Multilingual Communication in the EU - Period 2

In this module, we will study the linguistic landscape in the EU. The EU has 28 member states and 24 official languages. In many of these member states, other languages besides the official language, are spoken as well, some with an official status as regional language or heritage language, some without. Recently, a large number of new languages have entered the EU, as a result of migration. As a result, the EU is currently home to speakers of hundreds of languages and all speakers of those languages have to co-exist and to communicate with each other. We will study the different domains in which this communication takes place and the different views that EU-countries have on the position of these languages. The domains that we will concern ourselves with, are personal life, education, health care, and work (with specific attention for communication within the European Parliament). Concerning the different views on the position of languages, we will study the concepts of majority and minority languages, and official and non-official languages and the consequences of these views on the personal and professional lifes of their speakers. We will practice coping with linguistic diversity by analyzing some real life problematic situations and trying to come up with acceptable solutions for all those involved.

Contact hours listed under a course description may vary due to the combination of lecture-based and independent work required for each course therefore, CEA's recommended credits are based on the ECTS credits assigned by VU Amsterdam. 1 ECTS equals 28 contact hours assigned by VU Amsterdam.