English and Translation in the European Union

Unity and Multiplicity in the Wake of Brexit

Alice Leal

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000399585
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This book explores the growing tension between multilingualism and monolingualism in the European Union in the wake of Brexit, underpinned by the interplay between the rise of English as a lingua franca and the effacement of translations in EU institutions, bodies and agencies.

English and Translation in the European Union draws on an interdisciplinary approach, highlighting insights from applied linguistics and sociolinguistics, translation studies, philosophy of language and political theory, while also looking at official documents and online resources, most of which are increasingly produced in English and not translated at all – and the ones which are translated into other languages are not labelled as translations. In analysing this data, Alice Leal explores issues around language hierarchy and the growing difficulty in reconciling the EU's approach to promoting multilingualism while fostering monolingualism in practice through the diffusion of English as a lingua franca, as well as questions around authenticity in the translation process and the boundaries between source and target texts. The volume also looks ahead to the implications of Brexit for this tension, while proposing potential ways forward, encapsulated in the language turn, the translation turn and the transcultural turn for the EU.

Offering unique insights into contemporary debates in the humanities, this book will be of interest to scholars in translation studies, applied linguistics and sociolinguistics, philosophy and political theory.

1 Language, Meaning and Identity

From Mother Tongue to Lingua Franca

DOI: 10.4324/9780429282812-2

1.1 Introduction

Different estimates set the number of living languages between 4,000 and 6,000 (Steiner 1998, 53; Crystal 2007, 69; Juaristi et al. 2008, 47). Why so many?

Why does homo sapiens, whose digestive tract has evolved and functions in precisely the same complicated ways the world over, whose biochemical fabric and genetic potential are … essentially common, the delicate runnels of whose cortex are wholly akin in all peoples at every stage of social evolution – why does this unified, though individually unique mammalian species not use one common language?

(Steiner 1998, 52)

George Steiner’s own answer lies in the “looseness” and “messiness” of natural languages: they cannot be fully systematised, codified or reduced to their strictly informative content. This profusion of human languages is, for him, an evolutionary advantage “crucial to the creative functions of internalized and outward speech”, so that “new worlds are born between the lines” (ibid., 239). It follows that different languages engender and reflect different world-views in ways that relate intimately with their speakers’ reality and psyche. From this perspective, we speak different languages because we – notwithstanding our biological similarities – are different, with different communicative needs, different (individual and collective) identities. And we are also different because we speak different languages.

In After Babel (ibid., first published in 1975), Steiner groups theories of language into two categories, though not categorically, as most theories will present traces of both simultaneously. The first group puts forth that “the underlying structure of language is universal and common to all men”, whereas for the second group, “universal deep structures are either fathomless to logical and psychological investigation or of an order so abstract, so generalized as to be well-nigh trivial” (ibid., 76–77). Steiner calls them “universalist” and “relativistic” theories of language, respectively. For universalists, “however singular and bizarre [the] superficial forms” of individual languages, they still trace back to “deep-seated universals … from which all grammars derive”; relativists, in turn, see between different languages no more than “approximate analogies, a rough-cast similitude” (ibid., 77).

Most theories of language can be investigated through Steiner’s universalist-relativistic prism. This chapter opens with a cursory examination of a small selection of all-time notions of language, from the classical paradigm to more contemporary views (Sections 1.2–1.6). The main questions that permeate these initial reflections are the following: do we need to speak so many languages and do these different languages trace back to the same source of meaning – in other words, do we all convey the same meanings in different languages? At issue here is not the pre-history of natural tongues; instead, we want to focus on different conceptions of language and its functions. We will then analyse how these different notions of language underpin the concepts of “mother tongue” and “lingua franca” (Section 1.7). And thus we will arrive at the main object of this book, namely “the” English language, to which two sections are dedicated (Sections 1.8 and 1.9). How does it fit into the definitions of language outlined in the previous sections? How does it differ from a “mother tongue” and in which epistemological framework can it be embedded?

This chapter will draw together multiple threads from several disciplines: philosophy of language, applied linguistics and sociolinguistics, anthropological linguistics, as well as, to a lesser extent, translation studies, political theory, history and language policy. This is not the place for a thorough review of these disciplines’ respective literatures, so I shall have to paint with a broad brush. In the end, we will have a clearer picture of the dialectics between language and identity, along with their impact on “lingua franca” uses of English.

Steiner’s universalist-relativistic categories do not directly tackle the crux of our question here, namely the need for different languages and whether these different languages engender different meanings. However, we could argue that, if the underlying structure of all languages is the same, as universalist theories of language postulate in one way or another, surely there is no need for multiple tongues. After all, all they do is articulate the same, pre-existing meanings and grammatical features in different ways. Relativistic theories, on the other hand, hold that each language conjures up its own meanings; hence there is a human need for multiple tongues. This is of course a generalisation; let us see below how different classic theories of language fit into these categories and shed light on our core questions in this chapter.

