POST-BREXIT PERSPECTIVES OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

Abstract

The author of the article undertakes a concise review of different experts’ projections in the 1st decade of 2000-s, concerning the possible consequences of the Brexit process on the status and functions of English in the European Union (EU). In this respect one issue is whether Brexit will result in the weakening of the status of English within the European Union, or some other language of a EU member-state may try to replace it from its position. As the most probable possibility here is seen the one, according to which the exit of Britain from the Union will clear the sociolinguistic space for the emergence of a status and functions of English, used by members of the EU as a ‘second language’ or (even) a quasi-Outer Circle English, serving the needs of the European Union as the common link language for administration and cooperation between member states.