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From Babel to Brussels Jürgen Gerhards From Babel to Brussels European Integration and the Importance of Transnational Linguistic Capital Jürgen Gerhards Author Jürgen Gerhards is professor of sociology at the Freie Universität Berlin. His main fields of interest are: comparative cultural sociology, European integration, sociology of the public sphere. His most important book publications include Cultural Overstretch? Differences Between Old and New Member States of the EU and Turkey (Routledge 2007); The Name Game. Cultural Modernization and First Names (Transaction Publishers 2005) and Shaping Abortion Discourse: Democracy and the Public Sphere in Germany and the United States (Cambridge University Press 2003, together with Myra Marx Ferree, William Gamson, and Dieter Rucht). His most important articles include European Integration, Equality Rights and People's Beliefs (European Sociological Review 2012, with Holger Lengfeld); Why not Turkey? Attitudes towards Turkish Membership in the EU among Citizens in 27 European countries (Journal of Common Market Studies 2011, with Silke Hans); Non­ Discrimination Towards Homosexuality (International Sociology 2010); From Hasan to Herbert: Name Giving Patterns of Immigrant Parents between Acculturation and Ethnic Maintenance (American Journal of Sociology 2009, with Silke Hans); Forms of Capital and Social Structure in Cultural Fields: Examining Bourdieu's Social Topology (American Journal of Sociology 1995, with Helmut K. Anheier, and Frank P. Romo) as well as Mesomobilization. Organizing and Framing in Two Protest Campaigns in West Germany (American Journal of Sociology 1992, with Dieter Rucht). Translation: The manuscript was translated from German into English by Maureen Metzger. Layout & Final Editing: Inga Ganzer Front Picture: “Tower of Babel” (1563) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder Citation: Gerhards, Jürgen (2012): From Babel to Brussels. European Integration and the Importance of Transnational Linguistic Capital. Berlin Studies on the Sociology of Europe (BSSE). No. 28. Berlin: Freie Universität Berlin. Contact: Jürgen Gerhards, Institute of Sociology, Free University of Berlin, Garystraße 55, 14195 Berlin, j.gerhards@fu‐berlin.de. From Babel to Brussels. European Integration and the Importance of Transnational Linguistic Capital Summary Globalisation and the political process of European integration opened the European Union member states to one another. As different EU member states have different languages, participation in globalisation and the process of European integration is dependent on Europeans’ ability to speak the languages of others. Those who speak multiple languages can more easily come into contact with citizens of other countries, conduct business and diplomacy, cooperate academically, organise protests across national boundaries, or enter into romantic relations with them. In short, they can socialise transnationally in a number of different dimensions. Those who only speak their native language are, in contrast, tied to their home country and can only take slight advantage of the perks of a united Europe and a globalised world. Possessing transnational linguistic capital is a deciding factor in whether or not someone can participate in an emerging European society; it becomes a new measure of social inequality, a resource that can either lead to societal inclusion or exclusion. The question central to our study is to what degree citizens in the twenty‐ seven EU member states possess transnational linguistic capital and how to explain the differences in multilingualism both between and within the member states. We present a general explanatory model for foreign language proficiency, create hypotheses from this model and test them empirically. Drawing on a survey conducted in twenty‐seven European countries it can be shown that the peoples’ ability to speak different languages can be very well predicted with the help of the different explanatory factors. We find that country size, the prevalence of a respondent’s native language, the linguistic difference between one’s mother tongue and the foreign language, and age affect language acquisition negatively, whereas a country’s level of education has a positive influence. Using Bourdieu’s theory of social class, we show that besides other factors a respondent’s social class position and the level of education are important micro‐level factors that help to increase a person’s transnational linguistic capital. One must put these results in the context of the state of the art. The analysis of multilingualism is a major topic in linguistics, psychology, and education. The societal conditions in which language learners are embedded are hardly taken into account in these studies. This would not be worth discussing any further if sociology was not relevant to multilingualism; but the contrary seems to be true. Our analysis shows that the neglected societal conditions are actually of central importance in determining transnational linguistic capital. CONTENTS Foreword: Why this book is published in open access?.............................................. 6 Acknowledgements.................................................................................................................... 9 1. Setting the stage....................................................................................................................10 2. Conceptual Framework......................................................................................................21 2.1. What is Language?.......................................................................................................22 2.2 Language Proficiency as Human Capital.............................................................26 2.3 Transnational Linguistic Capital and its Growing Importance.................47 3. From Nation States to a European Society................................................................53 3.1 Nation Building, and Language Standardisation, World Society and the Rise of English as a Hegemonic lingua franca .........................................54 3.2 Europeanisation and Globalisation of Nation State Societies in Europe..................................................................................................................................78 3.3 European Union’s Language Policy.......................................................................97 4. European Citizens’ Transnational Linguistic Capital.........................................121 4.1 Who Speaks How Many Languages?..................................................................122 4.2 Explaining Differences in Transnational Linguistic Capital ....................133 4.3 Outlook on How the Citizens’ Multilingualism will Develop...................176 5. An Argument for a new Language Policy in the European Union ................182 Appendix A: The relationship between Language and Culture .........................196 Appendix B: Description of Variables............................................................................203 References.................................................................................................................................206 FROM BABEL TO BRUSSELS Foreword: Why this Book is Published in Open Access? This book is an English translation of the German work “Mehrsprachigkeit im vereinten Europa. Transnationales sprachliches Kapital als Ressource in ei‐ ner globalisierten Welt” (Multilingualism in Europe. Transnational linguistic capital as a resource in a globalised world), published in 2010 by the Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Literature that has appeared since 2010 has not been systematically considered for this translation. This omission includes the 2011 work by Philippe van Parijs‚ “Linguistic Justice for Europe and the World”. The English version will not be published by a publishing house, but will instead be made available as an open access publication. It is the first of my books to be published this way. While the number of open access journals has grown significantly, the publication of open access books has not followed the same pattern. In this respect, the publication of “From Babel to Brussels” is an interesting personal experiment. I have been motivated to pursue this mode of publication for the following reasons. Firstly, a book published by a social sciences publishing house will cost, in paperback, around € 25‐30, while the open access version is available to readers for free. It is self‐evident that readers would rather read a book for free than pay for it. The internet also makes it possible for anyone with a computer to access the book instantly, meaning not only that the book is available at no cost, but also that there is also no waiting period before a reader is able to read the text. Libraries generally only have one available copy of a given book. If this copy is loaned out, potential readers must wait until the book is returned. Open access availability means that many potential customers have access to the book simultaneously. Secondly, most authors of scientific books do not earn any income from the publication of a book by a publishing house. This means that authors do not make any significant financial loss with the open access publication of their work. Financial incentives are, moreover, not the main reason why authors 6 Foreword: Why this Book is Published in Open Access? from academia write scholarly books. They want their work to be read by others, and especially to influence their peers, an influence that is manifested
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