the negative influence on the diversity of cultures. To continue, MH emphasized especially at the relation between standardizing the language and the standardizing the culture. He has launched a new battle field for the debate. It would be better if he demonstrated more clearly about how the standardization of language while conservation of their native language will deeply cast a negative influence on native culture.

Ultimately, let's move on to the closing speech, where both sides have pointed out the crash points.

YM's speech is incisive. . In response to the “mass demonstration” and “chaos” brought forwards by MH, YM insisted that it should be the democratic system to tackle the problem. Moreover, in this section, the proposing side listed out their blueprint to implement the motion. Had it been delivered in the opening speech, things would have been easier. In the last but one paragraph, the figure 80% needs further reference to explain the source of data.

For the opposing side, I can't help congratulating them more. The sentences are charming and appealing.  As for the context, maybe it's better to precise “a selection of minority of people”, because it confuses me who these people are. The most destructive point of view in this speech is that the proposing side didn't present their audiences the blueprint for implement at the beginning. T In the following part of the closing speech, AM repeated and strengthen the points of the opposing side. The arguments were well developed. Different from the proposing side, there is a conclusion in the opposing side, this won back audiences' votes.

In conclusion, on the one hand, the pros could have performed better if they had paid more attention to some critical details. And on the other hand, the cons outweighed the pros in the debate by a rigorous opening speech and an appealing closing speech. Congratulations! And look forwards to more heated debate on line. Thank you for everyone's participation this week!!!

RH