Language choice, linguistic capital and symbolic domination in the European Union

Published in: Language Problems & Language Planning, Vol. 24, No.1, Spring 2000,

pp. 37-53. Amsterdam: Benjamins. ISSN 0270-2690Language choice, linguistic capital and symbolic domination in the European Union

by Eugne Loos

Utrecht University, Utrecht School, of Governance1. IntroductionThe Treaty of Amsterdam states that in article 8d of the EC Treaty the following

paragraph shall be added:

Every citizen of the Union may write to any of the institutions or bodies referred to in this article or in Article 4 in one of the languages mentioned in Article248 and have an answer in the same language. [1]

The right of the citizens of the European Union to communicate in one of the official languages has considerable organizational and financial implications. A great number of translators is required to assure the communication with these citizens.

Although EU officials at the Commission use French, English and to a lesser degree German as working languages (Labrie 1993: 111; see also section 3.2), the member states do not seem to be willing to accept one of these languages or another language as the lingua franca for the EU and to give up their national language (De Swaan 1999: 15). There does not seem to be enough political will, neither among the political elite nor the population of the EU, to reduce the number of official languages (Mamadouh 1999: 122). Language choice is a highly political issue that is avoided by the EU and results in the lack of language policy.

In section 2.1 of this article I refer to Bourdieus publication Language and Symbolic Power (1992) in order to explain this unwillingness of member states to grant another language recognition: an official language can be considered as linguistic capital which affords its holders symbolic power (Bourdieu 1992: 50-52). Section 2.2 focuses on Bourdieus analysis of the mechanisms which underlie the process of linguistic unification during the construction of the French nation state (Bourdieu 1992: 46-48). This will enable me to consider, finally, in section 4 - after first having discussed the complexity of the current linguistic regime in the institutions of the EU in section 3 - if the mechanisms which led to the use of French as common language for France, as analysed by Bourdieu, also apply to the language choice in the EU.

2. Unification of the market and symbolic domination2.1 Official language as linguistic capital for symbolic power

Bourdieu (1980: 113-120) argues that people in a community act on a market, a structured space of positions in which the positions and their interrelations are determined by the distribution of different kinds of capital. Bourdieu (1992: 43-65) distinguishes not only economic capital (material wealth), cultural capital (knowledge, skills and other cultural acquisitions, i.e. educational or technical qualifications) and symbolic capital (i.e. accumulated prestige or honour. In his work he also focuses on linguistic capital, the capacity to produce expressions for a particular market:

() all speech is produced for and through the market to which it owes its existence and its most specific properties. Bourdieu (1992: 76)

The properties of such a market endow linguistic products with a certain value. Each speaker in a linguistic community possesses a certain quantity of linguistic capital which allow him to produce expressions which are highly valued on a particular market. The more linguistic capital a speaker possesses, the more he is able to exert symbolic power (Thompson 1992: 13-18). In section 2.2 Bourdieu (1992: 46-47) will be quoted to illustrate how in the XIXth century priests, doctors and teachers by deciding to speak the Parisian dialect instead of one of the other dialects, possessed linguistic capital which allowed them to exert symbolic power, affording them a powerful position in the French society. Constituting a linguistic market in this way:

creates the conditions for an objective competition in and through which the legitimate competence can function in linguistic capital, producing a profit of distinction on the occasion of each social exchange. Bourdieu (1992: 55)

Bourdieu (1992: 37-38) therefore criticises linguists who use simple models of linguistic production and circulation, reducing action to an act of communication which is destined to be deciphered by means of a code. He stresses that relations of communication par excellence

- linguistic exchanges - are also relations of symbolic power in which the power relations

between speakers or respective groups are realised. Bourdieu (1992: 164) considers symbolic power as invisible power which can be exercised only with the complicity of those who do not want to know that they are subject to it or even that they themselves exercise it. Symbolic power is exercised on markets which enable actors to convert one form of capital into another (Bourdieu and Boltanski 1977: 61-69): good education (cultural capital) means speaking a foreign language (linguistic capital), may help getting a good job at a multinational which pays well (economic capital) and gaining prestige (symbolic capital).

What determines the recognition of the legitimacy of a particular official language which can serve as a source of linguistic capital in a state? Political will to unification contributes to the use of the dominant language, but Bourdieu (1992: 50) also stresses that:

the effects of domination which accompany the unification of the market are always exerted through a whole set of specific institutions and mechanisms, of which the specifically linguistic policy of the state and even the overt interventions of pressure groups form only the most superficial aspect.

