The Language Policy Of European Union From The Perspective Of Collective Identity

In a modern sovereign country which has a number of national groups and national languages, one important principle of its language policy is, on one hand, to establish, through various means, including school education, a lingua franca to meet the needs of administration efficiency, economical and social development and the mutual understanding of different national groups, and on the other hand, to respect the fact of linguistic diversity, which means the language rights of the minorities are protected, and their languages are valued as national cultural assets. To summarize, one important feature of the language policy of a state is to realize the above two important goals by legislation, thus serving the purpose of strengthening national collective identity.The European Union (EU), which is made of 27 member states, is a supranational polity, somewhere between an international organization and a sovereign state. It has already been an important task of the Union to forge and strengthen the collective identity among its citizens. Therefore, the present research tries to explore the following questions: What are the main areas of the Union's language policy? Is its language policy serving the purpose of strengthening collective identity? And what are the features of its language policy?The whole research is composed of eight chapters, which falls into four basic parts, namely, research background, research base, main body, and conclusion. The brief introduction is as follows:Research Background, which includes the first chapter, briefly, introduces the major historical steps in the course of European integration, analyzes the conception of European collective identity and summarizes the current research on European collective identity, and points out that it is necessary to analyze the language policy of European Union from the perspective of collective identity. The chapter also briefly explains the research method.Research Base includes chapters 2 to 3.Chapter 2 analyzes the relationship between identity and language policy, focusing on language and national identity, and its feature in this globalized world. Then the chapter, from the perspective of language right, analyzes and compares the differences and similarities on the issue of minority languages between Marxism and modern Western scholars, and concludes the fundamental principles of language policy of a sovereign country, and how the language policy can help to strengthen its national collective identity.Chapter 3 analyzes the supranational feature of European Union, and by referring to the major policy areas of national language policy, establishes the major research area of European Union's language policy.The Main Body includes chapter 4 to 7, each chapter analyzes an aspect of EU's language policy from the perspective of collective identity.Chapter 4 analyzes language status planning and its implementation, focusing on the analysis EU's legal framework on this aspect and how it is achieved in practice. Then the chapter, by comparing the language policy of early USSR and it later shift, points out that the equal official language policy is necessary for the formation European collective identity. Chapter 4 also presents the fact that as European integration deeps, the equal official language policy is under challenge, that is to say, a few big official languages have gained certain advantages over the remaining official languages.Chapter 5 analyzes the EU's policy on regional and lesser-used languages, focusing on current situation of minorities and their languages. It concludes that the language right of the minorities is necessary for a harmonious relationship between national and minority groups, and therefore, important for the strengthening of European collective identity.Chapter 6, by mainly referring to Estonia and Latvia, analyzes and assesses the fluencies EU's eastward enlargement on the language policies of the candidate countries, and its positive effect on European collective identity.Chapter 7 analyzes the development of EU's language education policy, focusing on its effort on institution setup, the key action plans, and language test, and then assesses the progresses it has made in implementing its language education goal.ConclusionChapter 8 presents the research conclusion. To some extent, EU's language policy resembles that of a sovereign country, and it has positive effect on the formation of European collective identity, for EU's language policy has reflected following intentions, though not necessarily on purpose. The establishment of equal official language policy is the base for the formation of European collective identity. By implementing institutional multilingualism, EU'citizens'collective identity is strengthened. By taking actions to protect the language rights of minorities of its member states, EU has clearly shown its concern on the human right and democracy, thus helping to establish a more harmonious relationship between national groups and minority groups. By stressing individual multilingualism, EU has proposed its language education policy, the so-called"one mother tongue plus two foreign languages". The purpose of which is to promote the mutual understanding between peoples from different member states, to help them work and live in another member state, thus helping EU citizens to more chances. This will make EU closer to its citizens and therefore, helps to strengthen the European collective identity.However, due to EU's supranational polity, EU's language policy differs from that of sovereign states in the way it helps to strengthen collective identity. Within EU, the official languages are correlated in two ways. On one hand, the official languages are regulated by EU'laws, mainly by status planning. On the other hand, official languages also compete with each other, similar to the relationship among the official languages of different sovereign states. As European integration deepens, EU seems to make more use of a small number of big languages, this together with an increasing emphasis on foreign language teaching and learning, contributes to popularize the big official languages. This may eventually helps the big languages become the lingua francas within EU. It seems that such a likelihood may not disturb the relationship among the member states.As the member states are increasingly integrated economically, socially and politilly, EU's language policy, while respecting the fact the linguistic diversity, seems to let member states and their citizens select the lingua francas for the EU-wide communication. By doing this, it tries not to restrict specific official languages to avoid nationalism. In the long run, the harmonious coexistence of big languages serving as lingua francas, and small languages serving as national communication media, may be established. This will, no doubt, help strengthen the European collective identity.