2006 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Status of the German Language in the European Union - German Standard Varieties and Language Policy of the EU
| Project/Area Number |
16520268
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Linguistics
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| Research Institution | Kansai University |
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Principal Investigator |
TAKAHASHI Hideaki Kansai University, Institute of Foreign Language Education and Research, Professor, 外国語教育研究機構, 教授 (60296944)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2004 – 2006
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| Keywords | EU official language / language corpus policy / language status policy / multilingualism |
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| Research Abstract |
The European Union (EU) is employing an official language policy based upon states, although it seeks to build an intranational organization taking over powers of the member states. At present, it has to deal not only with languages, but also with language varieties. Austria, which gained membership in the EU in 1995, succeeded in making the EU give official status to 23 words of the Austrian variety of German due to the Protocol No.10, though German had already been an EU official language. It is worth mentioning that a part of the Austrian language variety was recognized as official in the EU because Austria is trying to establish its identity through its language variety. Ger-many, taking into consideration the diversity of the German language, has been developing norms of German in the direction of convergence, while Austria is aiming at divergence on account of the theory of pluricentricity of German. Austria, smaller in terms of its population and economy than Germany, emphasizes
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the diversity. On the other hand, Germany, holding hegemony over German-speaking countries in regard to language norms, is in the pursuit of a unified standardization of the German language. Language policy of the German-speaking countries in the EU is thus characterized by these opposing purposes. Multivarietism which can contribute to developing a democratic language corpus policy brings about, however, a negative effect in relation to a language status policy. It might not be realistic to make the language policy of the EU efficacious, vesting all official languages of the member states with the status of EU official languages. In reality, only some of the EU official languages are used as working languages, where a power struggle is taking place above all under "big languages" such as English, French and German. As far as the identity of the German-speaking countries as a whole does not outstrip each of their national identities, multivarietism will be maintained, so that united language status policy of the German language will hardly be possible. Less
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Research Products
(10 results)
