Drawing on naturalistic video and audio recordings of international meetings, and within the framework of conversation analysis, ethnomethodology and interactional linguistics, this chapter studies how multilingual resources are mobilized in social interactions among professionals, how available linguistic and embodied resources are identified and used by the participants, which solutions are locally elaborated by them when they are confronted with various languages spoken but not shared among them, and which definition of multilingualism they adopt for all practical purposes.Focusing on the multilingual solutions emically elaborated in international professional meetings, we show that the participants orient to a double principle: on the one hand, they orient to the progressivity of the interaction, adopting all the possible resources that enable them to go on within the current activity; on the other hand, they orient to the intersubjectivity of the interaction, treating, preventing and repairing possible troubles and problems of understanding. Specific multilingual solutions can be adopted to keep this difficult balance between progressivity and intersubjectivity; they vary according to the settings, the competences at hand, the linguistic and embodied resources locally defined by the participants as publicly available, the multilingual resources treated as totally or partially shared, as transparent or opaque, and as needing repair or not.The paper begins by sketching the analytical framework, including the methodology and the data collected; it then presents some general findings, before offering an analysis of various ways in which participants keep the balance between progressivity and intersubjectivity in different multilingual interactional contexts.
Our study seeks to go beyond a conception of “multilingualism” overtly attached to a view of language as a closed set of rules over-determining the form of utterances purely defined in terms of grammar. Our study focuses on a diversity of linguistic practices locally elaborated by the participants in the course of their actions – what has been called a “languaging” activity. This invites us to think about language-at-work and the online development of syntactic and pragmatic resources. Adopting the framework of Conversation Analysis inspired by ethnomethodology, on the basis of the analysis of ten extracts of professional exchanges in multilingual settings, this chapter attempts to contribute to the development of a step-by-step examination of the way in which participants process the heterogeneity of their available resources, particularly visible in situations of multilingual interaction.
The world’s increasing globalisation requires more interaction among people from diverse settings. Maximising on workplace diversity has become an important issue for management today. Many empirical studies clearly show that the management of linguistic diversity is of central importance to both strategic and operational processes. An important part of the preceding research concentrated on a shift of companies’ language to English as a lingua franca, being advised as a constructive source of mutual intelligibility, allowing for more effective communication. Our work is based on a “multilingual mentality”. The basic questions are how, and under what conditions, “multilingual solutions” are a genuine advantage for businesses. The aim is to understand, on the one hand, to what extent companies in the Upper Rhine Region conceive their corporate identity and organise their patterns of language use, but also the impact of their language management measures and, on the other hand, in what way individuals’ multilingual repertoires evolve into a communicative and strategic resource in organisational and professional interactions in mixed teams. The observed practices lead to a fresh view on multilingualism, based on two complementary conceptions: “institutional multilingualism” (largely additive) and “multilanguaging” (exploiting integrated individual plurilingual repertoires).
Thematic interviews with some twenty executives working in five multinational companies located in the French region of Alsace have allowed us to reveal their representations and perceptions of their linguistic practices at work, of their multilingual skills and, finally, of the actions or measures that the companies (implicitly or explicitly) advocate on language management. Discourse analysis has highlighted certain widely-shared representations, both within a company or among different companies, which indicate support for or submission to a dominant ideology that underlies group identity. However, during interactions, this collective monophony contrasts with more personal positions (individual representations) which alter the interviewees’ attitudes to established representations (support, detachment or rejection). We therefore focus on these differences or tensions, in order to identify more accurately the problematic aspects of multilingualism and of linguistic and cultural diversity management in companies.
The chapter reports the main results from an investigation into the social representations of multilingualism in the Danish corporate sector. Within the framework of social representation theory, which seeks to understand the nature of social knowledge and thinking, interview data from 12 Danish companies have been analysed with a view to exploring the representations of (a) German, French, Spanish, Chinese and (b) foreign language learning. In addition, the nature of corporate approaches to language are investigated, including the use of English as a corporate language, the use of native speakers, in-service language training, and the language requirements and assessment measures applied when recruiting. The analyses reveal that specific languages are represented differently but using the same categories of aesthetics, complexity, utility and status. Language learning is anchored in characteristics of the learner and the learning process. There is evidence that people see language learning as a special skill and that informal learning is evaluated more positively than formal, classroom learning. Tension surrounds understandings of language competence, which fluctuate between ideals of perfection and the pragmatics of actual use. With regard to language management, companies generally do not have any systematic strategy. Even when companies have adopted English as a corporate language, there is no explicit formulation about what this entails and individuals may represent the actual concept differently. In relation to languages other than English, there is a tendency for the multinational company to outsource its multilingual needs from the Danish head office to native-speaking employees in affiliates or agents based in foreign markets.
