Insights and Inspirations from Attempts of the EU to “Rebuild the Tower of Babel”

Abstract

Based on the historical characteristics of Europe’s linguistic diversity, the EU has implemented a pluralistic language policy, aiming to “Rebuild the Tower of Babel” within its organization. However, the language governance in the process of the EU integration has not been smooth. The conflicts between linguistic legislation and linguistic practice, between efforts to preserve multilingualism and the reality of English monolingualism, and between the multiple participants in language governance and their varying interests are still nagging at the EU language policy-makers. The underlying reasons are those difficulties to reconcile administrative efficiency with multilingual equality, the pragmatic instrumental value of one language with its national symbolic value, and the interests of many countries behind languages race. Insights into the EU language governance provide good inspirations for China’s language policy and planning, which will help China better present Chinese language and culture to the world, telling China’s stories well and making China’s voice heard.