The Types of the European Plurilingualism: Gateways to Creation of Transnational Identities?
The Types of the European Plurilingualism: Gateways to Creation of Transnational Identities?

Summary/Abstract: This article is to address the current plurilingualism in the member states of European Union. It seeks to answer three main questions: whether the process of globalization and European integration leads to the increase of plurilingualism amongst the EU citizens; whether there are any plurilingualism models within EU that may be associated with transnational European identities; and whether there is a certain plurilingualism model that could create some sort of an all-European identity. The article as a source material uses a number of sociological data on language knowledge and teaching in EU countries. The data serves as a basis of the actual analysis, which is to predict several plurilingualism models within the European language communities. The answer to the first question may be „yes“ via studying factual materials. It could also be argued that there are some types of bilingualism within EU that contribute to creation of a certain transnational identity within EU upon „macro-regional“ (as “central-European“ or „western-European“) as well as on „cross-border“ level. As per the trilingualism, it always concerns a „micro-regional“ or a local identity. None of the aforesaid types, however, has so far created an all-European identity. On the contrary, it may be argued that, due to their diversity, these types may function politically as a monolinguistic nationalism basically going against the European integration process.

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