Experiences with language in central Europe: citizenship and belonging

1
Experiences with language in (central) Europe
citizenship and belonging

• Patrick Stevenson
• Centre for Transnational Studies
• University of Southampton

2
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.

3
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

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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

5
Problematising language and European discourses
on multilingualism

• 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.

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Problematising language and European discourses
on multilingualism

• Discrete, hierarchically ordered languages
  enduring European language ideology.
• Privileged status of national languages in
  multilingual states.
• The EU and the multilingual mantra.

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Problematising language and European discourses
on multilingualism

• 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.

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Problematising language and European discourses
on multilingualism

• 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.

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Problematising language and European discourses
on multilingualism

• 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).

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Problematising language and European discourses
on multilingualism

• Commissioner for Multilingualisms 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?

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Problematising language and European discourses
on multilingualism

• 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.

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Problematising language and European discourses
on multilingualism

• 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)

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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

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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
  peoples lives.
• What might this mean in the present context?
• What might an appropriate research agenda look
  like?

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Implications for researching language

• Research on global languages
• World Englishes competing discourses
• Global Spanish language spread from above and
  from below
• Reshaping of language relationships and
  linguistic repertoires

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Implications for researching language

• Research on national languages
• Language and space
• National languages and language loyalty
• Controlling the flow of migration

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Implications for researching language

• Emerging research agenda suggests
• discrete categories not valid
• need to assess impact of policy on experience
• importance of different research methods.

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Implications for researching language

• 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?

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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)

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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

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The German Language and the Future of Europe

• Theme 1
• Across Europe
• Policies 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

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The German Language and the Future of Europe

• 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

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The German Language and the Future of Europe

• 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

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The German Language and the Future of Europe

• Theme 2
• German in CE prestige ? denigration ? revival
• Recontextualisation 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.

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The German Language and the Future of Europe

• 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.

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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