Legal or quasi-legal constraints could at best impose the acquisition of the legitimate language, but not its generalized use and therefore autonomous reproduction. Bourdieu (1992: 50-51) stresses that linguistic customs cannot be changed by decree, as the advocates of an interventionist policy of defence of the language often seem to imagine:

All symbolic domination presupposes, on the part of those who submit to it, a form of complicity which is neither passive submission to external constraint nor a free adherence to values. [2] The recognition of the legitimacy of the official language has nothing in common with an explicitly professed, deliberate and revocable belief, or with an intentional act of accepting a norm. It is inscribed, in a practical state, in dispositions which are impalpably inculcated, through a long and slow process of acquisition, by the sanctions of the linguistic market (...).

Bourdieu (1992: 77) argues that the practical relation to the market, like ease or

embarrassment, helps to establish the market sanction and provides an apparent justification

for the sanction by which it is partly produced.

In section 2.2 the long and slow process of acquisition by the sanctions of the

linguistic market, towards the legitimacy of a dominant language, will be illustrated by

Bourdieus analysis of the process of linguistic unification during the construction of the

French nation state (1992: 46-48).

2.2 Mechanisms underlying the process of linguistic unification in France

Bourdieu (1992: 45-46) argues that it is in the process of state formation that the conditions are created for the constitution of a unified linguistic market. This market is dominated by one official language, used obligatory on official occasions and in official places like schools, public administrations and political institutions. To explain how the integration into a single linguistic community can take place, Bourdieu (1992: 46-49) uses the example of the process of the French linguistic unification. Until the French Revolution, this process went hand in hand with the process of constructing the monarchical state:

[Different local languages] gave way progressively, from the fourteenth century on, at least in the central provinces of the pays dol, to the common language which was developed in Paris in cultivated circles and which, having been promoted to the status of official language, was used in the form given to it by scholarly, i.e. written, uses. (...) The linguistic situation was very different in the langue doc regions. Not until the sixteenth century, with the progressive constitution of an administrative organization linked to royal power (involving the appearance of a multitude of subordinate administrative agents, lieutenants, provosts, magistrates, etc.), did the Parisian dialect begin to take over from the various langue doc dialects in legal documents. Bourdieu (1992: 46-47)

Bourdieu (1992: 47) argues that members of local bourgeoisies of priests, doctors and teachers in the whole territory, who owed their position to their mastery of the instruments of expression, profit from the French Revolution:

Promotion of the official language to the status of national language gave them that de facto monopoly of politics, and more generally of communication with the central government and its representatives, that has defined local notables under all the French republics.

Bourdieu (1992: 48-49) explains that the educational system plays a decisive role in the process which leads to the construction, legitimisation and imposition of an official language. Teachers devalued popular modes of expression dismissing them as slang and gibberish as can be seen by their marginal comments on essays. The educational system imposed recognition of the legitimate language. Bourdieu (1992: 49) argues that this unification of the educational and linguistic market was linked to the introduction of educational qualifications valid nation-wide, and that the unification of the labour market explains the victory of the Parisian dialect over the other linguistic variants:

To induce the holders of dominated linguistic competences to collaborate in the destruction of their instruments of expression, by endeavouring for example to speak French to their children or requiring them to speak French at home, with the more or less explicit intention of increasing their value on the educational market, it was necessary for the school system to be perceived as the principal (indeed, the only) means of access to administrative positions which were all the more attractive in areas where industrialization was least developed.

The way people perceive their situation (in this case the sanctions of the linguistic market[3]) makes them act in a certain way. People adapt to an enacted environment, an environment which is constituted by the actions of interdependent people (Weick 1969: 27).

The mechanisms which underlie the process of linguistic unification presuppose the political or economic unification which they help in turn to reinforce (Bourdieu 1992: 50). In other words, this unification leads to the use of the French language as common language because it provides its speakers with linguistic, economic and symbolic capital. They in turn have an interest in supporting the unification which affords them symbolic power and allows them to exert symbolic domination. This is a good example of what Giddens (1984: 25) calls duality of structure: the structural properties of social systems are both medium and outcome of the practices they recursively organize. Structure is not to be equated with constraint but is always constraining and enabling.

