• DOI:10.1111/J.1473-4192.2006.00121.X
• Corpus ID: 142692741

Language conflicts in the European Union On finding a politically acceptable and practicable solution for EU institutions that satisfies diverging interests

@article{Ammon2006LanguageCI,
  title={Language conflicts in the European Union On finding a politically acceptable and practicable solution for EU institutions that satisfies diverging interests},
  author={Ulrich Ammon},
  journal={International Journal of Applied Linguistics},
  year={2006},
  volume={16},
  pages={319-338}
}

• U. Ammon
• Published 1 November 2006
• Linguistics
• International Journal of Applied Linguistics

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 widely-spoken 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.