6.

The European Union Context

There is a lack of clear directives on English in the language policies formulated and
promoted by the EU. This is perhaps because sensitivity is required when official statements
are issued that stipulate how linguistic equality is to be achieved at all levels of the Union.
This has not to any noticeable extent hindered English from becoming the de facto European
lingua franca. In 1958, the Council of Ministers ruled that the official language of all member
states should also be deemed to be an official and thus a working language of the Union and
that this right extended to all new members. As a result, translation and interpretation
services face a formidable challenge. This difficulty is, nevertheless, alleviated to some
extent by the fact that English and French serve as the two main vehicular languages, with
English gaining ground in this respect at the expense of French. This “special status” for
English and French is not in line with the basic tenets of the EU and is an indication of the
need to implement practical solutions to what may appear to be nearly insurmountable
obstacles.
It would seem to be the case that the rise of English and the ensuing importance of English
for the work being conducted in the EU are coming from the citizens of Europe themselves,
who are becoming increasingly proficient in the language. Thus, because English is by far the
most common foreign language taught in the school systems across Europe, and because
those who study English are succeeding at acquiring impressive levels of proficiency, it is
reasonable to assume that this trend, with English gaining on French as the most viable
working language of the EU, will continue and even accelerate in the years to come. This
order of events challenges the intentions of the Maastricht Treaty and the statutes of the
European Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union which stipulate the
importance of linguistic diversity.
The official EU directives on language policy exemplify the very dilemma that Europe is now
experiencing. On the one hand, there is the clearly stated goal of linguistic multiplicity; on
the other hand, we see countless examples of increased English spread. The EU could, by
taking a stand on the evolution of English within the European framework, bring some
structure to the role that English is to play in the development of Europe. However, without
official directives on English and the enforcement that institutional support can provide, the
way English is appropriated and utilized in mainland Europe will continue to be defined by
private interests, government agencies, educational authorities, and practitioners, with the
ensuing diversification of policy and practice which is the case at the current time.
The drive to create a unified Europe, a borderless Eurozone wherein the free exchange of
goods, money, people, and services can be conducted without unnecessary bureaucratic
interference, is bringing Europeans together. Economic, social, and cultural unification is at
the very heart of the European movement. Such intentions suggest that Europeanization,
and thus monoculturalization processes, are already set in motion. At the same time, there
is a concerted effort to preserve Europe’s cultural and linguistic diversity. The Bureau for
Lesser Used Languages is one example, where work is carried out to support moribund and
endangered languages. Within education, the Erasmus, Lingua, and Socrates programs,
which promote third-language acquisition through student and teacher exchanges, can also
be seen to be tools utilized to ensure the cultural and linguistic pluralism that defines
Europe. Yet English continues to spread.
These two forces, the monoculturalization that coincides with the growth of English as the
most common supranational language within the EU apparatus as well as in the population
at large and efforts based on the belief that the Union will succeed in preserving linguistic
diversity, are fundamentally in opposition to one another. Furthermore, not only is the
spread of English neutralizing efforts to preserve Europe’s rich linguistic multiplicity, but the
language is at the same time evolving on its own into a culture-specific variety.
One indication of this development into a separate variety is the use of Eurospeak or
Eurojargon within EU institutions. First recognized as a lexical register utilized by Eurocrats,
the conceptualization of Eurospeak is now becoming much more commonly noticed and
cited. Lexical items and multi-word units peculiar to Europe, such as Brussels to refer
collectively to EU institutions, Maastricht to refer to the agreement signed there, Schengen
land as a term to encompass those countries that have free borders within the EU, Euro
land, Euro area, and Eurozone for those countries where the euro has been adopted as the
currency, Eurosceptic for someone skeptical of European integration, internal market, a
designation for the EU as a free-trade zone, and Berlaymont, a synonym for “red tape,” as
well as designations such as the “four freedoms” to designate the free movement of goods,
money, people, and services across European borders, are regularly used in the EU but are
not commonly understood by users of English unfamiliar with the European context. Indeed,
the term member state itself, a European invention, says much about how Europeans are
molding language to accommodate a new political reality.
These three aspects of language use within the Union – grammar, pronunciation, and lexis –
need to be studied more rigorously so that it can be ascertained whether it will be possible
to codify a second-language variety of English for mainland Europeans.
Eurocrats and elected representatives working in Brussels and elsewhere throughout the
Union are not in agreement about the acknowledgment of a specific European variety of
English. Within the EU apparatus, there is much discussion as to the “quality” of the written
and spoken English of non-native speakers working within EU institutions. Manifestations of
this concern are the booklet How to Write Clearly (published internally by the EU),2 which
encourages clarity in written documentation, and the “Fight the Fog” campaign, which is an
attempt to motivate people to accommodate their interlocutors by providing them with
easy-to-understand language. These efforts can be seen as responses to the radical language
contact taking place in Brussels and Strasbourg, where transference, or what some consider
interference, is resulting in the acceptance (but often abhorrence) of hybrid forms of
language.