Before I examine in section 4 if the mechanisms which led to the use of the

Parisian dialect as the official language in France can also be applied to the language choice in the EU, the complexity of the current linguistic regime in the institutions of the EU will first be explained in section 3.

3. The European Union's language charter3.1 Written and oral communication

What language(s) can be used in the EU? Council regulation No 1 [4]) determines the languages to be used by the European Economic Community. This European Union's language charter mentions that each of the eleven languages in which the Treaty is drafted (Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish) is recognized as an official language in one or more of the member states of the Community. [5] The language charter refers only to documents, it does not stipulate explicitly if actors like EU officials, members of the European Parliament and citizens can also use all the official languages for oral communication. The fact that there are not only EU translators for written communication, but also EU interpreters who assure oral communication in the official languages at all EU institutions (Labrie 1993: 88-135) shows that multilingualism in the EU also applies to oral communication.

Though the EU considers that equal status for official languages goes to the heart of what the Union is all about, it is a common misconception that all texts are translated into all official languages:

A letter to an individual or an internal memo, for example, will be sent in only one language, which may or may not involve translation. A committee may decide, by agreement among its members, to work in a limited range of languages until it produces a proposal for wider discussion: this must then be made available in all the official languages. European Communities (1999: 4)

The same remark applies to meetings at the different institutions of the EU, like the Council, the Commission, the European Parliament and the Court of Justice: at some meetings the

simultaneous interpretation of all official languages is required, whereas at others two working languages without any simultaneous interpretation will do (European Cultural Foundation 1999: 6). It would be interesting to know in which situations participants in meetings decide not to use simultaneous interpretation and translation of documents, how often this happens and which working languages are used in those cases. It is remarkable that empirical research on the EU's institutional language use has barely been carried out.

3.2 Institutional language use

To gain insight into the EU language constellation I make use of the rare empirical facts related to language use in the EU which are reported by participants of recent conferences on this subject in the Netherlands and Belgium (European Cultural Foundation 1999, Nederlandse Taalunie 1999). I also use research results published by Labrie (1993), Lopes Sabino (1999), Mamadouh (1995, 1999) and De Swaan (1999) in order to reconstruct how, when and why actors in the EU use one or more languages.

Despite the formal equality of the eleven official languages, institutional multilingualism does not always seem to be respected. Costs of translation and simultaneous interpretation are already considerable and will increase even more when new countries will join the EU. [6]) The Nederlandse Taalunie (1999: 2) states that conflicts and competitive struggles are frequent and that the major languages English, French and German win them more often than the smaller ones. Though the Nederlandse Taalunie does not refer to a source to found this statement, in Labrie (1993: 144-147) one can find some evidence for the fact that member states complain that their national language is not always used and insist upon its equal status. He refers to the French presidents Georges Pompidou and Franois Mitterrand. During conversations with the British Prime Minister in May 1971 before Great Britain joined the European Community in 1973, the former insisted on using French as first working language in the future. The latter addressing himself in a letter to the European Commission in June 1990 pleads to respect the use of the French more strictly:

Une tendance existe aujourdhui, dans certains services de la Commission, convoquer des runions d'experts appels ne travailler quen angalis, diffuser appels doffres, contrats-types ou documents de travail rdigs exclusivement en anglais. De telles pratiques ne sont pas admissibles, et la France continuera de sy opposer. J'invite la Commission un respect plus rigoureux des rgles tablies, notamment dans les domaines comme la recherche et le dveloppement technologique, ou les relations

extrieures de la Communaut, en particulier avec les pays de l'EUROPE Centrale et Orientale. Labrie (1993: 144-145)

The Germans also insist on the use of German in written and oral institutional communication (Deutscher Bundestag, 1990, 14-15; Deutscher Bundesrat 1991) [7]. The chancellor demands once a year that German be included among the working languages French and English

(De Swaan 1999: 15). The German government complains that translations in German are not always available during meetings and that there are often not enough interpreters present. German EU officials have to use German:

Die Bundesbediensteten sind angewiesen, in allen EG-Gremien strikt auf die Verwendung des Deutschen zu achten, selbst Deutsch zu sprechen, jeden Versto gegen die Sprachregelung zu rgen und jeweils erforderliche Konsequenzen zu ziehen. Deutscher Bundestag (1990: 14-15)

Labrie (1993) concludes that these examples show that:

De telles interventions politiques de la part des gouvernements des Etats membres illustrent souhait que des rapports de force sont loeuvre dans la mise en pratique du principe de lgalit des langues communautaires.

