Leiden University Student Repository

Majoie, Maxime (2023)

Belgian Federalism Outdated: Multilingualism can no longer be denied.

Bachelor thesis | International Studies (BA)

The linguistic-ideological division between Wallonia and Flanders is institutionalized through the principle of monolingual territoriality within federalism in Belgium. The disaggregating nature of the federalization processes is substantiated by the ideological-linguistic differences between the subnational groups, in efforts to mitigate such differences. In a globalizing world, these motivations have been tested through empirical data involving a sample population of students in Flanders. The language use and language knowledge of these students showed that, the acquirement of plurilingualism is increasing, involving the use of English as an international language prominently. Interestingly, monolingual territoriality is a protecting institutionalization of the monolingual language ideology in Belgium. Rather than an outdated perspective that plurilingualism is a threat, the acquirement of English could form a mitigating mechanism across the borders within and outside Belgium.

federalism

monolingual territoriality

plurilingualism

internationalization

language ideology

language policyggg

Author

Majoie, Maxime

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation

Europe

Supervisors

S. Dekker

ECTS Credits

15

Language

en