The use of English in Europe

The complexity of the use of English, as mother tongue, second language and international language in Europe has been recognized and suggestions for modifying Kachru’s concentric circles framework of world English use to accommodate this complexity have been suggested to take into account the various, dynamic roles of English in different European countries. For instance, Berns (1995) claims that in Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, although English is not an official language, it serves various social, commercial, educational and cultural functions which justify categorizing these countries as belonging to both Kachru’s ‘expanding’ and ‘outer’ circles. It could similarly be argued that Sweden and Denmark could increasingly be seen as straddling these two circles. Furthermore, the recent accession of ten more countries to the EU in 2004 has increased the number of countries in the ‘expanding circle’. The mobility of Europe’s boundaries and people within them, together with growing opportunities for cross-border trade, adds to the complexity of language use across Europe and doubtless encourages the development of an international language or languages.

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Introduction	\|	EIB in Europe

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