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Article published In:
Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 3:1 (2004) ► pp.3–25

Composing “panacea texts” at the European Parliament

An intertextual perspective on text production in a multilingual community

| Utrecht University, the Netherlands

The language choice at institutions of the European Union has been investigated in numerous studies examining such aspects as the European language constellation, institutional multilingualism and its possible reforms, linguistic capital and symbolic domination, and European identity related to the EU enlargement. In addition to these, studies researching the (language) practices at a specific EU institution, like the European Parliament, or analyzing EU organizational discursive practices have also been carried out. These studies, however, offer no insight into the way actors in EU institutions deal with multilingualism in their work place while producing texts for these institutions. It is for this reason that I decided to conduct a case study at the European Parliament to examine how advisers belonging to various political groups, despite their different national culture and distinct mother tongues, together succeed in producing what they call “panacea texts”. Finally, a possible new language constellation for the EU is discussed.

Keywords: context, European Parliament, European Union, institutions, interculture, intertextual network, linguistic policy, multilingual community, recontextualization, text production
Published online: 27 May 2004
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https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.3.1.04loo
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