Addressing linguistic diversity in the European Union: Strategies and dilemmas

Abstract

In multilingual environments, respecting diverse linguistic identities is a requirement for recognizing the equal dignity of citizens. In the official discourse of the European Union, the approach to linguistic diversity has typically oscillated between two normative poles. On the one hand, linguistic diversity is seen as a central element of Europe's cultural inheritance, as an asset that is a pillar for achieving the intercultural understanding on which a trans-European civil society has to rely. On the other hand, multilingualism is seen as a challenge for creating an integrated market-cum-polity. The way to confront this challenge consists in turning it into a potential economic asset: multilingualism thereby becomes primarily a competitive advantage in a global context characterized by cognitive mobility in knowledge-based societies. In its attempt at delineating a strategy between these two poles, European language policy entails multiple contradictions. Ultimately, it may be associated with an embrace of multilingualism in which the value of linguistic diversity is reduced to economic criteria. Due to the lack of proper political foundations for coping with linguistic diversity at the European level, we are facing an impasse in which the recognition of equal dignity is put at risk by a normatively inconsistent marketing of diversity.