1
Intercultural communication or parallel cultures?
The Swiss example with special regard to the Rhaeto-Romance situation
Ingmar Söhrman
Dept of Romance Languages, Göteborg University1
Abstract
Politically correct terminology often fails to describe actual reality. Switzerland
is commonly held up as an example of accomplished multiculturalism and
multilingualism. Although appealing, this image is also fairly erroneous as the
German majority and French “dominant” minority seem to live separate lives.
Likewise, Italian and Rhaeto-Romance are generally marginalized and rarely
either spoken or understood by the French- and German-speaking Swiss –
creating the so-called “2 and ½-lingualism”.
This article does not pretend either to “prove” or “reject” Switzerland as a good
example to follow. The domestic intricacies of each and every country demand
home-grown solutions, and those solutions may or may not incorporate outside
experience and practice. The intention is to discuss the difference between
political will (and prejudice) and pragmatic arrangements in an attempt to
identify what promotes multilingualism (and multiculturalism) in some places
and what leads to coexisting languages and cultures that follow separate and
parallel paths in others. The central hypothesis is that while a country may be
multilingual politically, having embedded this intention in law and having
organized the local community according to these laws in order to facilitate the
usage and utility of the different cultures and linguistic varieties, this political
arrangement may have little reflection in more complicated practice, with
linguistic and cultural populations choosing to follow parallel and separate paths
instead. The central issue is whether intercultural communication actually does
exist, to what extent it exists, and what promotes it in a world that is turning its
back on other national cultures and languages.
Keywords:
Sociolinguistics, multilingualism, parallel languages, multiculturalism,
geolinguistics, Rhaeto-Romance, Switzerland
1
I would like to express my gratitude to Ph.D. Larry Lee Watts for checking the language in this article and
suggesting several improvements, but any remaining faults are entirely due to the author’s limits.
Politically correct terminology often fails to describe actual reality. Switzerland,
for instance, is commonly held up as an example of accomplished
multiculturalism and multilingualism. Although appealing, this image is also
fairly erroneous as the German majority and French “dominant” minority seem
to live separate lives. The French-speaking Swiss especially have difficulty in
understanding Swiss German, which, until recently, was and is not taught at
their schools or elsewhere. However, there have been courses on Swiss TV
introducing at least the Zurich variety of German. Likewise, Italian and RhaetoRomance2 are generally marginalized and rarely either spoken or understood by
the French- and German-speaking Swiss – creating the so-called “2 and ½lingualism”.3
The French-speaking region tends to look toward France, and these close
contacts have led to a “takeover” of standard French while the Franco-Provençal
varieties spoken in most of the valleys of West Switzerland only two generations
ago are now disappearing.4 Although there are Swiss mass-media using French
the impact of French culture is strong. The Italian Swiss also focus on the
mother country of their tongue as they live in the canton Ticino and in the
southern parts of the Grisons in the southeast of Switzerland, and their language
is no longer particularly different from that spoken on the other side of the
border in northern Italy.
The German case is somewhat different for two reasons. First of all its speakers
constitute the vast majority of the country’s population, and secondly, they have
a long tradition of being self-sufficient in their Swiss-German culture using their
Alemannic dialects5 that are difficult for Germans and other speakers of High
(and Low) German to understand. They proudly focus on their own homeland
and do not look upon Germany as a cultural resource as do the French and
Italian Swiss in regard to their cultural and linguistic “support” countries. The
Romansh Swiss lack both this cultural back-up and the strength of German, and
therein lies part of the problem.
Multilingualism and multiculturalism
Switzerland is a reasonably small country with certain geophysical
complications due to its mountainous character. A very decentralized state, it
also has one of the world’s highest living standards. It has four official
languages, even if there are some special limitations to the usage of Romansh
2
Since the Swiss Rhaeto-Romance variety is often called Romansh, I will do so in this article.
H.R. Dörig and C. Reichenau (eds.), La Svizra –2 ½ lungatgs, Disentis, 1982.
4
J.-F. Josserand discusses the situation of the remaining speakers of this linguistic variety in Val d’Aosta in his
thesis, Conquête, survie et disparition. Italien, français et francoprovençal en Vallée d’Aoste, Uppsala, 2003.
