English and Translation in the European Union This book explores the growing tension between multilingualism and mono- lingualism in the European Union in the wake of Brexit, underpinned by the interplay between the rise of English as a lingua franca and the effacement of translations in EU institutions, bodies and agencies. English and Translation in the European Union draws on an interdisciplinary approach, highlighting insights from applied linguistics and sociolinguistics, translation studies, philosophy of language and political theory, while also look- ing at official documents and online resources, most of which are increasingly produced in English and not translated at all – and the ones which are translated into other languages are not labelled as translations. In analysing this data, Alice Leal explores issues around language hierarchy and the growing difficulty in reconciling the EU’s approach to promoting multilingualism while fostering monolingualism in practice through the diffusion of English as a lingua franca, as well as questions around authenticity in the translation process and the bound- aries between source and target texts. The volume also looks ahead to the impli- cations of Brexit for this tension, while proposing potential ways forward, encapsulated in the language turn, the translation turn and the transcultural turn for the EU. Offering unique insights into contemporary debates in the humanities, this book will be of interest to scholars in translation studies, applied linguistics and sociolinguistics, philosophy and political theory. Alice Leal is Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Translation Studies of the Uni- versity of Vienna, Austria. Routledge Advances in Translation and Interpreting Studies Titles in this series include: 63 English and Translation in the European Union Unity and Multiplicity in the Wake of Brexit Alice Leal 64 The (Un)Translatability of Qur’anic Idiomatic Phrasal Verbs A Contrastive Linguistic Study Ali Yunis Aldahesh 65 The Qur’an, Translation and the Media A Narrative Account Ahmed S. Elimam and Alysia S. Fletcher 66 The Translation of Realia and Irrealia in Game Localization Culture-Specificity between Realism and Fictionality Silvia Pettini 67 Translation and the Global City Bridges and Gateways Edited by Judith Weisz Woodsworth 68 Gender and Translation: New Perspectives. New Voices for Transnational Dialogues Edited by Eleonora Federici and José Santaemilia 69 Global Insights into Public Service Interpreting Theory, Practice and Training Edited by Riccardo Moratto and Defeng Li For more information about this series, please visit https://www.routledge.com/ Routledge-Advances-in-Translation-and-Interpreting-Studies/book-series/RTS English and Translation in the European Union Unity and Multiplicity in the Wake of Brexit Alice Leal First published 2021 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 Taylor & Francis The right of Martin East to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this title has been requested ISBN: 978-0-367-24491-0 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-01975-8 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-28281-2 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9780429282812 Typeset in Sabon by Taylor & Francis Books To Amelia and Elliot, meus dois amores in drei Sprachen Contents List of Illustrations viii Preface and Acknowledgements ix Introduction 1 1 Language, Meaning and Identity: From Mother Tongue to Lingua Franca 7 2 The EU and English as a “Lingua Franca”: De Jure Multilingualism Versus De Facto Monolingualism 45 3 Translation and the EU: The Tension between Unity Versus Multiplicity 90 4 The EU as a Community in Formation in the Wake of Brexit: For a New Linguistic Regime 127 5 The Future of Language and Translation in the EU: The Language Turn, the Translation Turn and the Transcultural Turn 181 Final Remarks 204 Appendix 207 Index 215 Illustrations Figure 2.1 Some key terms in language policy 72 Tables 2.1 EU member states and national languages 46 2.2 The four dimensions of minority languages spoken in EU territory 55 3.1 The EU’s translation regimes 95 4.1 Dahl’s democracy criteria in the EU 134 4.2 Kraus’s demos problem 135 4.3 Transfers enjoyed by native speakers of English 148 4.4 The future of English, according to Graddol 154 4.5 Official EU languages by language family and percentage of EU population 162 4.6 The impact of intercomprehension on linguistic justice 167 5.1 The language turn, the translation turn and the transcultural turn 182 Preface and Acknowledgements This book was gestated and born with my second child. As the unexpected invitation to write it arrived, I was pregnant. I wrote the book proposal in the final weeks before giving birth, alternating between the kitchen counter, which is high enough for me to write standing, and an exercise ball which doubled as a chair in those final months. I’d like to thank my editor Elysse Preposi for reaching out to me, the anonymous peer reviewers, as well as my beloved partner Daniel Stirrat, my cherished friend Philip Wilson and my dear collea- gue Hanna Risku, for convincing me that the timing was not that bad after all. Prefaces and acknowledgements are usually about the support and the accomplishments involved in the making of a book. No one wants to know about the difficulties and the dark hours, like when a senior (male) colleague advises you to “use” your maternity leave to write it –“how else do you think mothers in academia get books published?” No one needs to know that whole sections were written while nursing a baby or after having nursed it all night long. It is irrelevant whether key insights came to you while your partner was bathing the children and you finally had seven or eight minutes to think. When, during a talk about gender ethics in academia – while I was visiting the University of East Anglia in 2019 – Jo Drugan asked, “Who has the luxury of time to think?”, the penny dropped. Career prospects are dictated by gender roles and stereotypes – you have to write your book despite only rarely having the luxury of time to think, and no one needs to learn about the hurdles you’ve had to overcome. So I have to begin by thanking the carers at both my children’s nursery schools, an invisible army without whom the world as we know it would pretty much stop – much like translators. I’m also very grateful to the staff of the Equality and Diversity Unit at the University of Vienna for their support and for their post-doc mentoring programme – and to my peers, trainers, coach and mentor from the programme. My wordcount is going through the roof, so I can’t write all my friends’ and colleagues’ names here who took part in my pools, and/or read and dis- cussed this book with me – though three – Leonardo Schneider, Melanie Strasser and Camila Verzenhassi – earned a special nomination. The same goes for all the English teachers – my former colleagues and supervisors – who x Preface and Acknowledgements agreed to be interviewed for this book. My special thanks to dozens of EU staff who had either direct or indirect contact with me, be it in an interview, an email query or an informal chat – from the Parliament, the Court of Auditors, the Commission Representation in Austria, the Legal Service of the Commission and the Directorate-General for Translation. From the latter, I’dliketothankin particular Ivana Zeljkovic´ for coordinating our communications. Many thanks to the senior diplomats, most notably the current Ambassador to Brazil in Austria, José Antônio Marcondes, and the Deputy Head of Mis- sion of the Embassy of Ireland in Austria, Seán Ó Riain; the economists at the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank; along with the scholars in different disciplines, especially Peter A. Kraus, who kindly shared their insights with me on sections of this book. I also owe a huge debt to Susan Dunsmore for her careful reading and insightful comments. Last but not least, without my mother’s support, meals and care during those precious months which she spent in Austria, this book would not have been possible. Maria Aparecida Borges Leal, this book is yours as much as it is mine. Obrigada! Vienna, 4 November 2021 Introduction My children were born in Austria, where they, my partner and I live. Yet none of us are Austrian. The children are registered here as Germans, because my British partner’s grandparents were German; so my partner is both German and British, as both his parents and he were born in the United Kingdom. Hence my children are British, too. In addition to German and British, they are Brazilian and Italian as well, because I was born in Brazil to a family whose maternal grandparents had come from Italy. I do not speak any Italian, nor do my children. They have never been to Italy. Yet they are Italian citi- zens. At home we speak mostly Portuguese and English, but also German. The children speak German at nursery. When they started talking, they spoke all three languages to the same extent – and often at the same time.