experiences with language in (central) europe: citizenship and belonging

Experiences with language in (central) Europe: citizenship and belonging

Patrick StevensonCentre for Transnational Studies

University of Southampton

Introduction

Conference themes: where do linguists come in?

• Linguistic nationalism then and now.

• ‘National languages’ and multilingual Europe.

• Language questions within and across national

borders.

Structure

1 Problematising ‘language’ and European discourses on multilingualism

2 Implications for researching language: a sociolinguistics of globalisation

3 A selective survey of current research projects

4 The German language and the future of Europe

5 Conclusions: the relevance of ‘language’ to nationalism and national identities

Problematising ‘language’ and European discourses on multilingualism

Conceptual fuzziness of ‘language’.

‘Languages’ as European invention.

Convenient myths of linguistic homogeneity.

Advantages:• inclusion and exclusion• mutual legitimisation of linguistic and national boundaries


Problems:• Language names as portmanteau terms• Scope of ‘languages’ arbitrary and contingent• Status as ‘language’ not natural but ascribed

Preference therefore for ‘linguistic varieties’ and ‘linguistic practices’, including metalinguistic practices.


Discrete, hierarchically ordered languages – enduring European language ideology.

Privileged status of ‘national languages’ in multilingual states.

The EU and the multilingual mantra.


Commissioner Orban (April 2007): ‘Multilingualism has been, from the very beginning,

part of the genetic code of the European Union’.

Framework Strategy for Multilingualism (2005): [target for] ‘every citizen [to have] practical skills in at

least two languages in addition to his or her mother tongue’.


Eurobarometer Special Report 243 (2006) Europeans and Their Languages:

• 99% of Luxembourgers• 29% of Hungarians

‘can participate in a conversation in another language than their mother tongue’.

Monolingualism as natural condition.


Framework Strategy: • places responsibility for developing policy with

Member States;• calls for ‘national plans to give coherence and

direction to actions to promote multilingualism’ and • concedes that ‘the teaching of regional and minority

languages should be taken into account as appropriate’,

• alongside ‘opportunities for migrants to learn the language of the host country (and the teaching of migrant languages)’.


Commissioner for Multilingualism’s ‘political agenda for multilingualism’: key objectives include ‘providing access to online information services and EU legislation to citizens in their own languages’.

What seem to be the implications here?


• 1 state – 1 language (or maybe 2);

• ‘migrant languages’ are not ‘languages of the host countries’;

• unequal evaluation of multilingual competence;

• M + 2 = official national languages;

• citizens identified with these languages.


Language policies and political discourses on language perpetuate

• the monolingual habitus of multilingual societies in Europe (after Gogolin);

• ‘the continuing power of standardising, national regimes that are reinforced – sometimes at regional scales – despite or because of European supranational agencies’ (Gal)

Implications for researching language: a sociolinguistics of globalisation

What are the important questions?What kinds of methods are adequate for the task?

Questions about language policy:• different levels of organisation• language ideologies and language policy• motivations, uses and outcomes of policy

Implications for researching language

Blommaert (2003): sociolinguistics of globalisation ‘will need to explain the various forms of interconnectedness between levels and scales of sociolinguistic phenomena’ in order to understand properly ‘what language achieves in people’s lives’.

What might this mean in the present context? What might an appropriate research agenda look like?


Research on ‘global languages’:

• World Englishes – competing discourses

• Global Spanish – language spread from above and from below

• Reshaping of language relationships and linguistic repertoires


Research on ‘national languages’:

• Language and space

• National languages and language loyalty

• Controlling the flow of migration


Emerging research agenda suggests:

• discrete categories not valid;

• need to assess impact of policy on experience;

• importance of different research methods.


Research questions might therefore include:

• How are relationships between different languages / language varieties in particular states or regions being re-arranged / ‘restratified’?

• How are individual repertoires being re-ordered and what does this mean to people?

• In what sense are these processes aspects of, or reactions to, globalisation?

• How effective can the intervention of various mediating institutions at different levels be in influencing language behaviours in the context of apparently ‘directionless flows’ (Hüppauf) of globalised practices?

Some current research projects

• Language and Global Communication (Leverhulme)

• DYLAN: Language Dynamics and Management of Diversity (FP6)

• LINEE: Languages in a Network of European Excellence (FP6)

• Testing Regimes: Language, Migration and Citizenship (AHRC)

The German Language and the Future of Europe

Overall aim• How is German invoked and promoted in support

of different kinds of identification process in Central Europe?

Focus of projects• Language, migration and citizenship in Germany• Language, discourse and identity in CE


Theme 1Across EuropePolicies and discourses on migration framed by threats

to national integrity: language proficiency as gatekeeping tool.

In Germany• national-level politics and policy from above• local-level politics and policy from below


National-level politics and policy from above:

• from Einwanderung to Zuwanderung + Integration • Nationality Act 2000, Süssmuth Report 2001,

Immigration Act 2005 • proficiency in German as ‘entitlement and obligation’ • Förderung and Forderung • language loyalty


Local-level politics and policy from below:

• Herbert-Hoover-Schule: ‘The official language in our school is German, the official language of the Federal Republic of Germany. Within the area to which these regulations apply every student is obliged to communicate only in this language.’

• National debates and local relationships


Theme 2German in CE: prestige denigration revivalRecontextualisation of relationship between

languages/varieties and reordering of locally available repertoires: new indexicality of linguistic forms.

Eurobarometer: • English = most widely used language in EU and most

learned FL, but• German = highest number of L1 speakers in EU and

2nd most widely used language.• German in Hungary and Czech Republic.


Exploring the stratigraphy of language policy and the relationship between public discourses and private practices in the commodification/ evaluation of language:

• German foreign cultural policy;• domestic cultural/ educational policy in

neighbouring states; • policy returned to private/personal sphere.

Conclusions

• Problematising ‘language’• Language and ‘national integrity’• Questions about the place of language and

language ideologies• Interconnectedness of levels and scales of

sociolinguistic phenomena• How linguists may contribute to the conference

theme

experiences with language in (central) europe: citizenship and belonging

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