2003. Cf. G. Price, ”Franco- Provençal” in G. Price (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Languages of Europe, Oxford,
1998, pp. 165-167, and G. Tuaillon, “Le Franco-Provençal. Langue oubliée”, in G. Vermes (ed.), Vingt-cinq
communautées linguistiques de la France, vol. I, Paris 1988, pp. 188-207.
5
J. West, “Swiss German” in G. Price (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Languages of Europe, Oxford, 1998, pp. 203206. C.V.J. Russ (ed.), The Dialects of Modern German, London, 1990.
3
which has been a “partly official language” (lingua ufficiala parziala) only since
1996. When the communist regimes fell en masse in Eastern Europe at the
beginning of the 1990s the new governments there had to deal with their own
multilingual situations in a more democratic and humane manner and could no
longer use force to compel order among divergent ethnic and linguistic
aspirations and pretensions. Switzerland (along with Spain6) was often employed
as a good example of how to turn possibly explosive multiculturalism (cf. exYugoslavia as the worst case scenario) into a forward-looking pluralistic welfare
state. But was (or is) Switzerland truly the country of multiculturalism and bi- or
trilingualism that could provide such an example for emulation?
In this article I do not pretend either to “prove” or “reject” Switzerland as a good
example to follow. The domestic intricacies of each and every country demand
home-grown solutions, and those solutions may or may not incorporate outside
experience and practice. I do intend to discuss the difference between political
will (and prejudice) and pragmatic arrangements in an attempt to identify what
promotes multilingualism (and multiculturalism) in some places and what leads
to coexisting languages and cultures that follow separate and parallel paths in
others. My central hypothesis is that while a country may be multilingual
politically, having embedded this intention in law and having organized the local
community according to these laws in order to facilitate the usage and utility of
the different cultures and linguistic varieties, this political arrangement may
have little reflection in more complicated practice, with linguistic and cultural
populations choosing to follow parallel and separate paths instead. Although not
a very risky hypothesis – examples for it abound in the contemporary world – it
still deserves more attention and discussion for it raises the question of whether
such inefficiencies in fulfilling political good intentions are to be accepted as
unavoidable or whether the search to find another way to remedy these
difficulties could (and should) be pursued.
The idea of multiculturalism is quite complex. The concept indicates the
coexistence of various cultures. I do not intend to go into what culture means,
but let us just use the notion for the sharing of basic values, traditions, artifacts
and behavior. Culture is often linked to a certain language and religion.
Before going deeper into the Swiss example some conceptual matters must be
clarified. Every linguistic variety enjoys some degree of cultural and political
prestige, and the relative degree of prestige is what in reality decides whether a
particular variety is considered a language or merely a dialect. It has to be borne
in mind that the qualification language is almost entirely political rather than
linguistic. Of course, in the final analysis it is a decision that has to be taken by
the speakers themselves more or less consciously, and this decision will be
dependent on the socio-cultural context. Prestige consists of official recognition
such as its use as a teaching language, its use in mass media and in contacts with
6
Cf. I. Söhrman, Ethnic Pluralism in Spain, Uppsala Multiethnic Papers, 29, Uppsala, 1993.
authorities, as well as its use in writing and as a literary expression.7 Swiss
German varieties are hardly intelligible for a German, but they are still one
language and the written German language is fairly unified, whether it is written
in Germany, Switzerland, or Austria. English and Spanish are surprisingly
unified for languages spoken across such vast territories, and the same holds true
for Russian. Norwegian and Swedish are considered two different languages and
have established different literary traditions and official usages although from an
entirely linguistic standpoint they originally could have easily and with good
reason been considered one language, and they still have more resemblances
between them than certain of their dialects have with the standard varieties.
Political divisions that promote separate developments provide another major
complication. Because it is written with the same characters Chinese is a unified
language, although now the Min8 variety of Chinese, spoken on Taiwan and the
close mainland regions, is gaining its own prestige and status as a language in
Taiwan because it has become the national variety of the country (regardless of
the complex legal situation of Taiwan).
Religion is also an important factor. The Arabic-speaking world is full of very
different linguistic traditions, but they are held together by the classical Arabic
that keeps the varieties linked. Maltese constitutes the significant exception
which, because it is spoken by Catholics, has received the status of a language
all its own.9 The same applies for the Romansh that is spoken mostly by
Calvinists in the southeast and by Catholics in the northwest of Grisons. This
religious division contributed for many centuries to the unwillingness of one
Romansh-speaking group to understand other Romansh varieties.10 The same is
partly true for the Võru-Estonians who speak a different variety of Estonian and
are mainly Orthodox.11 The usage and the relativity of the notions of language
and dialect is worth bearing in mind since they are so often employed to defend
or denigrate particular linguistic varieties even though the vagueness of the line
between them by no means justifies the insistence with which they are argued.
