La fuerza institucional del inglés en la Unión Europeacrónica de una lucha por la posición de lengua Franca

Abstract

The inertia created by the institutional processes consolidated during the formative years of the European Economic Community favoured the privileged position of the French language in EU institutions. However, in the early nineties, that privileged position was threatened by the unstoppable advance of English. Because of this, French leaders launched a new defence strategy based on the safeguarding of linguistic diversity that was followed by Germany and the other Member States. In order to assess the degree of success or failure of the new strategy, the text makes a diachronic and quantitative analysis of the institutional use of English in the EU, and contrasts the data obtained with that of the institutional use of French and, to a lesser extent, German.