The construction of identity in European settings and the role of English as an institutional lingua franca

This contribution places linguistic analysis within the multi-disciplinary field of geopolitical research, and aims, in particular, to identify the features and explore the potential strength of English in the construal of institutional discourse within the EU. As such, the investigation illustrates the value of discourse analysis (seen as both language and social practice) in “the ideological process of constructing spatial, political and cultural positioning of people, states, institutions, in a context of shifting boundaries ”. For this analysis the speeches of three outstanding figures are considered, delivered in the period between June and October 2011, when the economic crisis was a key topic: Josè Manuel Barroso, the President of the European Commission; Wolfgang Schäuble, the German Federal Minister of Finance; Mario Draghi in his triple role (the Governor of the Bank of Italy, the President of the Financial Stability Board and a candidate to the presidency of the ECB). English is therefore used for global interactions, as lingua franca, by non-native speakers. The documents have been processed in three sub-corpora which are comparable according to the topic, the size and the supra-national audience. The analyses will detect similarities and differences within the wide territory of institutional language: the sender’s identity and his position in the institution affect the macro-structure and the speech organization in relation to the relevant aims and the connected arguments. Institutional discourse shows particular pragmatic aspects and evaluative language which reveal identities, ideology and social relationships developed in context. The study, then, treats the adoption of English in the constitution of geopolitical identities through the creation and conveyance of “geopolitical scripts, narratives, and signification”.