European Cinema and Intercomprehension: Metaphors and Instances of Mutual Intelligibility

Abstract

The European Union is multilingual in its daily reality as well as in its legislation. The use of only one language as a communicative means among different peoples in Europe would greatly impact upon Europe’s capacity to federate diverse cultures and languages, not to mention the economic and cultural benefits enjoyed by the country whose language would become an inter-European language. With Intercomprehension (IC), the European citizens could overcome the risk of diminishing communicative exchanges: it promotes a direct, multilingual dialog tailoring the mindset and language specificity of each and every interlocutor. As such, IC bears the sign of a concrete action in favor of the cultural and language diversity. Two French movies – Euro-Mix (“L’auberge espagnole”) and its sequel Russian Dolls (“Les poupées russes”) – have been precisely selected as proof of this communication skill that avoids using a third language between two people speaking related languages.