English within language diversification discourses: tracing ideologies at European teaching conferences in the 1970s and 1980s

Abstract This article critically examines the ideological positioning of English within discourses of language teaching diversification promoted by European institutions and circulating in Western European countries during the 1970s and 1980s. Drawing on institutional reports from three key Council of Europe conferences (1979, 1982, 1988), we adopt a historical and multi-layered approach to language educational policy to trace how multilingualism was constructed as a European ideal, while omitting the growing dominance of English as the primary foreign language. Using Gal and Irvine's semiotic model of language ideologies, we analyse processes of erasure in connection with rhematisation and fractal recursivity to trace the presence of English in marginal sites such as inaugural speeches and informal discussions at these conferences. This study highlights the value of “traces” and “marginal data” for understanding ideological tensions in international language policymaking. It demonstrates that diversification policies were not neutral but functioned as a discursive strategy to manage English-centric multilingualism, reinforcing hierarchies among languages and speakers.