Lost in Translation? European Integration and Language Diversity

Abstract

English is constantly moving forward and consolidating its role as lingua franca in the European Union. At the same time the Union has 23 official languages and promotes around 150 regional or minority languages under its official motto United in diversity; expressing the view that each member state should promote its national language and identity simultaneously as their citizens are to feel like Europeans. This may be regarded as a contradiction in terms because diversity may undermine unity. In this paper we reach the opposite conclusion by investigating the relationship between language, identity and the process of European integration. Taking as a point of departure the fact that language is a crucial part of our identity, we argue that language as such does not have to be an obstacle to the development of ‘an ever closer Union’ in Europe if the general discourses are made transparent on each level of political decision making, i.e. the regional, national and supra-national level as this maintains and strengthens the democracy in the Union. We see the Union as the individual languages' and hence identities’ advocate, defending democratic diversity in Europe at the same time as three main working languages – English, French and German – ensure its necessary unity under some kind of confederal or federal supra-national political system.

Key Words:

• Democracy
• federalism
• European integration
• European Union
• identity
• language

Acknowledgements

Thanks to seminar audiences in Barcelona (May 2006) and Bergen (November 2006) for good and creative comments, to Christopher Lord for commenting on certain aspects of this paper and to Roland Grindheim for critical remarks on the final version.

Notes

We do not attempt to draw a firm distinction between the concepts of nation and state. Following Sweeney (2005), we recognise that state differs from nation insofar as the former invokes territoriality and a government.

This might also be influenced by the enlargement of the EU with Bulgaria and Romania on 1 January 2007, but we do not have any figures for this at present.

See DGT (2005) for a full overview of the different areas.

Concerning the means of translation it would be even simpler if the translators were able to translate the special terminology using words that would mean approximately the same in different countries. This makes the process much harder and not the least, more dependent on the individuals that perform the translations. Also bear in mind that each translator is specialised in one area and thereby has good knowledge about the field in question.