Language learning and European integration

Abstract

Reviewing concepts of identity and ethnicity, and their applicability to Europe through language, religious and cultural criteria, the author notes that the analysis of any moves towards an integrated Europe must come to terms with both behavioural and ethnographic approaches to difference, and particularly to the contrast between dominance and difference theories. If culture is an internalised system of meanings, Europeans will require a socialisation process, and mode of expression through symbols which relate the individual to others and to himself and which thus create cultural identity, in addition to a language of basic communication—which need not be an official language. Strong self‐awareness, one of Clanet's three conditions for successful intercultural understanding, is not fully supported as relevant in two studies of cross‐cultural relations. The special role of language in intercultural understanding is however stressed. The final section of the paper considers a language learning policy for Europe at two levels: that of a common language of basic communication and that of full understanding, whose aim must be to see why cultural differences exist.