The European Union is an international organization of undoubtedly unique multilingual character. The official status granted to all 24 official national languages of its 28 MS is legally enshrined in EU Law and derives from both, the political necessity to democratically represent the multiplicity of languages of roughly half a billion citizens and the symbolic significance of diverse European historical, cultural and political traditions. This language regime is laudable and worthy of preservation if the EU is to maintain close ties to its citizens through public communication and deliberations in all 24 official languages (Athanassiou, 2006, p. 5). This is not, however, to close one’s eyes to the current challenges the EU is facing in the aftermath of the global economic and financial crisis and the rethinking this might entail for the working language regime deployed in the EU committee and delegation meetings.
Author: Matthias H.
I am a third-year European Studies student at Maastricht University and will give you give you comprehensive insights into my linguistic background and interests.
Language Diversity at an EMI University: Linguistic Signs in Maastricht’s Student Community
Media Use to Preserve a Heritage: The Case of Transylvanian Saxon (Siebenbürger Sächsisch)
“Mundart sprechen heißt in der Sprache barfuß gehen.”
Quoted from an Transylvanian Saxon poem (see video clip below), this line well accounts for the intimacy and sensitivity involved with speaking regional or international minority languages. Transylvanian Saxon is an outlying dialect of Moselle-Franconian spoken by a German minority in Romania which, however, cannot be subsumed under “Standard German”. This German minority group has settled in Romania from the 12th century onwards, where the dialect was developed and maintained independently from other languages within the German minority community. The majority of Transylvanian Saxons now live in Germany. With less than 50.000 speakers in its country of origin, namely Romania, the language is classified as severely endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger (www.unesco.org).
EMI at Higher Education Institutes: A Commentary
Is proficiency in the English language at EMI (English Medium Instruction) universities a means to an end or an aim for itself? Did I and Do I acquire English language skills merely for the sake of grasping the academic content of my studies or is language learning a goal which itself represents a vital objective of my academic training?
I personally think that both goals require equal attention, particularly as both aims are intertwined: Language learning can be stimulated by the employment of related meaningful academic content and the comprehension of academic content may be more lasting once acquired in the non-native language, English.
Continue reading EMI at Higher Education Institutes: A Commentary
Guide for this Blog: My Language Profile
J’ai appris l’Italien pour exprimer mes sentiments, le hongrois pour parler à ma grand-mère, l’anglais pour l’université, l’allemand pour parler à mes amis et le francais pour l’Union européenne.
Freely adapted from Charles V, the statement above presents my language profile in a nutshell. I am Matthias, 23 years old and have been born and raised in Germany. However, despite this manifest German background I have been exposed to a variety of languages since my early childhood.