This chapter presents focuses on the area of language policy in business. It discusses the relevance and effectiveness of strategies aiming toward bilingual Gaelic/English practices in workplace environments that address the need for capacity to work in two languages. The strategies under consideration are: translation services, as well as training & development. This chapter concludes with general recommendations for how the example of strategies used in Gaelic language policies can inform the development of policies in other areas.
The issues addressed in this contribution raise the question of language choices on companies’ websites and their implications for communication and access to information (fairness and equity) in the corporate sector. While the importance of the Internet as a means of communication and marketing for the corporate sector has been acknowledged, little attention has been paid to the linguistic dimension and the implications of this tool for business communication. This chapter examines the way in which companies cope with the linguistic diversity on their websites in order to identify possible models of language management as well as the eventual consequences of such choices for the structure and the content of a website. For the first stage, using a quantitative approach (statistical tools), we try to “map” the websites of fourteen surveyed companies in order to identify their degree of monolingualism/multilingualism, the sections that would be interesting to focus on with regard to understanding the policies of multilingual and multicultural content management, as well as a certain number of recurrent strategies. For the second stage, specific attention is given to conceptualizing the ways monolingual and multilingual resources have been mobilized in two website sections: job offers and the sale of products. On the one hand, job offers, being oriented towards future employees, are aimed at giving information about the company’s requirements. On the other hand, the products’ section is used as a market-oriented tool to accomplish the company’s main objective which is to “sell”.
The topic of this article is multilingualism and language choice in EU institutions. An analysis of whether the choice of working monolingualism penetrates progressively into the entire community and affects other languages and language use and if so, how this occurs.It comprises different sub-topics and perspectives such as the attitudes of EU officials, external communication of EU institutions with civil society through website presentations, with journalists through press conferences and with the German Parliament by the submission of papers. Also, internal institutional aspects were considered by analysing language choice for contributions in plenary and committee meetings in the EU Parliament and the Commission as well as the commissioners’ language skills. Special attention was paid to the unofficial institutional procedural languages, namely English, French and German, which have emerged in this function. English has gained outstanding prominence in all of the domains analyzed, though this does not seem to be welcome according to the officials’ professed attitudes and EU language policy principles. This research shows, however, that the prominence of English is the political reality, despite the seemingly adverse political will and in spite of the reduction in the number of procedural languages, the extension of interpretation services and the promotion of officials’ foreign language skills. Parliamentarians fear the negative impacts of such a development on the EU’s democracy and legitimacy. In addition, growing monolinguality causes language conflicts with, and within, national parliaments as shown by this research in the case of the German Bundestag. Neither the members of the German Parliament, however, or the EU commissioners seem to consider this a burning issue of EU politics. Finally, this research reveals the potentially positive effects of working plurilingualism in EU institutions as well as the stark discrepancy between the EU’s language policy and its actual language politics. The article is based largely on research planning and guidance by Ulrich Ammon and also research carried out by Jan Kruse and, formerly, Verena Wimmers and Michael Schloßmacher.
The compatibility between multilingual language policies and the possibilities to use Slovene (as a case-study for lesser-used languages) was researched at the levels of EU institutions and Slovene national politics. In EU institutions, linguistic diversity and the use of Slovene language have a formal, symbolic value while the backstage linguistic habitus is marked by the predominance of English/French, with the majority of Slovene representatives supporting the current linguistic regime. At the level of Slovene political institutions, the protectionist ideology is still prevalent. The new supranational context is mostly perceived as an opportunity to strengthen Slovene language while multilingual guidelines are implemented only when demanded by the EU.
In our chapter, we present a multilevel approach to multilingualism in the European Union (i.e. EU) Institutions. We explore the diversity of the Union’s institutional language regimes and regulations from the point of view of their perceptions, conceptions and practices. We juxtapose the EU-relevant language ideologies (perceptions, conceptions) with the ways in which multilingualism is de facto regulated and practiced in the Union’s institutional spaces. In this way, we observe how multilingualism in the EU institutions changes and how, inculcated in the process of the Union’s ongoing change, it quickly becomes one of the key facets of the transformation of Europe’s supranational polity. Our research provides a differentiated and critical perspective on how language ideologies related to multilingualism are conceptualised in EU language policies, in the Union’s supranational institutional contexts as well as in communication between EU institutions and Europe’s national milieus (national public spheres, EU member states). The key findings in all areas of our research point to the lack of coherent multilingualism policies in the EU as a multilevel system of governance. Our work also emphasises the need for further multilevel studies on internal and external aspects of EU-institutional multilingualism in order to set foundations for an ongoing academic reflection on the future shape of the EU as a space of political and organisational practice based on open and inclusive multilingualism.
