The politics of multilingualism : A critical discourse analysis of Europeanisation of language policy in the Netherlands
Författare
Summary, in English
European measures and agreements regarding language policy within Europe and its member states have benefited many language communities, but many linguistic issues within the European Union remain unresolved.
The European language policy involves many political, cultural and economic challenges for the Union. It is therefore important to not only point out the significance of a European language policy, but also to examine its result in practice and on a national level. In this thesis, we use the method of critical discourse analysis to r
esearch Europeanisation of language policy in the Netherlands. The analysis is carried out on a wide range of materials, such as Dutch senate and parliamentary debates, videos, opinion pieces and newspaper articles. The discourse research demonstrates that Europeanisation can have positive effects on regional and minority languages, such as an increasing use in administration and jurisdiction. However, it also points out the negative consequences that might be related to Europeanisation, such as inequality and hierarchisation of languages and language communities.
This research demonstrates that the European language policy sometimes obtains results that are quite the opposite of its initial principles, for example inequality instead of equality and linguistic convergence instead of diversity.
The European language policy involves many political, cultural and economic challenges for the Union. It is therefore important to not only point out the significance of a European language policy, but also to examine its result in practice and on a national level. In this thesis, we use the method of critical discourse analysis to r
esearch Europeanisation of language policy in the Netherlands. The analysis is carried out on a wide range of materials, such as Dutch senate and parliamentary debates, videos, opinion pieces and newspaper articles. The discourse research demonstrates that Europeanisation can have positive effects on regional and minority languages, such as an increasing use in administration and jurisdiction. However, it also points out the negative consequences that might be related to Europeanisation, such as inequality and hierarchisation of languages and language communities.
This research demonstrates that the European language policy sometimes obtains results that are quite the opposite of its initial principles, for example inequality instead of equality and linguistic convergence instead of diversity.
Avdelning/ar
Publiceringsår
2017
Språk
Engelska
Fulltext
Dokumenttyp
Examensarbete för masterexamen (Två år)
Ämne
- Social Sciences
Nyckelord
- Europeanization
- European Union
- language policy
- The Netherlands
- discourse analysis
- European Studies
Handledare
- Eleonora Narvselius