Attitudes towards Euro-English in a European Union Institution

Authors

  • Tina Balič University of Maribor

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.4312/elope.13.2.131-152

Keywords:

European Union institution, Euro-English, corpus linguistics, deviations from Standard English, attitudes towards language, Eurojargon

Abstract

This study deals with the attitudinal aspect of Euro-English, denoting a specific form of the English language that is frequently used within the institutions of the European Union. A questionnaire survey was conducted among 285 representatives who work for one of these institutions in Brussels. The respondents were asked to rate several deviations from Standard English, identified in a corpus-based analysis of EU texts, as either ‘acceptable’ or ‘unacceptable’ English usage. The findings reveal that the high acceptability rates of the proposed features among the non-native English-speaking respondents were mainly related to their proficiency in English and/or mother tongue interference. Moreover, since native speakers of English also accepted most of the proposed deviations, it follows that the participants did not seem to be aware of non-standardness in the test sentences. Euro-English must be regarded as EU jargon due to its technical, administrative or legal nature and not as a separate non-standard form of English for EU institutional settings.

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ELOPE Vol. 13 No. 2

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Published

16.12.2016

How to Cite

Balič, T. (2016). Attitudes towards Euro-English in a European Union Institution. ELOPE: English Language Overseas Perspectives and Enquiries, 13(2), 131–152. https://doi.org/10.4312/elope.13.2.131-152

Issue

Vol. 13 No. 2 (2016): Time at the End of Times

Section

Language

License

Copyright (c) 2016 Tina Balič

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