University of Innsbruck, Faculty of Humanities 2, Department of English
SE English in Europe, Date of handing in: 11th January, 2007

English in the European Union

by: Stefan Hinterholzer

Table of Contents

Introduction  - 3 -

1. The EU Language Policy  - 3 -

1.1. Official Languages  - 3 -
1.2. Lost in Translation?  - 4 -
1.3. Languages in the EU Institutions  - 5 -

2. English as a European Lingua Franca  - 6 -

2.1. Motivation  - 6 -
2.2. Current Situation  - 6 -
2.3. Functions  - 7 -

2.3.1. The Imaginative/Innovative Function  - 7 -
2.3.2. The Interpersonal Function  - 7 -
2.3.3. The Instrumental Function  - 8 -

3. Euro-English - 8 -

3.1. Vocabulary – Discoursal Nativization  - 9 -
3.2. Vocabulary – Abbreviations - 10 -
3.3. Vocabulary – Europeanization  - 11 -
3.4 Pronunciation  - 11 -
3.5. Grammatical Structures - 12 -

4. The dominance of English - 13 -

4.1. Background  - 13 -
4.2. English Outrunning French  - 14 -

5. Opposition  - 15 -

5.1. Use of Native Languages  - 15 -
5.2. Protection of Culture  - 16 -
5.3. The French Opposition - 16 -

Conclusion 17 -

Bibliography 18 -

Monographs 18 -
Journal Articles  - 18 -
Newspaper Articles  - 19 -
Dictionaries  - 19 -
Websites  - 19 -

Introduction

The European Union is not only an economic community. It is also a unique language community in which each language has its place and its right to exist. Today, English is the dominant language in the world serving as a first or second language, a working language, a lingua franca etc. for many people. Nevertheless, the position of the English language is not the same in the European Union as in a global context. This paper will focus on the position of English in the European Union being only one of 23 official languages. It will be analyzed in how far the dominance of English affects the other languages and the institutions of the European Union and to which extent English has the status of a European¹ lingua franca. On the other hand, the influence of the other languages on English will be looked at, which will lead us to the phenomenon of ‘Euro-English’. Finally, the opposition of other language communities against the dominance of English will be discussed.

1. The EU Language Policy

1.1. Official Languages

The EU language policy accepts and protects the languages of all EU member states, especially of smaller language communities. 23 languages are approved as official languages in the EU (in alphabetical order):

[table only in downloadfile]

This large number of official languages is supposed to make official documents comprehensible for national institutions as well as for the EU citizens. There is a distinction between authentic languages and working languages. The authentic language is that language in whose version the foundation treaties are binding. Originally, French was the only authentic language, but through further accession treaties the languages of the other founder members and the languages of those countries that accessed the European Union became authentic languages too. Working languages, on the other hand, are those languages for an internal use. Again, all 23 (official) languages are working languages. Still, in practice there is a tendency towards using either English or French (cf. Streinz 2005: 96- 98).

1.2. Lost in Translation?

The great variety of languages in the EU makes it necessary to employ translators. The three main institutions of the EU – the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council of Ministers – each have an own administration and an own translation service. When the EU was founded by the original six nations (Germany, Italy, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg) the four official languages were Dutch, French, German and Italian. In the first years, about 200.000 pages were translated per year. Today, more than 3 million pages are translated and the annual number of translated pages is rising by about 5 % each year (cf. Dollerup: 28). As the following figure shows, the number of pages translated always experienced a significant rise when new members accessed the European Union. Given that in 2004 ten Eastern European countries (Cypress, The Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia) became members of the European Union, it becomes clear why the number of pages translated exploded to the current number of three million pages. The EU institutions now had to translate all documents into 9 additional official pages. These time-consuming and expensive translation procedures have provoked discussions about one common official European language. Still, proponents of this idea have to face political and legal as well as social and cultural objections.

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1.3. Languages in the EU Institutions

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1 In this paper, the adjective ‚European’ is used in a narrow sense relating to the European Union only and not to the European continent as a whole.