Colloquia - British Association for Applied Linguistics

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BAAL Conference 2004 37 th Annual BAAL Meeting order to arrive at this point of action, a parallel is drawn to the special/official status of the Saami language(s). Second: The very same Ministry has moved in the direction of closing down all Government run schools for the deaf. Major realignments have been in the air during the Winter/Spring of 2003/4. On the one hand, a proposition has been put to the Norwegian Parliament to transfer all Deaf children to schools run by municipalities: strong protests have been made because the units will be too small to function as proper learning/socialization environments, and the proposal may very well be unsuccessful. On the other hand, we have seen a major reduction in funds to all Government run "centers of competence in Special Education". This has been used as an opportunity to cut resources available to all four centers that run schools for Deaf children by as much as 15 per cent. These four centers are widely understood to have been directly targeted. This paper will thus bring a report from the frontline as regards these developments; a brief analysis of how these events can be located in the context of the history of Norwegian Sign Language policy and its research underpinnings, and of where the present reconfiguration appears to be leading, coupled with a 'close-up' view - informed by the presenter's long-standing engagement with sign linguistics, her current association with one of the affected resource centers, and her position as vice chair of the Norwegian Deaf Association - of the impact of these sudden shifts at the crossroads of language, education, politics and community development. “Communicating Europe”: Language Policies, Participation and Democratization Convenor: Prof. Ruth Wodak Department of Linguistics, University of Vienna Linguistics Department, University of Lancaster, UK Ruth.wodak@univie.ac.at http://www.univie.ac.at/discourse-politics-identity 1. General Themes of the Panel For a fairly long period of time now, Europe has been in the search for its identity, it has been looking for its definition and its „soul‟ (Moisi 1999, 45). The EU has even established a website entitled “The future of Europe – Debate” which provides contributions to this debate from all member states as well as candidate countries (http://europa.eu.int/futurum/debate_en.htm). Ideational motives, themes and horizons have regained importance in European political discourses vis-à-vis purely economic questions (“convergence criteria”) (cf., inter alia, Assmann 1999;Bellier and Wilson 2000; Brague 1993; Busch and Krzyzanowski (forthcoming); De Cillia, Krumm and Wodak 2000 and 2003; Hermann, Brewer and Risse 2004; Ifversen 2002; Malmborg and Stråth 2002; Mokre, Weiss and Bauböck 2003; Oberhuber (forthcoming); Wodak and Puntscher-Riekmann 2003; Wodak and Weiss 2004). In this search, Europe has been defined as imagined construct which requires paramount, cultural or political, common and shared identity (Anderson 1991). Who is Europe? What is Europe? At the beginning of the 21 st century, these questions concern not only those, like the USA, who have to adjust to the “new” Europe (while calling part of Europe “old Europe”); they have as well become the formative questions of the European political process itself. In the face of the coming enlargement of the European Union (EU) and the accompanying necessity of re-arranging the institutional frame of EU decision-making, an extensive reflection about the foundation and finalité of the common Europe has absorbed the political arena. East and West are seen to grow together, finally. The end of the Cold War is celebrated, the mission of “peace” and “freedom” are propagated. However, this is true only in some arenas. On the other hand, we observe many non-transparent economic interests and restrictions of free movement and migration. Contradictions “pop” into the eyes. Numerous attempts of the EU at creating an „European identity‟, which have been taking place for almost exactly thirty years now, prove that the EU has been searching for such an “ “identity” (or “identities”), in order to build its image as a representative and legitimate polity and as an important actor on the international scene. Ever since the 1973 Declaration of European Identity, the EU has been attempting at delineating its (political) self-definition linked with the defence of (mostly economic) „western‟ values and strictly linked to defining its borders and the non-European „other‟. King‟s College, London 9 – 11 th - 48 - September, 2004
BAAL Conference 2004 37 th Annual BAAL Meeting A redefinition of “Europe” stands in front of the new upcoming (self-) challenge, once its enlargement becomes effective with the „first wave‟, of the new members (Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Slovakia, Slovenia, Poland) joining in May 2004, and the „distant‟ enlargement states (Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia and Turkey) still waiting outside EU‟s doors, perhaps until 2007 or later. Moreover, the search for “European identities” has led to the European Convention and the drafting of a European Constitution in the years 2002/3 (Oberhuber forthcoming; Krzyzanowski forthcoming). The discussion of what Europe is supposed to be or should be or will be, has thus not stopped (this debate begun very intensively also in “visionary speeches” of prominent EU politicians, such as the Humboldt Speech by J. Fischer in May 2000, at the Humboldt University, Berlin; see Weiss 2002; Wodak and Weiss 2004). The “failure” to agree on the draft constitution in December 2003, in Rome, marks another corner stone of the on-going tensions and processes of EU-enlargement and definitions of European identity. New proposals have been presented, such as “Europe of two speeds” (Europa der zwei Geschwindigkeiten; G. Schröder), a Europe of core states and peripheral states, and so forth. Moreover, recently debates, mostly in the media, have started about the threat of in-coming migrants after the enlargement in May 2004 and the possible danger to the majority population in the now EU member states of losing their jobs. Many EU-member states have thus decided to restrict mobility, although the enlargement countries should participate in the same Human Rights and EU-legislation as all other countries (Bauböck 1995; Haltern 2002). The danger of constructing two classes of EUcitizens becomes visible: “first-class citizens” of the 15 member states and “second-class citizens” of the enlargement countries. Tensions are to be predicted as well as difficulties in the transition processes (Jessop 1990). Issues of Human Rights, minority policies and language policies will most likely all be a priority on the agenda, as many minorities live in the enlargement countries which have had big socio-political problems over the recent years (Roma and Sinti in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, Rumanians in Hungary, Jews in Hungary and so forth; Kovács 1995). Proposals for best practices in supporting multilingualism and European language policies as well as for fighting discrimination and xenophobia will have to be implemented (see http://eumc.eu.int ). 2. Organisation of Panel This panel (3,5 hours) will take up three large themes of the above mentioned complexity of the ongoing processes of EU enlargement: Language policies 1) Communication, representation, participation 2) Constructing European Identities These themes are very well connected to each other, and to Applied Linguistics, in multiple ways: The Research on Language Policies and Multilingualism is a central issue of Applied Linguistics in many Linguistic departments; moreover, the study of multilingualism and media has shown that language policies also affect global processes as well as migration and integration of migrants into European societies. Thus, identity policies are also influenced. The transparency and comprehensibility of EU policies (documents, speeches, and so forth) as well as the construction of new public (virtual) spaces via the Internet has to be seen as one of the first attempts of EU policy makers to establish interaction with the European citizens. (This attempt is one of the four suggested pillars of the White Paper on European Governance 2001). The study of aspects of EU policies (be it on the Internet or in the organizations) does not only allow for descriptions of texts and discourses; results might be taken up by Applied Linguistics which could offer some solutions to problems rooting in inter- and cross cultural misunderstandings. The papers in the panel will discuss important aspects of all these themes, specifically from the point of view of possible contributions to Applied Linguistics. Each of the six papers will be allowed 40 minutes (25 minutes lecture, 15 minutes discussion). At the end of the panel, a general debate should take place. A coffee break should be provided after the first three papers. 3. Abstracts: Paper one: 'Identity Spaces in-Between: National and European Identities, Discourse and Socio-Political Change' Michal Krzyzanowski M.A. University of Vienna, Department of Applied Linguistics and Research Centre 'Discourse, Politics, Identity' michal.krzyzanowski@univie.ac.at http://www.univie.ac.at/discourse-politics-identity King‟s College, London 9 – 11 th - 49 - September, 2004
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