This chapter studies the dynamics between existing bilingualism and developing international agendas at two Catalan public universities. It explores multilingualism as illustrated in interaction, tracking links between plurilingual practices and knowledge construction. The data are primarily from L2-medium academic content classes (ELF or CLIL), although interactional data from other institutional settings are drawn on in portraying practices. The study follows qualitative and emic approaches; the field was constructed ethnographically, while conversation analytic procedures guide the analysis of interaction. The results demonstrate how, in non-classroom events, participants align with policies through their use of local languages and English – categorised as a tool for practising internationalisation. Other languages are also present, although they lack relevant status in policies. In these settings, the practices in a plurilingual mode allow local participants to achieve the goals of internationalisation and also create a pleasant social environment. Classroom data document the emergence of practices in a plurilingual mode, although these are less frequent in ELF than in CLIL classes. Plurilingual practices are traced mainly in dialogical sequences, while they also occur in students’ written notes. The data suggest that the plurilingual mode enhances student participation, allows members to achieve their goals, and creates a favourable framework for an in-depth processing of academic content. Plurilingual practices are not portrayed in official documents. Despite being revealed empirically to be an everyday reality, hybrid language uses or plurilanguaging are not promoted as a potential knowledge construction tool or as a key resource for ‘doing internationalisation’.
This paper explores multilingualism at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, an officially trilingual institution of higher education in Italy. By discussing examples of institutional communication and informal student interaction, and relating them to official language policies and social actors’ reported practices, the study aims to provide insights into how institutional trilingualism is viewed and translated into practice in the context under examination, and on how, in more general terms, linguistic diversity can be an advantage rather than a drawback in higher education.The emergence of two different models of multilingual education is discussed, showing how multilingual practices – sometimes in tension with official policies – can enhance participation and knowledge co-construction. Analyses of service encounters document the role played by social actors’ multilingual competence in accomplishing their communicative goals, while the examination of students’ informal peer-interaction highlights the impact of social networks on the development of multilingual repertories.
This chapter aims to achieve a better understanding of the role of plurilingualism not only in the development of new communicative skills, but also in the construction of knowledge in higher education. On the basis of a theoretical framework at the crossroads between conversation analysis, discourse analysis, studies on second language acquisition and plurilingualism, we develop new analytical tools. We particularly focus here on a class sequence recorded in the Faculty of Law at the University of Zurich, which illustrates very well the relevance of language negotiation to the conceptualisation process. Our analysis brings in important distinctions between different linguistic modes (plurilingual vs unilingual) and participation regimes (more or less collaborative) and shows how the plurilingual mode connected to a collaborative participation can stimulate the acquisition process, the discourse activity (for example, a definition sequence) being also relevant to the shaping of knowledge. Furthermore, beyond the practice stage, we underline the role played by social representations in this regard. We conclude on the notion of plurilingualism as an asset.
This chapter explores multilingualism in higher education in the Nordic countries with a particular focus on the University of Helsinki. It applies policy analysis and discourse analytic approaches in an effort to scrutinize the existence of language policies at different levels (EU, national, and university), their outputs and outcomes. We provide a showcase of how policy input, output and outcomes can be analysed according to a model applicable to the assessment of policy implementation. Our studies stress the importance of making distinctions between both overt and covert language policies, and between explicit and implicit language use. The study illustrates the nature of covert policies in the universities in Northern Europe that we have studied and the concomitant linguistic manifestations of these policies. A general tendency is an increasing internationalisation within higher education. This is supported by EU-level soft policies. Our findings raise questions about the impact that this policy has on multilingualism. The linguistic scene in higher education institutions in Northern Europe appears to be moving towards bilingualism in national languages and English, with the exception of some minority languages with special status. Our research shows that language policies are essential from a minority’s perspective. A general lack of evaluation and follow-up can, however, be seen. A further broadening of the language repertoires is proposed.
This study focuses on the relationship between multilingual policies and practices and their representations at the Babeş-Bolyai University (BBU) of Cluj, Romania, drawing on a broad theoretical background provided by sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, semantics, cognitive analysis and didactics, within a convergent set of academic contexts: European, Romanian, regional and institutional. We signpost how multilingualism became a seminal entry on the BBU’s political agenda as scaffolded by the three-tiered language policy of this university – the study-lines in regional languages (Romanian, Hungarian, German), the provision of full study programs in widely spoken languages (CLIL), and the teaching of specialized modern languages (LSP). Most importantly, in line with the core questions the Dylan Project has attempted to find answers to, we scrutinize the multilingual practices of the BBU, the attitudes adopted to multilingualism and its representations among students and members of the academic community. Thus, by analyzing the corpora gathered through video-taping LSP and CLIL classes and interpreting the data resulting from a collection of faculty interviews and student questionnaires, we aim to identify the conditions under which multilingualism may become a resource, as well as a problem, for communication and knowledge transmission.