Majority and Minority
Likewise, the apparently obvious concepts of minority and majority languages
are far more controversial and unclear than one might think. First of all, both
concepts are relative. Majority normally refers to the most spoken language in
I. Söhrman, Språk, nationer och andra farligheter, Stockholm 1997. “Les conséquences linguistiques des
changements géopolitiques : le cas de l’Estonie” in M. Auchet & A. Bourguignon, Aspects d’une dynamique
régionale : les pays nordiques dans le contexte de la Baltique, Nancy 2001, ss. 130-145.
8
C. N. Li and S.A. Thompson, “Chinese” in B. Comrie (ed.), The world’s major Languages, New York/Oxford,
pp.812-813.
9
J. Cremona, “Maltese” in G. Price (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Languages of Europe, Oxford, 1998, pp. 216-219.
10
I. Söhrman, ”Från nationellt till officiellt språk. Om rätoromanskans nya status och dess ställning i Schweiz”,
in D. Blanck & P.Jegebäck (eds..) Migration och mångfald, Uppsala, 1999, ss. 49-66.
11
R. Raag, ”En estniska eller två estniskor” in I. Svanberg and I. Söhrman (eds.), Minoriteter i Europa,
Stockholm, 2004, pp. 35-52.
7
the country and the one that has official recognition. The minority can still be in
the majority in one or more regions or “just” the majority in certain towns or
villages, but the minority language might also be in a minority situation
everywhere, which in itself indicates a poor survival perspective for that
language. Also important for the survival of the minority language is whether it
is spoken in the local capital or spoken by a leading group in the region or town.
This is the case in Catalonia, where half of the population speaks Catalan and
half Spanish. Still, the predominant bourgeoisie uses Catalan and has always
done so. Here, Catalan is promoted to a degree that seems to have lowered the
Spanish competence of the younger generation, causing upset in at least some
influential circles in Spain.
When a majority feels threatened in some way the issue becomes more critical,
provoking exaggerated nationalistic statements on both sides. In the Swiss case,
the minority languages are by no means a threat to the two largest languages
(German and French.) On the contrary, Romansh is the only Swiss language that
is spoken only in Switzerland, lending it an emblematic status if only on a
superficial level. I have personally been accused of “stealing” the language just
because I was learning it. Interestingly enough, such accusations were made by a
non-Romansh Swiss, never by Romansh-speakers who consistently expressed
their satisfaction that foreigners were interested in their language. This
encouragement was often expressed with an aside that it would be even better if
the German (and French) speaking Swiss would make such an effort. The
favourable regard of Romansh as part of the Swiss identity by no means implies
that the German-speaking majority is tempted to learn the language, not even in
Grisons. Only 1/5 of Grisons’ population actually speaks Romansh.
In countries and regions with two official languages both are sometimes taught
at school as in Quebec, Catalonia, and (formerly) in Finland (Finnish-Swedish).
The obligatory exam in both languages has now been revoked in Finland and the
vast Finnish-speaking majority will no longer have to learn Swedish. Likewise,
with the obligation removed the regional Swedish-speaking majority on the
Åland Islands have much less incentive to learn Finish. The outcome of this
recent legal change is still to be seen since the decision was taken only in May
2004.
Bilingualism
This leads us to the concept of bilingualism, which is harder to define than one
might think. One could, as is usually the case, view it as a phenomenon that
occurs on the individual level. This is often the situation when it comes to
describing immigrants or speakers of a minority language and children with
parents who have different first languages (mother tongues), but bilingualism is
also used metaphorically and on a territorial level indicating something
completely different, with the coexistence of two languages in one region often
and incorrectly interpreted as a sign of individual bilingualism.
At the level of the individual the fundamental question arises as to when a
person can be considered bilingual. Traditionally, when someone manages two
languages at a more or less equal level and has learnt both before the age of 1213 then /s/he is considered bilingual. However, linguists such as Einar Haugen
extend this concept to include also advanced language learning later in life such
that many Scandinavians could be regarded as bilingual
(Danish/Norwegian/Swedish - English). Others restrict the concept to only those
persons who have in fact learnt two languages before reaching adolescence.
