Language Conflicts In The European Union

International Journal of Applied Linguistics w Vol. 16 w No. 3 w 2006

Language conflicts in the European Union
Ulrich
International
IJAL
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0802-6106
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16
Language
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The Ammon
Author
Article conflicts Journal
Journal
inLtd of the compilation Applied
European
Linguistics
© Union
2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Blackwell
Oxford,
UK
Publishing

On finding a politically acceptable and practicable solution for
EU institutions that satisfies diverging interests
Ulrich Ammon University Duisburg-Essen

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 widelyspoken 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.
Keywords: European Union, institutional working languages, language interests, language conflicts
Für die EU-Institutionen ware eine einzige interne Arbeitssprache, für die nur
Englisch in Frage kame, am effizientesten, und sie läge allem Anschein nach auch im Interesse derjenigen Mitgliedstaaten und Sprachgemeinschaften, deren Sprachen von den Arbeitssprachen ohnehin ausgeschlossen sind.
Für die Mitgliedstaaten der großen Sprachgemeinschaften

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