In this contribution two questions are addressed namely what is the influence of policy on multilingual education and what is the impact of multilingual education on practices? By multilingual education is meant content and language integrated learning or CLIL. This paper is organized in three parts. In the first part the influence on policy on multilingual education is studied on two levels. First, the local level, i.e. the region of Flanders in Belgium and, second, the European level will be examined. The second part will study the impact of multilingual education on practice by researching two selected secondary schools, one vocational and one elite school by means of a number of tenets that include linguistic and non-linguistic ones. The main task of the Dylan project was to show the importance of multilingualism in a variety of ways. One of the most important aspects is education at both university and secondary level that should ideally be built upon multilingual primary education. Current scientific research has mainly focussed on aspects of language education while we advocate the idea that learning in another language has a major influence on a number of factors that eventually create better learners. In this way this approach is, first, a contribution to the advantages of multilingualism and, second, a plea for educational innovation via language education. Finally, a number of theoretical pathways are identified to illustrate our major conclusion that opens the way toward a new educational paradigm.
As shown in several chapters of this book, actors confronted with the need to communicate in a multilingual context use a variety of strategies. These strategies may be more or less directly influenced by the language policies adopted by the public or private sector institutions in which they operate. Such policies may also be extremely diverse. Whether we are referring to actual language practices or explicit language policies, they can prove more or less multilingual. Assessing the relative merits of “more” or “less” multilingual practices and policies presupposes that we have a set of criteria which we can use as a basis for comparing them with each other. This chapter is devoted to the development of such criteria on the basis of the core principles of policy analysis, as it is applied to a host of other questions ranging from education planning to the provision of health services and environmental protection. We first show how the standard criteria of efficiency and fairness can be constructed and used with reference to language. We then infer from this analytical framework a matrix for the generation of a system of indicators of efficiency and fairness in multilingual communication. Examples of indicators, which can be “populated” with data, are provided in the appendix.
In this chapter, we investigate the use of English as a lingua franca (ELF) in interaction with other languages in linguistically diversified settings and examine the ways in which ELF is employed by plurilingual European speakers. On the one hand, this concerns the speakers’ strategic adaptation of linguistic elements according to their specific communicative purposes. In this respect, we have identified patterns of accommodation techniques and joint negotiation of meaning among ELF users. On the other hand, these processes have themselves proven to be interwoven with speakers’ overall linguistic repertoires and have thus shown ELF to be a multilingual mode. The analysis has shed light on diverse manifestations of this linguistic diversity within ELF and the processes underlying these. On a more general level, two major findings have emerged from the investigation of lingua franca communication: (1) Regardless of differences in first languages, plurilingual speakers share a great deal of skills, knowledge and resources which they mobilise in order to achieve their communicative goals. In other words, there is ‘familiarity in the foreign’ which can be strategically exploited. (2) Intercultural communicators employing a lingua franca mode exhibit considerable flexibility and integration of linguistic resources rather than sticking to stable, strictly demarcated codes. There is thus ‘flexibility beyond the fixed’. We analyse ELF interactions as representative of today’s intercultural communication practices and concluded that there is a need for reconsideration of established categories such as stable speech communities, reified languages and additive multilingualism.
Starting from the central DYLAN question as to the conditions under which Europeans consider multilingualism as an advantage or as a drawback, the present chapter primarily discusses the historical aspects of European multilingualism. Methodically, many of the aspects dealt with are based on an analytical grid which illustrates the interrelations between the four research areas: “domains”, “language attitudes”, “language policies” and “contexts”. The fifth area “tranversal issues” (Geneva, Vienna, Berlin) and especially the aims of the Berlin research team run at right angles to this, touching on all four areas and offering a historical retrospective which provides a general overview of past and present forms of European multilingualism. Perhaps surprisingly, we depart from the assumption that the often invisible occurrences and forms of multilingualism in European history can be illuminated by taking a detour into comparative research into European standardisation histories. Thematically, the article uses examples to focus on indexicality and the social aspects of (individual) multilingualism by conducting a comparative analysis of certain periods (16th, 19th/20th and 21st century) and of distinguishable occurrences/forms (prestigious, plebeian) and trends/concepts (territoriality, non-standard, correctness, egalitarian). The mechanisms operative in the fields of linguistic attitudes and usages during the various European standardisation periods are considered from a macro-perspective. One of the focuses here is on the varied and context-specific traditions of foreign language learning from the Middle Ages where multilingualism was part of self-evident practice up to the present day and on the rediscovery of European multilingualism (19th century) which was, for example, accompanied by a fundamental critique (from the late 19th century onwards) of the principle of territoriality and uniformity. Among other things, the final section presents proposals for the periodisation of the different stages of standardisation in Europe.