There are, of course, many levels of individual command of two or more
languages learnt at different ages than are found in these two more “extreme”
standpoints. For the following discussion, however, it is very important to
distinguish these two kinds of bilingualism since one does not imply the
existence of the other. T. Skutnabb-Kangas argues that four criteria establish
whether a person is bilingual or not12:
1) origin – if the person has grown up with two languages from the
beginning;
2) competence – if the person is equally competent in the two languages
/s/he is bilingual but since this is rarely the case and the languages are
used in different situations it is harder to prove;
3) function – if the person is capable of using both languages in most
situations in society;
4) attitude – how one regards oneself and if others regard the person as
bilingual. Bilingualism is thus both a quantitative and a qualitative
concept, used for very different purposes and often without defining
which criterion or criteria are being employed.
On a territorial level, the mere existence of two languages within one territory
tends to give the presumption that the population is bilingual, which is not at all
the case. First of all, in most cases only the speakers of what is the minority
language (and one of the languages is almost always considered a minority
language in relation to the official language of the country or region, although
these can be different as in Catalonia or in Slovakia until its independence.) are
generally bilingual. A more or less total bilingualism in the long run often leads
to the loss of the minority language given that its usage is always more
restricted.13 On the other hand, Romansh stands a good chance of surviving
according to Fishman’s eight-degree scale where 8 is the bottom and 1 indicates
12
T. Skutnabb-Kangas, Tvåspråkighet, Lund, 1981; G. Håkansson, Tvåspråkighet hos barn i Sverige, Lund,
2003, pp. 13-26.
13
E. Haugen, The Norwegian Language in America, Bloomington, 1953, p. 370.
the survivor. Romansh ends up between 2 and 3 and, with its new official status,
also enters one criterion at 1.14
Another assumption that is often made in these cases is that the minority
language is composed of only one variety, and there is often an official demand
to unify the local varieties of a minority language or to allow them to disappear
on their own.15 This was basically the case in the creation of the unified
Romansh-Rumantsch Grischun.16 This amalgamated version of Romansh was
supposed to be used for administrative purposes only, and was to be taught
alongside one of the local varieties (Sursilvan, Sutsilvan, Surmiran, Puter and
Vallader). An immediate consequence of this unified language was that
information in Romansh increased some 20 times in a few years and, since
Romansh was promoted to a ‘partly official language’ in 1996 its official usage
continues to increase. Is this a general development? Possibly. However,
Sardinia represents a fairly similar and neighboring case where there is no real
willingness to give up the more local linguistic usages in order to maintain the
language space as a whole by trying to unite the so-called dialects.17 In contrast,
in northern Italy the Ladin varieties have recently established a unified standard
– Ladin Dolomitan.18
There are, for different reasons, very different ideas concerning which variety of
the minority language is really authentic and therefore which variety is to be
taught in school. We have discussed the Romansh situation in Switzerland.
Swiss-German also has many varieties in the spoken versions of the language,
while the written language is more or less High German. French-speaking Swiss
complain that they are taught to speak High German but they do not understand
their co-nationals speaking the Swiss varieties. Therefore, they see little point in
studying German if such study does not enable them to understand their
compatriots. In Alsace there is a German-speaking regional minority but their
variety is substantially different from High German and, of course, the question
arises as to whether the children should be taught High German or the local
variety of Alsatian at school. One possibility being discussed is to have two
kinds of bilingualism: French-German at a school level and French-Alsatian on
the home level. Is this a good thing or does it mean the destruction of Alsatian
and the introduction of just another foreign language (German)? What will be
the outcome of the new standardized languages like Rumantsch Grischun, and
Ladin Dolomitan or Euskara Batua (unified Basque)?19 Will they be entirely
14
J. Fishman, Reversing Language Shift. Theoretical and Empirical Foundations of Assistance to Threatened
Languages, Clevedon, 1991.
15
J. Fishman, Reversing Language Shift. Theoretical and Empirical Foundations of Assistance to Threatened
Languages, Clevedon, 1991. L. Huss, Reversing Language Shift in the Far North. Linguistic Revitalzation in
Northern Scandinavia and Finland, Uppsala 1999.
