Academic Scientific JournalsThe status of English in the EU institutions after Brexit: A discursive analysis of selected press articles
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26881/bp.2020.2.01Keywords:
Brexit, critical discourse analysis, English, European Union, media discourseAbstract
The aim of this article is to find out what the status of English, currently the primary working language within the EU institutions, might look like once the United Kingdom leaves the EU structures. To that end, this paper will analyse a selection of press articles. Although the manner in which the so-called Brexit will take place is still uncertain, a diverse range of opinions and prognostications on what will happen to English is being expressed publicly, taking into consideration many factors (political, sociological and purely linguistic) which may contribute to a possible scenario or scenarios. This article does not lay claim to submitting any firm or reliable vision of the future as none such exists elsewhere. This paper intends to analyze some discursive strategies employed by the authors of the articles to place the discussed subject into a discursive framework by using tools of critical discourse analysis which mainly focus on the relation of power and language.
Downloads
References
“As Britain leaves, English on rise in EU to French horror”. Available at . Accessed 10-20.03.2020.
Consolidated version of the Treaty on European Union. Available at . Accessed 10.03.2020.
Crystal, David (2003). English as a Global Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Deneire, Marc (2017). “The British leave, but European Englishes remain”. World Englishes 36/3 (Sept. 2017), DOI: 10.1111/ weng.12267, 336-338.
EU has no plans to downgrade use of English after Brexit. Available at . Accessed 10- 20.03.202.
Fact sheets on the European Union. Available at . Accessed 10.03.2020.
Fairclough, Norman (2010). Critical discourse analysis: the critical study of language. Harlow: Longman.
Fairclough, Norman, Ruth Wodak (1997). “Critical Discourse Analysis”. In: Teo van Dijk (ed.). Discourse as Social Interaction. London: Sage Publications, 262.
Krippendorff, Klaus (2004). Content Analysis: An Introduction to Its Methodology. London: Sage Publications. Language issues - English as a global language. Available at . Accessed 14.03.2020.
Melckersson, Jennifer (2018). English in Europe post-Brexit: An analysis of the post-Brexit discourse surrounding English as a European lingua franca. Available at . Accessed 17.03.2020.
Motschenbacher, Heiko (2013). New Perspectives on English as a European Lingua Franca. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Phillipson, Robert (2003). English-Only Europe? Challenging Language Policy. London: Routledge.
“The fate of English in the EU after Brexit: Expected and unexpected twists”. Available at . Accessed 14.03.2020.
Williams, Glyn, Gruffudd Williams (2016). “Language, hegemony and the European Union”. In: Re-examining ‘Unity in Diversity’. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 34.