Drawing on naturalistic video and audio recordings of international meetings, and within the framework of conversation analysis, ethnomethodology and interactional linguistics, this chapter studies how multilingual resources are mobilized in social interactions among professionals, how available linguistic and embodied resources are identified and used by the participants, which solutions are locally elaborated by them when they are confronted with various languages spoken but not shared among them, and which definition of multilingualism they adopt for all practical purposes.Focusing on the multilingual solutions emically elaborated in international professional meetings, we show that the participants orient to a double principle: on the one hand, they orient to the progressivity of the interaction, adopting all the possible resources that enable them to go on within the current activity; on the other hand, they orient to the intersubjectivity of the interaction, treating, preventing and repairing possible troubles and problems of understanding. Specific multilingual solutions can be adopted to keep this difficult balance between progressivity and intersubjectivity; they vary according to the settings, the competences at hand, the linguistic and embodied resources locally defined by the participants as publicly available, the multilingual resources treated as totally or partially shared, as transparent or opaque, and as needing repair or not.The paper begins by sketching the analytical framework, including the methodology and the data collected; it then presents some general findings, before offering an analysis of various ways in which participants keep the balance between progressivity and intersubjectivity in different multilingual interactional contexts.
Our study seeks to go beyond a conception of “multilingualism” overtly attached to a view of language as a closed set of rules over-determining the form of utterances purely defined in terms of grammar. Our study focuses on a diversity of linguistic practices locally elaborated by the participants in the course of their actions – what has been called a “languaging” activity. This invites us to think about language-at-work and the online development of syntactic and pragmatic resources. Adopting the framework of Conversation Analysis inspired by ethnomethodology, on the basis of the analysis of ten extracts of professional exchanges in multilingual settings, this chapter attempts to contribute to the development of a step-by-step examination of the way in which participants process the heterogeneity of their available resources, particularly visible in situations of multilingual interaction.
The world’s increasing globalisation requires more interaction among people from diverse settings. Maximising on workplace diversity has become an important issue for management today. Many empirical studies clearly show that the management of linguistic diversity is of central importance to both strategic and operational processes. An important part of the preceding research concentrated on a shift of companies’ language to English as a lingua franca, being advised as a constructive source of mutual intelligibility, allowing for more effective communication. Our work is based on a “multilingual mentality”. The basic questions are how, and under what conditions, “multilingual solutions” are a genuine advantage for businesses. The aim is to understand, on the one hand, to what extent companies in the Upper Rhine Region conceive their corporate identity and organise their patterns of language use, but also the impact of their language management measures and, on the other hand, in what way individuals’ multilingual repertoires evolve into a communicative and strategic resource in organisational and professional interactions in mixed teams. The observed practices lead to a fresh view on multilingualism, based on two complementary conceptions: “institutional multilingualism” (largely additive) and “multilanguaging” (exploiting integrated individual plurilingual repertoires).
Thematic interviews with some twenty executives working in five multinational companies located in the French region of Alsace have allowed us to reveal their representations and perceptions of their linguistic practices at work, of their multilingual skills and, finally, of the actions or measures that the companies (implicitly or explicitly) advocate on language management. Discourse analysis has highlighted certain widely-shared representations, both within a company or among different companies, which indicate support for or submission to a dominant ideology that underlies group identity. However, during interactions, this collective monophony contrasts with more personal positions (individual representations) which alter the interviewees’ attitudes to established representations (support, detachment or rejection). We therefore focus on these differences or tensions, in order to identify more accurately the problematic aspects of multilingualism and of linguistic and cultural diversity management in companies.
The chapter reports the main results from an investigation into the social representations of multilingualism in the Danish corporate sector. Within the framework of social representation theory, which seeks to understand the nature of social knowledge and thinking, interview data from 12 Danish companies have been analysed with a view to exploring the representations of (a) German, French, Spanish, Chinese and (b) foreign language learning. In addition, the nature of corporate approaches to language are investigated, including the use of English as a corporate language, the use of native speakers, in-service language training, and the language requirements and assessment measures applied when recruiting. The analyses reveal that specific languages are represented differently but using the same categories of aesthetics, complexity, utility and status. Language learning is anchored in characteristics of the learner and the learning process. There is evidence that people see language learning as a special skill and that informal learning is evaluated more positively than formal, classroom learning. Tension surrounds understandings of language competence, which fluctuate between ideals of perfection and the pragmatics of actual use. With regard to language management, companies generally do not have any systematic strategy. Even when companies have adopted English as a corporate language, there is no explicit formulation about what this entails and individuals may represent the actual concept differently. In relation to languages other than English, there is a tendency for the multinational company to outsource its multilingual needs from the Danish head office to native-speaking employees in affiliates or agents based in foreign markets.
