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A Stateless Language that Europe must Embrace
English is already Europe's lingua franca and it's time for politicians and educators to acknowledge this.
The language policy in the European Union is both ineffective and hypocritical, and its ideas of linguistic equality and multilingualism are costly and cumbersome illusions. Why have these illusions been kept up for so long? First, because the French with their traditionally superior position in Europe cannot accept the decline of their own linguistic power; second, because the politically-correct ideologies of some sociolinguists constantly fuel opposition against the idea of English as a European lingua franca; and third, because powerful translators' lobbies fight for their raison d'etre. In the name of the high ideal of linguistic equality a time-consuming, expensive and increasingly intractable translation machinery is maintained that is doing its best to translate the illusion of equality into illusions of multilingualism and translatability.
The translations produced in the world's largest translation bureau are taken as tokens for equality: what counts is that they exist, not what they are like - many EU officials doubt their accuracy and openly prefer to read the more reliable English and French originals. Also, the supposed linguistic equality in the EU is a relative one: some languages are more "equal" than others, and minority languages inside the member states do not count at all.
The EU's ostensible multilingualism sets it apart from other international organisations. Instead of having opted for a "workable" number of working languages, all the official languages of the member states were given equal status. For a smooth functioning of the EU institutions, however, whose legislation ordinary people do not understand anyway, the use of English as a lingua franca would be infinitely better.
English is particularly suitable as Europe's lingua franca because of its functional flexibility and spread across the world, and because English is already "de-nativised" to a large extent: the global number of non-native speakers is now substantially larger than its native speakers (about 4:1). English is no longer "owned" by its native speakers because acculturation and nativisation processes have produced a remarkable diversification of the English language into many non-native varieties.
The point is that we can no longer say that English is one monolithic, "hegemonic" voice, it is a diversity of different voices. The multiplicity of voices behind English as a lingua franca implies that differences in interactional norms between speakers using English as a language for communication remain unaltered. And it is this deep diversity in the use of English by speakers with different mother tongues that invalidates the claim that English is an imperialist adversary, an eliminating "killer language" - which English, we may ask?
Is it those localised, regionalised or otherwise appropriated varieties of English whose speakers creatively conduct pragmatic and cultural shifts? Surely not. Arguments such as the ones brought forward by the anti-English league are simply outdated. The Empire has struck back already. Non-native speakers of English have created their own discourse norms and genres. And they do this out of their own free will, happily ignoring the "linguistic domination" ascribed to them. In other words there is no didactic-linguistic replay of formerly colonial and militaristic means.
English as a lingua franca is nothing more than a useful tool: it is a "language for communication", a medium that is given substance with the different national, regional, local and individual cultural identities its speakers bring to it. English itself does not carry such identities, and it is not a "language for identification". And because of the variety of functional uses of global English, English has also a great potential for promoting international understanding. Its different speakers must always work out a common behavioural and intercultural basis.
Paradox as this may seem, the very spread of English can motivate speakers of other languages to insist on their own local language for identification, for binding them emotionally to their own cultural and historical tradition. There is no need to set up an old-fashioned dichotomy between local languages and English as the "hegemonic aggressor": there is a place for both, because they fulfill different functions. To deny this is to uphold outdated concepts of monolingual societies and individuals.
? Using English as a lingua franca in Europe does not inhibit linguistic diversity, and it unites more than it divides, simply because it may be "owned" by all Europeans - not as a cultural symbol, but a means of enabling understanding.
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