English-Only In The European Union

Since its origin, the European Union (EU) has intended to establish a unified market and currently a unified currency among others (European Union, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union). However, the situation of language uses is of great complication. European institute orders that the official language of a member country should also be that of the union. And up to now, there have been twenty-three official languages in use in EU. A great deal of work of translations and interpretations are seriously required in EU's daily operation, and a huge amount of fund has been invested to them. As a result, it has caused the general problems like the low working efficiency and actually high costs to the organization to adopt so many official languages at work at the same time. It is no doubt that European Union is under the pressure to reduce the number of its official languages. Actually, it has been proposed that European Union should find out a unified language.Meanwhile, the language of English is increasingly used than any other language in all parts of the world. Among those languages adopted in European Union, English is most widely used. As it has reached the position of a global language by the second half of the twentieth century, English also has established its role as a lingua franca within Europe. English has been so widely spread and used that it has been suggested to be the EU's unified language. In another word, English should be the only language at work in the European Union.This sole-official-language idea has been considered as a sign of"English-Only"movement in Europe. This term refes to a legislating proposition trying to make English the official language in the whole United States of America, taking place at the turn of the century in the USA. Since such a thought appeared, there have surged some pressures from mainly the economic fields pushing European Union to the direction of English being the only one. However, the reversing power is rising. As growing numbers of people are realizing that their languages are more connected to keeping their own cultures, their national identities and culture, many countries within European Union have began to establish or to adjust their language policies and are planning to reduce the influences English has put on, like France and Germany which set up national language institutions to monitor domestic language use, promulgate laws to resist the spreading of English and protect their mother tongues. This article, based on the analysis of the complex language situation in Europe, tried to explore the situation of language use within European Union, especially the use of English in some member countries and the affairs of the union by tracing the origin of"English-Only". It also tried to offer a discussion on whether English will be adopted as the unified language and make a prediction or a conclusion if English would be made the only official language of European Union when it is working as an economic, political and cultural unification through out the analysis from the points of view of relationships between language and culture, ethnic identity. In this way, it is hoped that the reasons behind those language attitudes and influencing factors could be revealed. This paper finally draws the conclusion that although it is playing the dominant role in the work of the European Union and the communication between the member states, English is not likely to become the only-used language because monolingualism will threaten the existance of other less-used languages and further threaten the existance of the cultures they represent and the identity built based on them.