This chapter presents focuses on the area of language policy in business. It discusses the relevance and effectiveness of strategies aiming toward bilingual Gaelic/English practices in workplace environments that address the need for capacity to work in two languages. The strategies under consideration are: translation services, as well as training & development. This chapter concludes with general recommendations for how the example of strategies used in Gaelic language policies can inform the development of policies in other areas.
The issues addressed in this contribution raise the question of language choices on companies’ websites and their implications for communication and access to information (fairness and equity) in the corporate sector. While the importance of the Internet as a means of communication and marketing for the corporate sector has been acknowledged, little attention has been paid to the linguistic dimension and the implications of this tool for business communication. This chapter examines the way in which companies cope with the linguistic diversity on their websites in order to identify possible models of language management as well as the eventual consequences of such choices for the structure and the content of a website. For the first stage, using a quantitative approach (statistical tools), we try to “map” the websites of fourteen surveyed companies in order to identify their degree of monolingualism/multilingualism, the sections that would be interesting to focus on with regard to understanding the policies of multilingual and multicultural content management, as well as a certain number of recurrent strategies. For the second stage, specific attention is given to conceptualizing the ways monolingual and multilingual resources have been mobilized in two website sections: job offers and the sale of products. On the one hand, job offers, being oriented towards future employees, are aimed at giving information about the company’s requirements. On the other hand, the products’ section is used as a market-oriented tool to accomplish the company’s main objective which is to “sell”.
The topic of this article is multilingualism and language choice in EU institutions. An analysis of whether the choice of working monolingualism penetrates progressively into the entire community and affects other languages and language use and if so, how this occurs.It comprises different sub-topics and perspectives such as the attitudes of EU officials, external communication of EU institutions with civil society through website presentations, with journalists through press conferences and with the German Parliament by the submission of papers. Also, internal institutional aspects were considered by analysing language choice for contributions in plenary and committee meetings in the EU Parliament and the Commission as well as the commissioners’ language skills. Special attention was paid to the unofficial institutional procedural languages, namely English, French and German, which have emerged in this function. English has gained outstanding prominence in all of the domains analyzed, though this does not seem to be welcome according to the officials’ professed attitudes and EU language policy principles. This research shows, however, that the prominence of English is the political reality, despite the seemingly adverse political will and in spite of the reduction in the number of procedural languages, the extension of interpretation services and the promotion of officials’ foreign language skills. Parliamentarians fear the negative impacts of such a development on the EU’s democracy and legitimacy. In addition, growing monolinguality causes language conflicts with, and within, national parliaments as shown by this research in the case of the German Bundestag. Neither the members of the German Parliament, however, or the EU commissioners seem to consider this a burning issue of EU politics. Finally, this research reveals the potentially positive effects of working plurilingualism in EU institutions as well as the stark discrepancy between the EU’s language policy and its actual language politics. The article is based largely on research planning and guidance by Ulrich Ammon and also research carried out by Jan Kruse and, formerly, Verena Wimmers and Michael Schloßmacher.
The compatibility between multilingual language policies and the possibilities to use Slovene (as a case-study for lesser-used languages) was researched at the levels of EU institutions and Slovene national politics. In EU institutions, linguistic diversity and the use of Slovene language have a formal, symbolic value while the backstage linguistic habitus is marked by the predominance of English/French, with the majority of Slovene representatives supporting the current linguistic regime. At the level of Slovene political institutions, the protectionist ideology is still prevalent. The new supranational context is mostly perceived as an opportunity to strengthen Slovene language while multilingual guidelines are implemented only when demanded by the EU.
In our chapter, we present a multilevel approach to multilingualism in the European Union (i.e. EU) Institutions. We explore the diversity of the Union’s institutional language regimes and regulations from the point of view of their perceptions, conceptions and practices. We juxtapose the EU-relevant language ideologies (perceptions, conceptions) with the ways in which multilingualism is de facto regulated and practiced in the Union’s institutional spaces. In this way, we observe how multilingualism in the EU institutions changes and how, inculcated in the process of the Union’s ongoing change, it quickly becomes one of the key facets of the transformation of Europe’s supranational polity. Our research provides a differentiated and critical perspective on how language ideologies related to multilingualism are conceptualised in EU language policies, in the Union’s supranational institutional contexts as well as in communication between EU institutions and Europe’s national milieus (national public spheres, EU member states). The key findings in all areas of our research point to the lack of coherent multilingualism policies in the EU as a multilevel system of governance. Our work also emphasises the need for further multilevel studies on internal and external aspects of EU-institutional multilingualism in order to set foundations for an ongoing academic reflection on the future shape of the EU as a space of political and organisational practice based on open and inclusive multilingualism.