1.2 The Classical Paradigm and Its Legacy: Logos and Affections of the Soul

The classical paradigm is permeated by an all-embracing logos [from Greek, both “word” and “reason”], i.e. the place where word matches reality univocally. The logos remains constant and is universal; thanks to it we are first able to think and then to speak. Speech is the direct representation of thought; speech is hence secondary, derivative of thought. Different tongues simply articulate the same meanings in different ways. This view of language can be traced back to the sixth and fifth centuries bc, particularly to Heraclitus and Parmenides. A corollary of this tradition is the reduction of the function of language to one of reference, of representation of reality – an instrumental function, as it were (Braun 1996, 7; Hoffmann 2003, 27).

Both Plato and Aristotle confirm this view in the fourth century bc. In Cratylus, Plato adds the important caveat that language does not match reality perfectly; therefore, it should not be trusted. This is because individuals corrupted the original words which a primeval “name-giver” had naturally attributed to things (1921, 436). This original language is irrecoverable, but the nature and essence [from Greek, οὐσία] on which it rested remain constant and universal. For Plato, “[m]inor differences in sounds and syllables count for little; the languages of different countries point to a common truth”; also, “[i]f the meaning or essence remains the same, we can alter freely a few syllables or individual sounds” (Partee 1972, 120, 122).

A similar view is found in Aristotle’s De Interpretatione, though his point is rather that all individuals possess the same universal prelinguistic, mental impressions in their minds – called “affections of the soul”. These affections or mental impressions correspond to reality in a natural way; put differently, signs do not refer directly to reality but to these mental impressions, and the equivalence between them is established conventionally, traditionally. There is a “likeness” between meaning and reality (see Braun 1996, 10–11; Modrak 2001, 13–14, 20–21). In Aristotle’s words, translated by John Ackrill,

just as written letters are not the same for all humans neither are spoken words. But what these are in the first place signs of, the affections of the soul, are the same for all; and what these affections are likenesses of, actual things, are also the same.

(De Interpretatione, 2002, 16a3)

This much-quoted passage summarises not only Aristotle’s theory of language but also the concept of language generally attributed to the classical paradigm.

Generalising somewhat, the classical paradigm is therefore commonly associated with the idea that thought comes first and is not only universal but also independent from language, whereas language is secondary to thought. And although these views tend to be dismissed as simplistic, they have left a permanent imprint on our mainstream notions of language and, consequently, translation.¹ The very concept of equivalence, every translator’s good old friend and worst foe, is an offshoot of this classical conception of language (more in Section 3.4).

In these classical theories, language is thus seen as referential and universal. And, decisively for our purposes here, they place the source of meaning outside language. In Cratylus (Plato 1921, 439b), Plato even cautions us to seek knowledge outside language, here in Harold Fowler’s translation: “realities are to be learned or discovered … not from names but much better through themselves”.

Therefore, within the classical paradigm, there was no need for multiple languages – we might as well say that there was no linguistic diversity as we understand it today. For the Greeks, the only true language was Greek – non-Greek-speakers were barbarians [from ancient Greek βάρβαρος, an onomatopoeic representation of dissonant, meaningless sounds]. For Romans, initially there were only Greek and Latin; later, only Latin. And although there was significant diglossia² for the learned, with a vernacular being used at home and Latin in “higher” domains of society, Latin was perceived as universal, the only true language (Trabant 2010, 883–884). Greek, and then Latin, were seen as an instrument to articulate meanings which stemmed from a universal source. This linguistic monocentrism prevailed in Europe until the late Middle Ages.

Later theories of language went on relentlessly trying to pinpoint this universal source of meaning, with some attributing it to God, others to a “third realm” between our subjective ideas and reality, yet others to a universal language underneath all natural tongues. There have been numerous attempts both to systematise natural languages, thus ridding them of their “messiness”, and to devise fully logical artificial languages or metalanguages. Underpinning these projects is the belief that speaking multiple languages is a nuisance, a murk that obfuscates true meaning, a pointless enterprise, for surely there is no need to employ multiple instruments to represent the same meanings. We will investigate some of these projects in the coming sections.

The legacy of the classical paradigm finds its most influential and lasting expression in Ferdinand de Saussure’s theory of language – though it must be noted that Saussure broke away from these universalist traditions of direct association between language and reality. In fact, he emphasised that languages are not mere lists of terms, and that there is no reality, no pre-established ideas before and outside language; put differently, for Saussure, each language articulates its own meanings. This notwithstanding, he retained two key binary oppositions, which in turn might explain the lasting influence of universalist ideas on our mainstream notion of language (Rodrigues 1999, 187; Lages 2007, 211). The first is form versus substance, whereby “form” can be understood as languages or words, whereas “substance” refers to meaning. The second dichotomy is speech versus thought, along with the idea that speech is the direct representation of thought (see Saussure 1986, 115–117). Both dichotomies are crucial to any universalist notion of language (and translation; see Section 3.4), as we will see in what follows.

1.3 A Historical Note on the Rise of Vernaculars: Cuius Regio, Eius Lingua

Dante’s De vulgari eloquentia, written at the beginning of the fourteenth century but kept under wraps for about two centuries, is perceived as the first scholarly work in which a vernacular is considered on a par with Latin. It took a few centuries for this shift to take hold in Europe: at the beginning of the seventeenth century, Galileo Galilei started writing in “Italian”, René Descartes ...