16
H. Schmid and D. Gloor et al. , Fünf Idiome – eine Schriftsprache, Chur, 1996, pp. 127-136.
17
M. Parny, “Sardinian” in G. Price (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Languages of Europe, Oxford, 1998, pp. 273-275.
18
P. Bernincà, “Dolomitic Ladin” in G. Price (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Languages of Europe, Oxford, 1998, pp.
262-263.
19
I. Söhrman, Språk, nationer och andra farligheter, Stockholm 1997, pp. 114-130.s
accepted and used (and then in what situations)? Does the introduction of these
varieties lead to the disappearance of the more traditional varieties? There is a
big difference between official and actual recognition of a language, and both
are needed if the language is to continue being used as a spoken variety.
A similar but different situation occurred in Albania, where the language was
standardized following a long process of linguistic reform at the beginning of the
1970s. However, its status as the language of a country gave it the much longed
for official support that regional languages rarely get. Albanian-speakers in
Kosovo and Italy have accepted this new standard even though the varieties
spoken in these regions are closer to the northern Albanian varieties that
represent the “losing” side in this unifying process.20 We could summarize this
discussion in the concept of attitudes toward a particular linguistic variety both
on behalf of the authorities (regional and national) and on behalf of the speakers
and their neighbors. Do these groups in general and/or by force of legislation
and usage promote, accept or discriminate against the minority language?
The Swiss case
Swiss culture is mainly focused on the canton and the villages within it. This
gives it a very democratic perspective and decentralized organization, but it also
tends to exclude knowledge about and understanding of the other languages and
cultures of the country, and a local majority can radically change the local
official attitude and linguistic politics. Regardless of the fact that Switzerland
now has four official languages (German, French, Italian, and Romansh) only
four of the sixteen cantons are bilingual, and only one trilingual. All the others
are “monopolized” by one language. If another language is learnt at school it is
often English and not another of the four official languages spoken in the
country. We have also seen the problems concerning which variety is to be
taught, and how French-speaking Swiss find it hard to use their German since
what they learn differs so much from the Swiss linguistic reality. This has led to
the production of TV-courses in Swiss German, and there are other language
courses distributed by television but, so far, no Romansh course.
All of Switzerland’s languages with the exception of Romansh are spoken by a
majority in one (Italian) or more (German and French) cantons and are
furthermore official languages in the neighboring countries. It goes without
saying that this grants these three languages an enormous advantage both
politically and culturally – particularly in terms of access to all of the television
programs, films, books and newspapers just to mention the predominant
linguistic manifestations that promote the usage of a certain language. For
obvious reasons this is not at all the case when it comes to Romansh.
Nevertheless the Swiss government economically supports the two smallest
20
Ibid.
linguistic groups, i.e., Italian and Romansh. The growing German influence on
Swiss culture can be seen as the catalyst of a “counter action” that has created
the new concept of Latin Switzerland rather than “Romance Switzerland”,
probably due to the fact that French Switzerland is called la Suisse romande and
the existence of Romansh. Thus the word latin appears less confusing. This,
however, is not to imply a split between the German-speaking and Romancespeaking populations. In Switzerland the traditional explanation for the unity of
the country, which actually took place during the Napoleonic wars at the
beginning of the 19th century, is that the community is based on a common will
(to stay together) which corresponds to the country as a whole and to the four
communities based on the four constituent ethno-linguistic groups. What is often
overlooked in this explanation is the fact that more than one fifth of the Swiss
population consists of immigrants and their children. Although this complicates
and broadens the perspective, the initial question remains. In a country such as
Switzerland, with several official languages, is intercultural communication and
bilingualism the norm or is the reality less happy, with parallel cultures sharing
only the administrative unity of a single country.
The focus on local society combined with the handy availability of French and
Italian cultures gives the impression of a culturally divided country that to a
great extent seem to lack a countrywide Swiss culture. The Swiss Germans and
the Romansh speakers could possibly be seen as representatives of Swiss culture
but it is not one single culture but several. Some say that apart from the common
will to stay together there is no Swiss identity. It is also evident although Swiss
Germans do not like to admit it that the surrounding German and Austrian
cultures contributes and strengthens the cultural life in German in Switzerland.
