Is ELF more effective and fair than translation? An evaluation of the EU's multilingual regime

Abstract

The management of multilingualism in the European Union (EU) has become an increasingly debated issue. Some argue that ‘English as a lingua franca' (ELF) should help solve many of the attendant challenges. The claim is sometimes made that ELF, as a multilingual way of using English, is no longer dependent upon the practices and representations of native speakers and therefore poses no threat to linguistic diversity or to fairness. In this article, we question the relevance of the concept of ELF from a language policy perspective, showing that the socioeconomic implications of using ELF are no different from those of using English only. We examine the costs associated with alternative language regimes for the EU, showing that a reduction in the direct costs of European multilingualism through the imposition of a single language merely shifts costs towards citizens whose mother tongue is not English, and that re-labelling it as ‘ELF' makes no difference. The use of translation and interpreting, though not free, remains more effective (and at a reasonable cost) than a monolingual regime based on English alone; it also more fair than a monolingual regime which unavoidably privileges native speakers

Linguistic diversity in a time of crisis: Language challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic

“…English as a global language has always been embedded in the tension between being a global lingua franca, on the one hand, and the national language of the UK, USA, and other Anglophone countries, on the other. Using English as global lingua franca eo ipso privileges those countries who do not have to invest significant national resources into learning it as a foreign language (Gazzola and Grin 2013). Consequently, it is not surprising that this investment in English is now being subjected to critical interrogation (Li 2020a).…”

On the Conceptual History of the Term Lingua Franca

“…These claims, notably supported by few empirical evidence by their authors, currently seem be rather wishful thinking, as is in my opinion sufficiently proven by Fiedler (2010Fiedler ( , 2011 with emphasis that ELF communication does exist, but is by no means culturefree) and Gazzola & Grin (2013): ELF is still English, and learners of English still try to achieve native speaker qualities, as the research of Jenkins (2007) herself has shown. On the one hand it is of course laudable to absolve the L2-users of Engli sh of the i nferi or posi tion of a defici ent speaker and to val orize their language use, but on the other hand the dogma of a "neutral" ELF has the consequence of neglecting and playing down the huge difference in effort required by L1 and L2 speakers of English to reach an acceptable level of proficiency in the language -for English native speakers it is still nearly nothing, in comparison to thousands of hours for speakers of other languages.…”

Communication in a Democratic Multilingual Europe: European Union Language Policy Evaluation from a Critical Perspective

“…These institutional documents confirmed my premises about the lack of an overarching political vision with each institution expressing their position on multilingualism according to their functional characteristics and needs. As a final step, I examined concrete language practices in major EU institutions focusing especially on the European Parliament basing my research on empirical studies carried by Ammon (2012), Fischer (2010), Forchtner (2014), Gazzola (2006Gazzola ( , 2013Gazzola ( , 2014 Kraus (2008), Kruse & Ammon (2013) Krzyzanowski & Wodak (2010.…”