The Risks of Laissez Faire Language Policies
The UE and languages: does a common market need a common
language?
pp. 7-13
The Presenter: Reem ☺
The UE and languages: does a common market need a
common language?
► The EU
A group of European countries that
participates in the world economy as one economic unit and operates under one
official currency, the euro.
► A Common Market
the first stage towards the creation of
a single market.
Continued…
► The
eleven official languages of the fifteen EU member states:
Danish
+
Dutch + English + Finnish
+
French + German +
Greek + Italian +
Portuguese + Spanish +
Swedish
► EU
institutions:
The
Commission in Brussels + The European Council + The
European Parliament + The European Court of Justice
Continued…
■Speakers of the eleven EU languages:
Continued…
In principle, what happens to languages in each member
state is their own concern.
This follows the subsidiarity principle► decisions should be
taken locally rather than centrally.
It is assumed that: 1. Each EU state is a linguistic island. 2. EU
policies do not impact on all European languages.
A common EU policy► national policies and interests are coordinated,
negotiated, and agreed on at the supranational EU level.
The supranational► the EU level that merges the concerns of member states.
Continued…
The EU allocates funds to various
activities. An
example ► Under earlier
schemes, there was funding for the translation of creative writing from one EU
official language to another.
Many aspects of national, sub-national,
and supranational language policy have been of concern to the Commission and
Parliament. An
example ► A White Paper on
Teaching and learning: towards the learning society in 1995 recommends that
education should serve to make all EU citizens competent in three EU languages.
► The European Union is a test case for
the maintenance of linguistic diversity, but language policies in the EU reflect many
unresolved and interlocking paradoxes and tensions:
a legacy of ‘nation’ states, ‘national’ interests and
languages
the formal
equality of EU member states and their languages
the onward thrust
of Americanization, cultural homogenization and the hegemony of English
languages seen as
purely technical, pragmatic tools
Germany as a
demographically and economically dominant force in Europe
English being
promoted as a linguistic panacea
But
Supranational integration, and the internationalization
of many domains.
A pecking order of states and languages
The celebration of European of European linguistic
diversity and multilingualism
Languages as identity markers for individuals
German progressively marginalized in other fields
Less than half of the rest are proficient in English as
a foreign language
Continued…
► Great care is needed in distinguishing
between language policy and practice in supranational EU institutions and in
member states.
► If Europe is in a process of uniting
politically and culturally, the role of its languages in supranational affairs
is a central and sensitive issue.
The next topic will be:
What is Language Policy?