Already in 1937 R.F. Ramuz provoked his fellow countrymen by declaring that
there did not exist such a thing as Switzerland. This is of course wrong from a
legal point of view but does there exist a Swiss identity. Some question this and
for good reasons. There are several local identities. In an insightful book the
Swiss journalist F.-R, Allemand discusses the different cultures and traditions in
the cantons and concludes that they co-exist but in different regions.21 This
means that there is no real multiculturalism at an individual basis just as there is
not very much of a multilingualism at this level. People do not really watch TV
in the other languages or read books. The prefix multi- seems to be more
adequate if we consider the Anglo-Saxon influence on the different Swiss
cultures and languages. The local perspective means that although there are four
languages spoken these do not necessarily imply the existence four cultures.
Even within each linguistic region traditions and foci differ considerably. This
has been pointed out by A. Pichard who denies the existence of la Suisse
romande (the French-speaking Switzerland) as a unifying concept.22 There
seems to be much more of parallel local cultures than a nation-wide identity
21
22
F.-R. Allemand, Vingt-six fois la Suisse, Lausanne, 1985, which is an updated version of his German edition.
A.Pichard, La Romandie n’existe pas, Lausanne, 1978.
except for certain legal values. However, this is not unique, but Switzerland is
one of the most decentralized countries in the world, and this is the consequence
of historic realities to oppose conquering powers more than a will to create a
nation. This could be summarized as an idea of staying together so that everyone
can mind his/her own business. Of course, this simplifies reality too much as we
have and will see in this article.
Linguistic threats and possibilities
When a country has a considerable proportion of the population originating from
other countries and languages, the conservation of these languages at a family
level may create some minor local complications but does not threaten the unity
of the state. This explains why the rapid growth of Spanish in the USA is so
controversial, even if it does not endanger the state. Such growth has already
changed the linguistic reality in the southern states on a societal level, which
means that it has expanded beyond the private, family level and now affects
society, schooling, advertising, mass media, and daily life. The USA is probably
the first example where a “safe and sure” majority is threatened by what it feels
to be a forced change of the society’s linguistic reality. There are already
suburbs and sections of some European cities where the language of the majority
(or rather the official but locally minority language) coexists with other
languages, and there are quite a few examples of creolization – i.e. the creation
and spread of new hybrid linguistic varieties that have taken vocabulary and
grammar from several languages that are spoken in the neighborhood, although
they are often not at all related. In most, if not all, of these cases intercultural
communication does exist on a local level, but this is totally parallel with the rest
of society as only people from that very part of the town understand and use this
creolized variety (often only used by young people with different first
languages), while in all other respects they live a linguistic reality that might be
totally separate from the rest of society.
Switzerland is used as an example only to discuss the reality behind the idea of
intercultural communication in a multilingual state. As noted, theory and
practice collide. Intercultural communication and the bilingual society exist only
to a certain and much more restricted degree, and then not always as the
founding fathers (and mothers) and state-builders intended.
The EU intends to give every citizen the right to learn two foreign languages at
school. This can be viewed as the European variant of the American idea of
English+ since it is highly probable that English will become the most studied
language in most, if not all, of the EU countries. In order to broaden the
students’ knowledge, any other language must be an addition rather than a
(suicidal) rival to English. This EU intention is still only a desideratum, albeit
Europe is so very much multilingual. Ever since the French revolution and the
romantic ideas of the beginning of the 19th century this multilingual reality in
almost all countries (with the exception of Iceland and possibly Portugal) has
been under attack since, ideologically, a nation consists of a population that
speaks one language. “Old fashioned” minorities were viewed as reactionary and
something to be fought.23 This attitude has changed only recently and only in
part.
Today, the truth is that English is gaining ground everywhere, especially in
eastern Europe where long years of obligatory Russian provoked many good
students to show their patriotism and opposition to dictatorship by being
extremely poor students in that particular subject. This is an understandable
attitude, but deplorable nonetheless. Once again, it is the attitude and the
question of what a language represents that matters when it comes to people’s
willingness to learn it. The utility of English goes without saying, and the spread
of English has resulted in a useful means of intercultural communication. It
might well be so that this intercultural communication will take place in the
future mostly through English and by increasing competence in neighboring
languages. Hopefully, the idea of having a functional competence in two foreign
languages will contribute to linguistic and cultural richness.