Language is not a neutral medium of communication, it is part of national and personal identity. Language choice in the EU is related to power. The less a member states national language is used, the less linguistic capital will be available for its holders to get access to symbolic power and exert symbolic domination.

From a closer look at the language use in the EU's institutions it appears that the eleven official languages are not equally used. Some languages are more equal than others ... (European Cultural Foundation 1999: 6). Labrie (1993: 57-149), Mamadouh (1995: 93-104; 1999: 119-125), the European Cultural Foundation (1999: 6-7), Lopes Sabino (1999: 99-109) and De Swaan (1999: 13-23) all agree that in the everyday, informal encounters between EU officials or members of the European Parliament pragmatism prevails and three working languages (mainly English, French and to a much lesser degree German) are used. The more formal, public and ceremonial the occasion, the more likely it is that all official languages are used: in the treaties, other legal documents, the Official Journal and the discussions in the European Parliament the principle of multilingualism is strictly adopted (European Cultural Foundation 1999: 6). De Swaan (1999: 21) argues that:

the European Parliament in its public sessions should continue to allow the official language of every member state to be used and translated into every other official language. This has been laid down in the treaties that determined the conditions of accession to the Union (...) (The same reasons apply to the publication of documents in all official languages, especially those that affect national laws.) (...) The members of the European Parliament represent the voters of their respective countries and if they wish to speak the language that their constituency understands they have the right to do so.

It is important that members of the European Parliament and their citizens will continue to have the right to communicate in one of the official languages [8] in the EU. A technical solution, such as reducing the number of official languages in order to save money and make communication more effective and efficient, would favour native speakers from those member states whose national language would be chosen. It would lead to undeserved and asymmetric accumulation of symbolic capital (De Swaan 1999: 19) which would enable them to exert symbolic domination. The others, whose national language would no longer be recognized as an official language, would see themselves confronted with loss of linguistic capital and symbolic power. By no longer being able to identify themselves with an EU that excludes their national language, the gap with that EU would become unbridgeable and desintegration of the EU would probably be only a question of time.

4. Discussion: towards a monolingual Europe?If it is not easy to get a clear picture of the actual complex linguistic regime and the institutional language use in the EU, it is even much more difficult to answer the question which language(s) will dominate the EU in the future. Will several languages be used or will there be one official language? In this concluding section I will use Bourdieus analysis of the mechanisms which led to French as common language in France (as presented in section 2.2) to examine this question.

If one wants to consider the implications of Bourdieus insights for the language choice in the EU, it is important to be aware of the fact that the international compromise which binds already existing national states forming the EU cannot be compared to nation state formation in the classical sense as was the case in France, where for the first time in this territory a nation state was born. Nor can the creation of the EU be compared with empires (e.g. imperial Rome, Charles the Great, the House of Habsburg and the Third Reich) where imperial rule was forced upon European countries through military power (European Cultural Foundation 1999: 5). Nevertheless there is a parallel: the political will of unification which occurred in Europe after World War II, like in France after the French Revolution. Mutual interest (coal and steel) bound the former enemies France and Germany who found the European Community with Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Italy in order to create a common market.

The educational and labour market which play an important role in the victory of the French language in nineteenth century France could also be mechanisms which influence the language choice in the EU. An example: increasing globalization helps English to strengthen its position as a lingua franca world-wide because more and more people will use English. From their perspective this language will offer them important linguistic capital which will allow them to acquire economic and symbolic capital (money and prestige). This enactment of their environment, their perception of the sanctions of the linguistic market, influences their language choice.

The actual dominant position of English in the world language system can also be explained by its Q-value, a concept introduced by De Swaan (1998a,b) who argues that:

The languages of the world together constitute a global system held together by multilingual people who can communicate with several language groups. The position of each language in this system may be characterized by its communication value (Q), the product of its prevalence and its centrality. Languages represent a very special class of economic goods: they are not only collective goods, but also display network effects. Such non-excludable communication networks may therefore be called hypercollective goods. All texts, recorded or memorized, together constitute the accumulated cultural capital of a language group, once again hypercollective in character. The special characteristics of languages, language groups, and their accumulated textual capital help to explain the dynamics of language acquisition, conservation and abandonment. De Swaan (1998a: 63)

