The Role of English in the the European Union Linguistic Mosaic

The impact of English as a modern lingua franca on the linguistic mosaic of contemporary Europe

Piotr Romanowski, Poland

Today’s Europe is composed of culturally and linguistically diversified societies, or, to use a trendy academic word, of multicultural societies. The notion of multicultural society denotes a society in which there exist several cultures and that is composed of people belonging to different cultures very often using various languages as a tool for communication. The term multicultural society is about those differences that are embedded in and sustained by culture, i.e. a body of beliefs and practices in terms of which a group of people understand themselves, the world and organisation of their individual and collective lives.

Multilingualism in Europe is the result of historical, social and political factors. Some languages are official national languages spoken by millions of speakers, such as English, French, Spanish, or German whereas others are lesser – used and in some cases they are only spoken by a few thousand communicants.

The spread of English as a language of international communication and its increasing use as the European lingua franca has created the need to learn this language for those speakers of minority languages who do not live in the United Kingdom or Ireland. Nowadays, English is the most common foreign language in Continental Europe. Its use as a language of wider communication does not have an equal status in different European regions either. The spread of English over Europe is not uniform and there are important discrepancies between northern and southern Europe. For example, the use of English in society and the media is more common in Scandinavia and the Netherlands than in Italy or Spain.

It is English which has penetrated deeply and affected the international domains of political life, business, safety, communication, entertainment, the media and education.

The convenience of having a global language available to deal with daily issues is favoured by millions of citizens of not only Europe but also the whole planet.

To understand the influence of English on the linguistic situation in the European Union, we need to review some important factors in social history which laid the cultural foundation for the growth of English as a world language. It is also essential that we should examine various cultural manifestations of this development aimed at the explanation of the state of English today. Various political, social and scientific developments have established the language in a position of pre – eminence and managed to maintain it as a world leader.