This chapter studies the dynamics between existing bilingualism and developing international agendas at two Catalan public universities. It explores multilingualism as illustrated in interaction, tracking links between plurilingual practices and knowledge construction. The data are primarily from L2-medium academic content classes (ELF or CLIL), although interactional data from other institutional settings are drawn on in portraying practices. The study follows qualitative and emic approaches; the field was constructed ethnographically, while conversation analytic procedures guide the analysis of interaction. The results demonstrate how, in non-classroom events, participants align with policies through their use of local languages and English – categorised as a tool for practising internationalisation. Other languages are also present, although they lack relevant status in policies. In these settings, the practices in a plurilingual mode allow local participants to achieve the goals of internationalisation and also create a pleasant social environment. Classroom data document the emergence of practices in a plurilingual mode, although these are less frequent in ELF than in CLIL classes. Plurilingual practices are traced mainly in dialogical sequences, while they also occur in students’ written notes. The data suggest that the plurilingual mode enhances student participation, allows members to achieve their goals, and creates a favourable framework for an in-depth processing of academic content. Plurilingual practices are not portrayed in official documents. Despite being revealed empirically to be an everyday reality, hybrid language uses or plurilanguaging are not promoted as a potential knowledge construction tool or as a key resource for ‘doing internationalisation’.
This paper explores multilingualism at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, an officially trilingual institution of higher education in Italy. By discussing examples of institutional communication and informal student interaction, and relating them to official language policies and social actors’ reported practices, the study aims to provide insights into how institutional trilingualism is viewed and translated into practice in the context under examination, and on how, in more general terms, linguistic diversity can be an advantage rather than a drawback in higher education.The emergence of two different models of multilingual education is discussed, showing how multilingual practices – sometimes in tension with official policies – can enhance participation and knowledge co-construction. Analyses of service encounters document the role played by social actors’ multilingual competence in accomplishing their communicative goals, while the examination of students’ informal peer-interaction highlights the impact of social networks on the development of multilingual repertories.
This chapter aims to achieve a better understanding of the role of plurilingualism not only in the development of new communicative skills, but also in the construction of knowledge in higher education. On the basis of a theoretical framework at the crossroads between conversation analysis, discourse analysis, studies on second language acquisition and plurilingualism, we develop new analytical tools. We particularly focus here on a class sequence recorded in the Faculty of Law at the University of Zurich, which illustrates very well the relevance of language negotiation to the conceptualisation process. Our analysis brings in important distinctions between different linguistic modes (plurilingual vs unilingual) and participation regimes (more or less collaborative) and shows how the plurilingual mode connected to a collaborative participation can stimulate the acquisition process, the discourse activity (for example, a definition sequence) being also relevant to the shaping of knowledge. Furthermore, beyond the practice stage, we underline the role played by social representations in this regard. We conclude on the notion of plurilingualism as an asset.
This chapter explores multilingualism in higher education in the Nordic countries with a particular focus on the University of Helsinki. It applies policy analysis and discourse analytic approaches in an effort to scrutinize the existence of language policies at different levels (EU, national, and university), their outputs and outcomes. We provide a showcase of how policy input, output and outcomes can be analysed according to a model applicable to the assessment of policy implementation. Our studies stress the importance of making distinctions between both overt and covert language policies, and between explicit and implicit language use. The study illustrates the nature of covert policies in the universities in Northern Europe that we have studied and the concomitant linguistic manifestations of these policies. A general tendency is an increasing internationalisation within higher education. This is supported by EU-level soft policies. Our findings raise questions about the impact that this policy has on multilingualism. The linguistic scene in higher education institutions in Northern Europe appears to be moving towards bilingualism in national languages and English, with the exception of some minority languages with special status. Our research shows that language policies are essential from a minority’s perspective. A general lack of evaluation and follow-up can, however, be seen. A further broadening of the language repertoires is proposed.
This study focuses on the relationship between multilingual policies and practices and their representations at the Babeş-Bolyai University (BBU) of Cluj, Romania, drawing on a broad theoretical background provided by sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, semantics, cognitive analysis and didactics, within a convergent set of academic contexts: European, Romanian, regional and institutional. We signpost how multilingualism became a seminal entry on the BBU’s political agenda as scaffolded by the three-tiered language policy of this university – the study-lines in regional languages (Romanian, Hungarian, German), the provision of full study programs in widely spoken languages (CLIL), and the teaching of specialized modern languages (LSP). Most importantly, in line with the core questions the Dylan Project has attempted to find answers to, we scrutinize the multilingual practices of the BBU, the attitudes adopted to multilingualism and its representations among students and members of the academic community. Thus, by analyzing the corpora gathered through video-taping LSP and CLIL classes and interpreting the data resulting from a collection of faculty interviews and student questionnaires, we aim to identify the conditions under which multilingualism may become a resource, as well as a problem, for communication and knowledge transmission.
