«TWO LANGUAGES IN ONE HEAD » OR LINGUISTIC SITUATION IN EUROPE

Abstract

The article deals with bilingual aspect of the linguistic landscape in Europe. It tackles the problem of special attitude to English by those who use it as a second language. The author illustrates the influence of the bilingual situation in Europe on the formation of a new type of the language of intercultural communication (English lingua franca) with reference to the professional culture of seafarers. It has been taken into consideration that international seafarers use English for their communication, both oral and written, thus contributing to the process of destandardisation of the English language. It has been proved that written form of communication with the help of English lingua franca promotes discursive nativisation considering wide use of terminology and special vocabulary. The content analysis of certain texts (extracts from seafarers’ professional correspondence) shows some independence of communicative effect from correct / incorrect grammatical and structural form of the utterance based on the use of professional sublanguage and its implicit effect.