National Language Ideology in Lithuanian Media

The widespread assumption is that institutional multilingualism will in the term create the European public sphere, the so-called ‘community of communication (after Habermas). ’ However, at least in public perception, the ever-growing and barely manageable number of the official languages tends to be firmly associated with exactly the opposite of what has been envisaged: the bureaucratic debris, logginess and opacity of the Institutions as well as with the extreme lack of economical pragmatism. The academic and public debate about the desirability and, especially, the tenability of the current language regime is ongoing. Hence this case study.