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Language conflicts in the European Union
Author(s) -
Ammon Ulrich
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
international journal of applied linguistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.712
H-Index - 39
eISSN - 1473-4192
pISSN - 0802-6106
DOI - 10.1111/j.1473-4192.2006.00121.x
Subject(s) - lingua franca , linguistics , language policy , foreign language , political science , european union , diversity (politics) , function (biology) , state (computer science) , politics , sociology , computer science , law , business , international trade , philosophy , algorithm , evolutionary biology , biology
For EU institutions, having a single internal working language – for which English is the only candidate – would be the most efficient solution and, to all appearances, in the best interests of each member state and language community whose language is excluded as a working language. However, for member states from the large non‐anglophone language communities, such a solution seems barely acceptable and, in addition, would not correspond to the EU's official language policy on the preservation of language diversity. This is because “English only” is expected to inevitably transcend the borders of internal institutions and further limit the function of the remaining widely‐spoken languages, especially as a lingua franca and in foreign language teaching. This contribution presents the conflict of interests between the smaller and the larger language communities in having only one or several institutional working languages for the EU and sketches out a possible solution which would serve both political and communicative demands.