Like Bourdieu who uses economic metaphors like capital and market to explain the construction, legitimisation and imposition of an official language, De Swaan uses metaphors from the same semantic field. By considering languages as a special class of economic goods linked to accumulated cultural and textual capital he is able to explain why:

English may make inroads into new speech domains and the indigenous language may loose additional functions that carry high prestige. De Swaan (1998b: 122)

New countries joining the EU will complicate effective and efficient communication which could strengthen even more the position of English. Brussels does still not elaborate an active language policy. The subject of languages has been the great non-dit of European integration (De Swaan 1999: 15). The linguistic arrangement is a highly political issue that is carefully avoided by the politicians at the national and supranational level:

Heavy reactions to policy regarding traditional products such as beer in Germany, or cheese in France, will bleach against the clashes which can be expected if Brussels elaborates an active language policy. Nevertheless doing nothing is still taking a position. The maintenance of the current linguistic regime sustains institutional multilingualism but favours de facto linguistic homogenisation with the increasing use of international English in informal situations. Mamadouh (1999: 124-125).

This, of course, does not mean that English will necessarily be the only lingua franca to be used in the EU in the immediate future. Like French in the last century, the legitimacy of a dominant language in the EU, by the sanctions of the linguistic market, will probably be a long and slow process of acquisition.

It is also important to stress that, again like in nineteenth century France, it is not to be expected that legal or quasi legal constraints can really impose the generalized use and therefore autonomous reproduction of a language. Mechanisms like the perception of the sanctions of the linguistic market are much more important. The use of English has not be decreted de jure within the EU, English can be considered as its lingua franca de facto (European Cultural Foundation 1999: 7). In a distant future, it is not impossible for English to become the common language in the EU:

As English continues to spread as the first second language in the Union, sooner or later the moment will arrive in one country after another that one can speak English, fluently, with every fellow-citizen. What is more, all functions that carry prestige may be fulfilled by English. [9] At the point people might begin to neglect their mother tongue, switch to English even among friends and relatives, and, finally, not even bother any longer to speak their mother tongue with their children who then will learn English as their native language. In the end, the indigenous language might entirely disappear. De Swaan (1999: 22)

The EU's official languages are protected by the member states (Scheffer 1999: 2; De Swaan 1999: 18, 22) which may limit the risk that languages will disappear. But what if the forces of the sanctions of the linguistic market which work in favour of English are so strong that English would in the end really destroy other languages? In that case:

(...) the sociocultural integration of the generations, the cohesiveness, naturalness and quiet creativity, the secure sense of identity, even without politicized consciousness of identity, the sense of collective worth of a community and of a people [would be lost]. Fishman (1994: 60) [10]

When new countries will join the EU it is not inconceivable that, for reasons of an utilitarian and financial-economic nature (Nederlandse Taalunie 1999: 2), there will be indeed a shift in favour of the exclusively institutional use of English in the long term.

What can be done to avoid the loss of collective cultural capital and to minimize the risk of a disintegrating EU because its citizens cannot identify themselves anymore with a monolingual Union? The European Cultural Foundation (1999: 8) suggests that the use of English as a lingua franca and multilingualism do not exclude each other: they should actually be standing side by side. A lingua franca can be used as a working language in the everyday, informal encounters at EU institutions. A case study carried out by Loos (2000) analyses how advisers at the European Parliament who are belonging to different political groups, originating from different national cultures and having distinct mother tongues succeed in producing - without support of translators and interpreters - compromise motions for resolutions to be adopted at the plenary session in Strasbourg each month. Most of the time they use English or French as a lingua franca for oral communication. The drafts they use to compose these compromise motions are written in several languages depending on the nationality of its author. On the other hand, in formal, public and ceremonial occasions all official languages are used and massive efforts of simultaneous interpretation and translation (facilitated by the use of Information and Communication Technology [11]) are required. In this way there is a balance between a workable communicative situation and the respect for a multilinguistic EU democracy. Flexible language use could be a solution if Europeans really want to understand each other and to work together:

The idea of a growing courtoisie, a growing trust, would probably be the most important social medium in establishing such language arrangements (more so than legislation, more so than the insistence on rights. European Cultural Foundation (1999: 6)

Maybe the EU can cherish the memory of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire where 27 languages were used. The soldiers were addressed in these 27 languages, but the officers were all speaking one or maybe two languages among themselves. [12] In a culture of mutual understanding and mutual desire to work together flexible language arrangements can help to realize peaceful coexistence of a lingua franca and multilingualism.

