Foreign Language Usage and National and European Identification in the Netherlands

Multilingualism is considered a pathway to European identification but might also undermine national identification. We examine regular foreign language usage and two psychological constructs that can explain the relationship between multilingualism and European and national identification in the Ne...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of language and social psychology Vol. 40; no. 3; pp. 328 - 353
Main Authors Cárdenas, Diana, Verkuyten, Maykel
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.06.2021
SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects
Bilingualism
Dutch language
Foreign languages
Identification
Language usage
Multilingualism
Openness
Structural equation modeling
Worldview
Netherlands
national identification
European identification
foreign language usage
additive identification pattern
multilingualism
subtractive identification pattern
deprovincialization
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Summary:Multilingualism is considered a pathway to European identification but might also undermine national identification. We examine regular foreign language usage and two psychological constructs that can explain the relationship between multilingualism and European and national identification in the Netherlands: greater mental openness and a deprovincialized worldview. Using structural equation modeling, the results of two studies conducted with national Dutch samples show that foreign language usage predicted greater mental openness (cultural in Study 1, and cognitive in Study 2), which then predicted greater European identification. Foreign language usage also predicted greater deprovincialization which, in turn, predicted lower national identification.
ISSN:0261-927X
1552-6526
DOI:10.1177/0261927X20979631