The Politics of Multilingualism: Linguistic Governance, Globalisation and Europeanisation

Université de Genève, 19‒20 June 2014
Convenors: François Grin (Geneva, Switzerland), Peter A. Kraus (Augsburg, Germany)

One of the principal consequences of the socio-cultural and socio-political transformations which we label with terms such as globalisation and Europeanisation is a substantial alteration of the functions of different languages and their position with respect to one another. These effects are making themselves felt not only at a global scale and in regional arenas, but also at the national scale of state-level language policies, and at the local level of linguistic practices in multicultural neighborhoods. This raises unprecedented challenges for contemporary societies, which have to engage these more varied and pervasive manifestations of diversity. Meeting these societal challenges calls for the development of institutional responses that take account of the new politics of language and multilingualism. Although there is an abundance of literature on multilingualism and diversity in the modern world (particularly in contemporary Europe), relatively little has been done towards elaborating an integrative view that identifies the key social and political dimensions at hand, and proposes a systematic approach to policy development on this basis. In this workshop, we attempt to do precisely that, by charting some of this little-known terrain, emphasizing the need to be simultaneously relevant at the international, national and local levels.

The issues at hand are exceedingly vast, and the workshop, as well as the book publication envisaged on the basis of the workshop, is viewed as an initial step in what must develop into a long-term endeavour, accompanying projects variously supported by the European Science Foundation, the European Commission, or other funding bodies. For this initial step, we have identified three main topics:

• Multilingualism and identity-building (complex diversity, new forms of multilingualism, bottom-up dynamics vis-à-vis Europeanization and globalization)
• Emerging patterns of “global linguistic governance” (institutional responses to the tendencies described in the previous section, top-down dynamics, formal models combining bottom-up and top-down elements)
• Linguistic hegemony, linguistic insecurity and linguistic justice (issues of power and domination involved with current practices of linguistic governance, normative implications)