Europäische Union und sprachliche Bildung: Auf der Suche nach einem europäischen Kommunikationsraum

Abstract

Orders and communiqués by the executive body of the European Union consistently treat the generation of "european spaces and areas": the "European economic area" is followed by the "European space for higher education", the "education area", the "European area of lifelong learning", the "research area" and the "European information space". Although all of these spaces are not conceivable without linguistic communication, no one is ever explicitly talking about a "European communication space" - in Europe language issues are a hot potato. Implicitly though, it is of course a matter of a "European communication space", and that to a great extent in European politics of linguistic education. The article documents the history of this EU policy from its beginnings to the new "framework strategy for multilingualism", and contrasts this policy with disillusioning results from research into the actual European multilingualism. Following the attempt to reconstruct the implicit model of a European communication space based on approaches of linguistic varieties it is proposed that the negative results of a multilingualism politicy are directly linked to the non-feasibility of this implicit model.