Competing language ideologies about societal multilingualism among cross-border workers in Luxembourg

Due to the weakening of state borders within the European Union and the favorable economic situation of Luxembourg, there has been a steep rise in migration across Luxembourg’s borders. Of special prominence are cross-border workers, who live in the surrounding border regions of France, Belgium and Germany and now make up 44 percent of the workforce. This increasing presence of ‘foreigners’ is prompting substantial change to Luxembourg’s traditionally triglossic language situation, where Luxembourgish, French and German have coexisted in public use. In this situation, competing language ideologies are likely to emerge, reflecting the interests of different groups. Horner and Weber (2008) discuss the presence of two opposing language ideologies among the autochthonous population: the trilingual language ideology (trilingualism as the ‘language’ of Luxembourg); and the nationalist language ideology (Luxembourgish as the only true language of Luxembourg), which latter they claim has increased in reaction to the rise in cross-border workers. Little research has been done on the language ideologies of cross-border workers themselves, however. Encountering Luxembourg’s multilingualism, cross-border workers may adopt one of the ideologies above, or one of two further competing ideologies: that of societal multilingualism as a problem or as an opportunity. Through analysis of metalinguistic discourse in interviews with thirty cross-border workers in Luxembourg, this article examines how participants approach societal multilingualism in Luxembourg and how cross-border workers might contribute to competing perspectives on the place of languages in Luxembourg.