Kristine Horner

The trilingual Luxembourgish school system in historical perspective: progress or regress?

In line with recent calls for a historicising of discourse analysis, this paper provides an account of language-in-education policies in Luxembourg since the creation of the Luxembourgish state in the early nineteenth century. We briefly expound the Luxembourgish language situation and educational system, and critically discuss the contemporary discourse of impossibility of change, which is associated with it. We argue that the Luxembourgish/German/French trilingualism of Luxembourgish education and society needs to be clearly differentiated from the specific trilingual language regime currently applied within the educational system – indeed, the latter has changed and has been adapted over time, as we will show. Hence, there is no reason why it should not change again in an ongoing effort to meet the linguistic needs of a constantly shifting school population in the best possible way. We conclude that the multilingual nature of an educational system does not guarantee the absence of linguistic exclusion, and that only systems with a high degree of flexibility can adequately meet the needs of todays increasingly heterogeneous school populations.

Small languages, education and citizenship: the paradoxical case of Luxembourgish

Abstract Luxembourg is designated as a trilingual country, officially recognizing three languages in its language law of 1984: Luxembourgish as the national language, and French and/or German as legal, judicial and administrative languages. While Luxembourgish is mostly used for spoken communication, written functions are carried out primarily in standard French and German, which as a result also dominate within the educational system. Luxembourgish thus presents the somewhat paradoxical case of being a small and mostly spoken language that is officially recognized as the national language of the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg. At the same time, in relation to fluctuating demographics, a discourse of endangerment has developed around the Luxembourgish language. The focus has been on the limited role of Luxembourgish within the educational system, as well as its potential role as the “language of integration”. A major contradiction is reflected in these current debates and developments: though the emphasis in language-in-education policy continues to revolve mostly around the teaching of standard German and French and though Luxembourgish is not widely used for functions linked to standardized written languages, the 2008 citizenship law has introduced formalized language testing in Luxembourgish. It thus signals and enacts a shift away from the “trilingual ideal” towards the national language as the sole icon of “Luxembourgishness”.

Discourses on Language and Citizenship in Europe

This paper provides an overview of research on discourses on language and citizenship in contemporary Europe. Particular attention is given to the implementation of language requirements and/or formalized language testing for citizenship procedures that have become widespread since the turn of the 21st century. Scholars have focused on the discursive justification of these shifts in language policy and they have analyzed related discourses on diversity, cohesion and integration in multiple European Union member-states. This paper underlines the need for further engagement with the concept of linguistic authority and it calls for research that explores the negotiation and contestation of these policies from ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ perspectives in a wider range of European Union member-states.

Multilingual Universities and the Monolingual Mindset

In this chapter we argue that the monolingual mindset (Clyne 2008) or monolingual habitus (Gogolin 1994) is still all-pervasive in our age of late modernity. Our focus is on the internationalization of higher education, and we show that even the language policies of self-avowedly ‘multilingual’ universities are still bound up with, and seemingly unable to break through, the ideology of monolingualism as the norm.

Eng flott Diskriminatioun?: Language and Citizenship Policy in Luxembourg as Experience

In the context of harmonising migration policies across European Union (EU) member-states, multiple EU member-states have recently introduced new forms of citizenship legislation that, in many cases, include language and/or civics tests. Informed by Kroskrity’s (Regimenting languages: language ideological perspectives. In: Kroskrity PV (ed), Regimes of language: ideologies, polities, and identities. School of American Research Press, Santa Fe, pp. 1–34, 2000) work on language regimes and framed by what Ricento (J Socioling 4(2): 196–213, 2000) refers to as the third wave of language policy (LP) research, recent studies have critically analysed the discursive justifications of these language requirements and/or testing procedures. Based on the analysis of semi-structured interviews with applicants for Luxembourgish nationality, this chapter critically explores the interface between discourses justifying and those challenging the legitimacy of Luxembourgish language testing. The implementation of the formal testing of Luxembourgish—underpinned by the positioning of it as the ‘language of integration’ in dominant discourse—has particular implications in Luxembourg, where there are three officially recognised languages of the state: Luxembourgish, French and German (Horner, Lang Citizenship Special issue of J Lang Polit 14(3): 359–381, 2015). The analysis shows how disputes concerning the introduction of the testing of Luxembourgish are intertwined with contestations over transformations of long-standing language regimes. On a broader scale, this chapter stresses the importance of broadening the scope of LP to encompass research on the experiences of social actors who are directly affected by formal LP mechanisms (Shohamy, Lang Prob Lang Plan, 33(2): 185–189, 2009).

Chapter 10. Multilingual education and the politics of language in Luxembourg

This volume revisits the issue of language contact and conflict in the Low Countries across space and time.

Language, Place, and Heritage: Reflexive Cultural Luxembourgishness in Wisconsin

The rapid movement of people and information on a global scale has contributed to the renegotiation of ethnicity and group membership, especially as new networks have been formed across large geographical distances. The focus here is on Belgium, Wisconsin for two interrelated reasons: one of the largest concentrations of people of Luxembourgish descent in the United States is domiciled in that area; moreover, the grand opening celebration of the Luxembourg American Cultural Center took place there in 2010. Taking an ethnographically grounded geosemiotic approach, this paper provides an analysis of Luxembourgish linguistic and cultural heritage displays in Belgium, Wisconsin and explores how localized practices are being renegotiated in the context of augmented transatlantic cooperation. *

Revisiting History: The 2007 European Capital of Culture and the Integration of Fractal Europe

Much has been written on the construction of a European identity, including debates as to whether it may be viewed as complementing or conflicting with national identities and, more fundamentally, whether such a concept is even conceivable (Delanty and Rumford 2005: 50–68). It has been argued that EU-sponsored attempts to foster a sense of European identity have recently shifted towards strategies seemingly devoid of cultural baggage, for example, emphasizing the practical benefits of EU membership (Strath 2006; Caliendo 2007). While this sort of argument holds weight in certain contexts, attempts to construct a European identity framed explicitly in cultural terms have not been completely abandoned, as is illustrated by the annual European Capital of Culture (ECC). Based on an idea frequently credited to the former Greek Minister of Culture, Melina Mercouri, the first ECC was organized in Athens in 1985 and was subsequently hosted by individual cities in various EU member-states until 1999. In the year immediately preceding the introduction of the Euro, cities in nine European countries jointly hosted the 2000 ECC (Sassatelli 2002).1 From 2001 to 2006, the ECC was held in either one or two cities in different EU member-states, with a European Cultural Month sometimes added as a satellite activity, often in a city in an EU candidate country.