The Swiss reality is that English is becoming the second language of many
Swiss students to the detriment of other Swiss languages. Regarding the role of
English in modern society, Switzerland is, strangely enough, possibly more
vulnerable than most countries simply because it has been and still is the
preferred site for the international headquarters of many global and multinational
organizations such as the UN and the Swiss-originated Red Cross. The
international, and thus English, presence in the country also promotes the
international character and importance of English to most young Swiss. Interest
in the other Swiss languages appears to be diminishing and the old interest in at
least one of the neighboring languages is being lost. In the airports, for instance,
signs are normally in four languages with English supplanting Romansh for
good touristic reasons. Nevertheless, this is felt as something of an insult by the
Romansh-speaking population. In some countries, like Spain, the majority
language is often crossed out on bilingual signs. In others, as in northern
Scandinavia, the opposite situation exists and the population seems reluctant to
accept the Sami or the Finnish languages as varieties with equal rights to
Norwegian and Swedish.
Swiss decentralization has also had an impact on the present situation. Local
authorities decide to a large extent how local schools are organized and how
local information is spread, and in which language/s/. Mass media seems to have
become more and more local, further limiting the knowledge of other parts of
the country and of the other three cultures to the passive reader.
Final remarks
I. Söhrman, ”Alsace – både och eller ingetdera” in I. Svanberg and I. Söhrman (eds.), Minoriteter i Europa,
Stockholm, 2004, pp. 136-149.
23
People tend to react in very pragmatic terms. “What do I need and why” forms
the basis for the search of more languages. In this regard, at least among Swiss
adults there is a linguistic competence in French and German, but much less in
Italian and Romansh because its speakers also speak – or can make themselves
understood – in one or both of the two major languages. The current tendency is
for the different populations to live in separate worlds disregarding the other
Swiss realities. In contrast, the Romansh culture that was formerly divided into
five separate groups has now reached a greater intercultural communication than
the previous generation. The French Swiss appear to culturally integrate
themselves more with France, as the Italian Swiss do with Italy, while the
German Swiss have their own society in which Romansh is steadily absorbed
because of the strong German impact, despite all of the efforts made to ensure its
survival. Whether this is just a step in a long-term development that will later
turn in other directions, or simply one leading to the creation of parallel societies
remains to be seen. In any case, it seems unlikely that there will be only one
single tendency. History is replete with the oscillation of thesis and antithesis
and this may very well be the future of these two tendencies. The central issue is
whether intercultural communication actually does exist, to what extent it exists,
and what promotes it in a world that is turning its back on other national cultures
and languages.
To sum up this discussion there are three factors that condition the existence of
intercultural communication on different levels and in various ways:



Geolinguistic situation: How are the languages distributed in the
region/country? What consequences does the geophysical character of the
landscape have? How many bilinguals in any sense of the word are there,
and what is the proportion of the monolinguals? Is it a region of
immigration or emigration or status quo? How is immigration, if this is
the case, affecting the linguistic situation – introducing more languages
and in which proportion, is creolization taking place, etc.?
Linguistic conditions: What is the relative prestige and proportion of the
majority and minority languages? What are the interest in and the
advantage of learning the other language/s/, especially among the
predominant majority? What is the respective attitude to the other
language/s/ and their speakers? Does there exist some kind of repression
or societal exclusion of speakers of some varieties?
Impact of English: The role of English is merely that of changing the
focus of language learning. Is it an addition that promotes intercultural
communication? Does it effect the willingness to learn and use the
neighboring languages and in what sense? Is it promoting or destroying
intercultural understanding at the local level? Whatever the answers,
English is likely to be the main instrument for intercultural
communication for a long time to come. The important question thus
becomes how English could best be integrated in the process of promoting
intercultural communication not only on an international level but on the
local level as well.
Switzerland is in many respects a fascinating and informative example, and
studying the linguistic situation there gives us much material regarding the
diverging tendencies at play. My intention has been to present the unequal
linguistic situation in a country where the economic situation and violent
repressive tendencies could be dropped from the equation in order to isolate the
sociolinguistic reality and focus on it in order to distill a study case which could
show us at least the basic outline of how these two opposite linguistic and
cultural tendencies – integration and parallelism – not only counteract but
interact, and how intention and reality interfere and often oppose each other.
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Journal of Intercultural Communication, ISSN 1404-1634, 2004, issue 7.
Editor: Prof. Jens Allwood
URL: http://www.immi.se/intercultural/.
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