In this contribution two questions are addressed namely what is the influence of policy on multilingual education and what is the impact of multilingual education on practices? By multilingual education is meant content and language integrated learning or CLIL. This paper is organized in three parts. In the first part the influence on policy on multilingual education is studied on two levels. First, the local level, i.e. the region of Flanders in Belgium and, second, the European level will be examined. The second part will study the impact of multilingual education on practice by researching two selected secondary schools, one vocational and one elite school by means of a number of tenets that include linguistic and non-linguistic ones. The main task of the Dylan project was to show the importance of multilingualism in a variety of ways. One of the most important aspects is education at both university and secondary level that should ideally be built upon multilingual primary education. Current scientific research has mainly focussed on aspects of language education while we advocate the idea that learning in another language has a major influence on a number of factors that eventually create better learners. In this way this approach is, first, a contribution to the advantages of multilingualism and, second, a plea for educational innovation via language education. Finally, a number of theoretical pathways are identified to illustrate our major conclusion that opens the way toward a new educational paradigm.
As shown in several chapters of this book, actors confronted with the need to communicate in a multilingual context use a variety of strategies. These strategies may be more or less directly influenced by the language policies adopted by the public or private sector institutions in which they operate. Such policies may also be extremely diverse. Whether we are referring to actual language practices or explicit language policies, they can prove more or less multilingual. Assessing the relative merits of “more” or “less” multilingual practices and policies presupposes that we have a set of criteria which we can use as a basis for comparing them with each other. This chapter is devoted to the development of such criteria on the basis of the core principles of policy analysis, as it is applied to a host of other questions ranging from education planning to the provision of health services and environmental protection. We first show how the standard criteria of efficiency and fairness can be constructed and used with reference to language. We then infer from this analytical framework a matrix for the generation of a system of indicators of efficiency and fairness in multilingual communication. Examples of indicators, which can be “populated” with data, are provided in the appendix.
In this chapter, we investigate the use of English as a lingua franca (ELF) in interaction with other languages in linguistically diversified settings and examine the ways in which ELF is employed by plurilingual European speakers. On the one hand, this concerns the speakers’ strategic adaptation of linguistic elements according to their specific communicative purposes. In this respect, we have identified patterns of accommodation techniques and joint negotiation of meaning among ELF users. On the other hand, these processes have themselves proven to be interwoven with speakers’ overall linguistic repertoires and have thus shown ELF to be a multilingual mode. The analysis has shed light on diverse manifestations of this linguistic diversity within ELF and the processes underlying these. On a more general level, two major findings have emerged from the investigation of lingua franca communication: (1) Regardless of differences in first languages, plurilingual speakers share a great deal of skills, knowledge and resources which they mobilise in order to achieve their communicative goals. In other words, there is ‘familiarity in the foreign’ which can be strategically exploited. (2) Intercultural communicators employing a lingua franca mode exhibit considerable flexibility and integration of linguistic resources rather than sticking to stable, strictly demarcated codes. There is thus ‘flexibility beyond the fixed’. We analyse ELF interactions as representative of today’s intercultural communication practices and concluded that there is a need for reconsideration of established categories such as stable speech communities, reified languages and additive multilingualism.
Starting from the central DYLAN question as to the conditions under which Europeans consider multilingualism as an advantage or as a drawback, the present chapter primarily discusses the historical aspects of European multilingualism. Methodically, many of the aspects dealt with are based on an analytical grid which illustrates the interrelations between the four research areas: “domains”, “language attitudes”, “language policies” and “contexts”. The fifth area “tranversal issues” (Geneva, Vienna, Berlin) and especially the aims of the Berlin research team run at right angles to this, touching on all four areas and offering a historical retrospective which provides a general overview of past and present forms of European multilingualism. Perhaps surprisingly, we depart from the assumption that the often invisible occurrences and forms of multilingualism in European history can be illuminated by taking a detour into comparative research into European standardisation histories. Thematically, the article uses examples to focus on indexicality and the social aspects of (individual) multilingualism by conducting a comparative analysis of certain periods (16th, 19th/20th and 21st century) and of distinguishable occurrences/forms (prestigious, plebeian) and trends/concepts (territoriality, non-standard, correctness, egalitarian). The mechanisms operative in the fields of linguistic attitudes and usages during the various European standardisation periods are considered from a macro-perspective. One of the focuses here is on the varied and context-specific traditions of foreign language learning from the Middle Ages where multilingualism was part of self-evident practice up to the present day and on the rediscovery of European multilingualism (19th century) which was, for example, accompanied by a fundamental critique (from the late 19th century onwards) of the principle of territoriality and uniformity. Among other things, the final section presents proposals for the periodisation of the different stages of standardisation in Europe.