Eurobarometer Study Research Articles

Your Language, My Language or English? The Potential Language Choice in Communication Among Nationals of the European Union

Data on foreign language learning and the ability to take part in a conversation using a foreign language were collected by Eurobarometer in 1994 from representative samples of the population in 12 member states of the European Union (n = 13,029). Drawing on these data, the authors observe that knowledge of foreign languages has increased considerably in Europe in the last 40 years, thereby improving the potential for communication among Europeans. They note that the three most learned and spoken foreign languages, English, French, and German, are all expanding. However, English is by far the language which has progressed the most, which raises the question of the eventual emergence of English as a lingua franca. The authors use the representative data from the Eurobarometer study, differentiated by country and by age group, to estimate the probability that a particular language will be used when nationals of two different countries belonging to two different age groups (15–24, and 55 and older) interact. Some sociolinguistic implications are examined in the conclusion.