The interplay of language ideologies and contextual cues in multilingual interactions: Language choice and code-switching in European Union institutions

Abstract

This article analyzes multilingual practices in interactions inside European Union (EU) institutions. On the basis of our fieldwork conducted in EU organizational spaces throughout 2009, we explore different types of communication in order to illustrate how Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and officials at the European Commission practice and perform multilingualism in their everyday work. In our theoretical and methodological framework, we draw on existent sociolinguistic ethnographical research into organizations and interactions, and integrate a multilevel (macro) contextual and sequential (micro) analysis of manifold data (observations, field notes, recordings of official and semi-official meetings, interviews, etc.). In this way, a continuum of context-dependent multilingual practices becomes apparent, which are characterized by different patterns of language choice and which serve a range of both manifest and latent functions. By applying the Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) of Critical Discourse Studies (CDS), the intricacies of the increasingly complex phenomenon of multilingualism in transnational-organizational spaces, which are frequently characterized by diverse power-related and other asymmetries of communication, can be adequately coped with. (Code-switching, multilingualism, power, institutional spaces, European Union, ethnography, discourse-historical approach, critical discourse studies)*

Code-Switching in a Multilingual Workplace

“…Colón 2002, MacIntyre, Dörnyei, Clé-ment, & Noels, 1998. On the other hand, literature on language in the workplace focused more on ideology, frame conflict, and discourse struggles, rather than on the act of code-switching itself (i.e., Prego-Vazquez, 2007, Wodak, Krzyżanowski, andForchtner, 2012). As a result, this study will combine these two approaches to analyze code-switching in a specific university workplace setting.…”

“…Prego-Vazquez uses critical and sequential analysis, along with sociodiscursive analysis, to approach the study through a multimethod lens. Wodak, Krzyżanowski and Forchtner (2012) analyze the communication that occurs in European Union institutions, specifically instances of multilingual practices. Through the discourse-historical approach, the study finds that although there is a deep sense of power in communication, this power can be overcome, specifically as a result of the multilingualism.…”

Analysing voice in language policy: plurality and conflict in Slovene government documents

“…In recent critical work in LP, various authors have approached the field by employing CDA (e.g. Johnson 2011;Unger 2013;Krzyžanowski andWodak 2010, 2011;Wodak et al 2012); in the following section I provide a description of this research programme and how it may facilitate analysis of LP.…”

“…It would also be interested in conducting ethnographic field studies, looking to link concrete micro-level situations to macro-level discourses Analysing voice in language policy: plurality and conflict… and social practices (Krzyžanowski 2011). Research conducted as part of the bigger DYLAN project investigating multilingualism in EU institutions thus examined both policy papers relating to EU LP, along with the language practices of policymakers in institutional settings (Krzyžanowski andWodak 2010, 2011;Wodak 2012;Wodak et al 2012).…”

Plurilingualism, multilingualism and internationalisation in the European Higher Education Area: Challenges and perspectives at a Swiss University

“…Compartmentalisation or serial pluri-and multilingualism along with the selective use of the CEFR eclipse important additional alternatives. The most striking case might be contextual or concurrent pluri-and multilingualism in which several languages may be used in face-to-face oral interaction in the same setting as described by Wodak, Krzyżanowski and Forchtner (2012). However, even extending pluri-and multilingualism to include face-to-face oral interaction is still too narrow as it fails to consider the extent to which communication involves interconnections amongst temporally and spatially dispersed interactions.…”