Eugne Loos holds a first degree in French Language & Literature and a PhD in Inter-national Business Communication from Utrecht University (the Netherlands). He is currently a lecturer in the Utrecht School of Governance at the same University. He has conducted research and written several articles in the field of organizational intercultural communication.

Utrecht University, Utrecht School of Governance, Bijlhouwerstraat 6,

3511 ZC Utrecht, The Netherlands

email: e.f.loos@uu.nl

Summary

In this article the complexity of the current linguistic regime in the institutions of the European Union is discussed. The EU considers that equal status for its official languages goes to the heart of what the Union is all about. Actually, the member states are not willing to grant another language recognition. Bourdieus publication Language and Symbolic Power (1992) will be referred to in order to explain this unwillingness: an official language can be considered as linguistic capital which affords its holders symbolic power. On the other hand, when new countries join the European Union it is not inconceivable that, for reasons of an utilitarian and financial-economic nature, there will be a shift in favour of the exclusively institutional use of English in the long term. Bourdieus analysis of the mechanisms which underlie the process of linguistic unification during the construction of the French nation state in the XIXth century will be used to answer the question whether the mechanisms which led to the use of French as common language for France also apply to the language choice in the EU.

Rsum

Dans cet article il sagit de la complexit du rgime linguistique actuel de lUnion Europenne qui est davis que ses langues officielles, par essence, doivent tre traites de manire uniforme. Il est vrai quen ce moment aucun tat membre nest prt accepter une des autres langues officielles comme langue vhiculaire. On peut utiliser la publication Language and Symbolic Power (1992) de Bourdieu pour expliquer ce phnomne: une langue officielle peut tre considre comme capital linguistique donnant un certain pouvoir symbolique ses locuteurs. Mais dans le cas o de nouveaux tats membres adhreraient lUnion Europenne, il est probable que, pour des raisons utilitaires et conomiques, la longue la position de langlais en tant que langue institutionnelle sera de plus en plus favorise. Lanalyse que fait Bourdieu des mcanismes qui taient la base de lunification linguistique pendant la construction de lEtat franais au XIXime sicle, est utilise pour rpondre la question de savoir si les mmes mcanismes aboutissant lemploi du franais comme langue commune pour la France sappliquent galement au choix de la langue vhiculaire dans lUnion Europenne.

NOTES[1] Cf. Appendix. See also section 3.1 of this paper.

[2] Cf. Giddens's enabling constraint in section 2.2.

[3] See also section 2.1.

[4] Cf. Appendix.

[5] This is not correct: the Irish language Gaelic is also one of the languages in which the Treaty is drafted, but it is not one of the official languages (Labrie 1993: 77-80). An exception is made for the Court of Justice where Gaelic can be used as procedural language (Labrie 1993: 78, 129).

[6] See also section 4.

[7] Quoted by Labrie (1993: 145-146).

[8] See also sections 1 and 3.1.

[9] Cf. Bourdieus symbolic capital.

[10] Quoted by De Swaan (1999: 22).

[11] Cf. The use of Automatic Translation and Translation Memory (European

Commission 1998).

[12] Cf. European Cultural Foundation (1999: 6).

APPENDIX

The European Unions language charter

Council regulation No 1 determining the languages to be used by

the European Economic Community (as amended)

THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY,

Having regard to Article 217 of the Treaty which provides that the rules governing the languages of the institutions of the Community shall, without prejudice to the provisions contained in the rules of procedure of the Court of Justice, be determined by the Council, acting unanimously;

Whereas each of the 11 languages in which the Treaty is drafted is recognised as an official language in one or more of the Member States of the Community,

HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION:

Article 1The official languages and the working languages of the institutions of the Community shall be Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish.

Article 2Documents which a Member State or a person subject to the jurisdiction of a Member State sends to institutions of the Community may be drafted in any one of the official languages selected by the sender. The reply shall be drafted in the same language.

Article 3Documents which an institution of the Community sends to a Member State or to a person subject to the jurisdiction of a Member State shall be drafted in the language of such a State.

Article 4Regulations and other documents of general application shall be drafted in the 11 official languages.

Article 5The Official Journal of the European Communities shall be published in the 11 official

languages.

Article 6The institutions of the Community may stipulate in their rules of procedure which of the languages are to be used in specific cases.

