Friend or foe? The discourse of the rise of English in Luxembourg

‘Gëtt hei geschwë méi Englesch wéi Franséich geschriwwen?’ (‘Will English soon be written here more than French?’) was the question asked by an article on Radio 100,7’s website last April. The article was about a conference on languages in literature in Luxembourg, and noted that English was taking on ‘ever greater importance’ in this field. True or not, this illustrates a trend that I call the discourse of the rise of English in Luxembourg. This discourse assumes a zero-sum game where one language can only prosper at the expense of another, and where English is given a privileged status along... Mehr ...