Article 7The languages to be used in the proceedings of the Court of Justice shall be laid down in its rules of procedure.

Article 8If a Member State has more than one official language, the language to be used shall, at the request of such State, be governed by the general rules of its law.

This regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.

Treaty of Amsterdam

Article 2, point 11.11. In article 8d [of the EC Treaty], the following paragraph shall be added:

`Every citizen of the Union may write to any of the institutions or bodies referred to in this article or in Article 4 in one of the languages mentioned in Article 248 and have an answer in the same language.'

REFERENCESBourdieu, Pierre and Luc Boltanski. 1977. Formal qualifications and occupational hierarchies: the relationship between the production system and the reproduction system. In E.J. King, (ed.), Reorganizing Education: Management and Participation for Change. London, Beverly Hills: Sage.

Bourdieu, Pierre. 1980. Quelques proprits de champs. In Pierre Bourdieu, Questions de sociologie. Paris: Minuit.

Bourdieu, Pierre. 1992. Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge: Polity Press.

De Swaan, Abram. 1998a. A Political Sociology of the World Language System (1): The Dynamics of Language Spread. Language Problems & Language Planning: 22/1 Spring: 63-75.

De Swaan, Abram. 1998b. A Political Sociology of the World Language System (2): The Unequal Exchange of Texts. Language Problems & Language Planning, 22/2 Summer: 109-128.

De Swaan, Abram. 1999. The European constellation of languages. In European Cultural Foundation, (ed.), Which languages for Europe? Report of the Conference held in Oegstgeest. Oegstgeest: European Cultural Foundation.

Deutscher Bundesrat. 1991. Beschlu des Bundesrates zum Bericht der Bundesregierung ber die Integration der Bundesrepublik Deutschland in die Europischen Gemeinschaften (Berichtszeitraum 1. Juli bis 31. Dezember 1990), Drucksache 166/91 (Beschlu), 07.09.91.

Deutscher Bundestag. 1990. 45. Bericht der Bundesregierung ber die Integration der Bundesrepublik Deutschland in die Europischen Gemeinschaften (Berichtszeitraum

1. April bis 31. Dezember 1989), Deutscher Bundestag, 11. Wahlperiode, Drucksache 11/6855, 20.03.90.

European Commission. 1998. Terminologie & Traduction. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.

European Communities. 1999. A multilingual community at work. The European

Commissions Translation Service. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of

the European Communities.

European Cultural Foundation. 1999. Which languages for Europe? Report of the

Conference held in Oegstgeest. Oegstgeest: European Cultural Foundation.

Fishman, Joshua. 1994. On the limits of ethnolinguistic democracy. In Tove Skutnabb- Kangas and Robert Phillipson, (ed.), Linguistic human rights; Overcoming linguistic discriminations. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Giddens, Anthony. 1984. The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Labrie, Normand. 1993. La construction linguistique de la Communaut europenne. Paris: Champion.

Loos, Eugne. 2000. Text production in a multilingual community. Case study in the European Parliament. In Marja Gastelaars, (ed.), On location. Maastricht: Shaker.

Lopes Sabino, Amadeu. 1999. Les Langues dans l'Union Europenne. Enjeux, Pratiques et Perspectives. In European Cultural Foundation, (ed.), Which languages for Europe? Report of the Conference held in Oegstgeest. Oegstgeest: European Cultural Foundation.

Mamadouh, Virginie. 1995. De talen in het Europees parlement. Amsterdam: Instituut voor Sociale Geografie, Universiteit van Amsterdam.

Mamadouh, Virginie. 1999. Institutional Multilingualism: An Exploration of Possible Reforms. In European Cultural Foundation, (ed.), Which languages for Europe? Report of the

Conference held in Oegstgeest. Oegstgeest: European Cultural Foundation.

Nederlandse Taalunie. 1999. Institutional Status and use of national languages in Europe. Contributions to a European language policy. Brussels: Nederlandse Taalunie, European Commission.

Scheffer, Paul. 1999. A lingua franca for the European Union? In European Cultural Foundation, (ed.), Which languages for Europe? Report of the Conference held in Oegstgeest. Oegstgeest: European Cultural Foundation.

Thompson, John B. 1992. Editors introduction. In Pierre Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Weick, Karl E. 1969. The Social Psychology of Organizing. Reading (Massachusetts): Addison-Wesley.

PAGE 1