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LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY ON THE EMI CAMPUS
Linguistic Diversity on the EMI Campus presents an in-depth ethnographic case study of the language policies and practices of universities in nine countries around the world. Each chapter provides a detailed presentation of the findings from that university, considering the presence of linguistic diversity in institutions from Australia, China, Finland, UK, Turkey, Malaysia, Italy, Spain, and Japan. Split into three parts, these nine case studies demonstrate the extent to which international-oriented institutions can learn from each other’s practices and improve their language policies. Linguistic Diversity on the EMI Campus is vital reading for students and scholars working in the fields of applied linguistics, multilingualism, and education. Jennifer Jenkins is Chair Professor of Global Englishes at Southampton University, where she is founding director of the Centre for Global Englishes. She has published numerous monographs, edited volumes, articles, and chapters on ELF since 1996, including her first monograph, The Phonology of English as an International Language (2000), and The Routledge Handbook of English as a Lingua Franca (co-edited with Will Baker and Martin Dewey, 2017). Anna Mauranen is Professor and Research Director at the University of Helsinki. She is co-editor of Applied Linguistics and former co-editor of the Journal of English as a Lingua Franca. Recent books include Changing English (2017, edited with Filppula, Klemola, and Vetchinnikova) and Exploring ELF (2012).
LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY ON THE EMI CAMPUS Insider Accounts of the Use of English and Other Languages in Universities within Asia, Australasia, and Europe
Edited by Jennifer Jenkins and Anna Mauranen
First published 2019 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 selection and editorial matter, Jennifer Jenkins and Anna Mauranen; individual chapters, the contributors The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this title has been requested ISBN: 978-1-138-56870-9 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-138-57053-5 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-02086-5 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Newgen Publishing UK
CONTENTS
List of figures List of tables Notes on contributors
vii ix x
Introduction
1
1 Researching linguistic diversity on English-medium campuses Jennifer Jenkins and Anna Mauranen
3
PART I
Continental Europe
21
2 ELF among multilingual practices in a trilingual university Anna Mauranen and Ida Mauko
23
3 Internationalisation and linguistic diversity in a mid-sized Italian university Laurie Anderson
50
4 Linguistic diversity in a traditionally monolingual university: a multi-analytical approach Ignacio Vázquez, María J. Luzón, and Carmen Pérez-Llantada
74
vi Contents
5 The scope of linguistic diversity in the language policies, practices, and linguistic landscape of a Turkish EMI university Ali Karakaş and Yasemin Bayyurt
96
PART II
East and Southeast Asia
123
6 Linguistic diversity on a Chinese university campus: myths of language policy and means of practice Fan (Gabriel) Fang and Xiaowen (Serina) Xie
125
7 Realities of EMI practices among multilingual students in a Japanese university Kumiko Murata, Masakazu Iino, and Mayu Konakahara
149
8 Going global: EMI policies and practices at a Malaysian public university Jagdish Kaur and Siti Zaidah Zainuddin
172
PART III
The Anglophone world 9 Linguistic diversity on an Australian university campus: an ethnographic case study Zhichang Xu, Jennifer Leung, Mahnaz Hall, Janin Jafari, and Marzieh Sadegh Pour
195 197
10 How much linguistic diversity on a UK university campus? Jennifer Jenkins,Will Baker, Jill Doubleday, and Ying Wang
226
Conclusion
261
11 Where are we with linguistic diversity on international campuses? Anna Mauranen and Jennifer Jenkins
263
Index
274
FIGURES
2 .1 Entrance to Main Library 2.2 Digital notices inside the Main Library 2.3 How to get help from dictionaries 2.4 Entrance to the University Language Centre 2.5 Advice –in three languages, but run out in two! 2.6 Doors to the Main Building 2.7 “No bikes in front of the door” 2.8 No words needed: this is Art History 2.9 Announcing a new seminar, in Finnish 2.10 Careful with fragile statues –if you read Finnish 2.11a Students can eat in three languages 2.11b Students can eat in three languages 2.12 Recycle your waste in three languages 2.13 Flatmate candidates sought in Finnish 3.1 Office hours sign 3.2 Study area sign 4.1 UZ promotional leaflet 4.2 Dataset for lecture observations 4.3 UZ homepage 4.4 Institution page 4.5 Sample screenshot of “course description” 4.6 Science without Borders logo 4.7 Faculty of Science homepage 5.1 English and Turkish versions of Boğaziçi University main website 5.2 Number and variety of languages displayed in Boğaziçi University’s linguistic landscape 5.3 English signs in different types of writing
30 31 32 32 33 34 34 35 35 36 36 37 37 38 68 69 76 79 81 82 82 83 84 102 105 106
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5 .4 6.1 6.2 6.3 9.1 9.2
Examples of inconsistent language use in signs Linguistic landscapes at CILL at a glance Multilingual restaurant signboard on campus A note in a classroom A road sign on the Australian university campus The inverted T model of multiple varieties of English and multiple languages in Australia 9.3 The language hierarchy in Australia and on the Australian university campus 10.1 Advertisement for TEFL course in Seville 10.2 Humanities entrance: advert for Opportunities Fair, and close up 10.3 Humanities noticeboard 10.4 Modern Languages noticeboard 10.5 Psychology office door 10.6 Poster in the Business School 10.7 Business School poster for Intercultural Connections event 10.8a School of Education Chinese/English poster 10.8b School of Education Russian/English poster 10.9 Faculty of Humanities entrance door 10.10 Faculty of Humanities, Confucius Institute office door 10.11 Faculty of Humanities, staff office door 10.12 Faculty of Humanities foyer, Italian film season poster 10.13 Psychology department, advert for transcription services 10.14 Humanities corridor, Chinese poster
109 139 141 142 209 211 213 235 236 237 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 244 245 246 247
TABLES
2.1 Mentions of individual languages in the Language Policy of the University of Helsinki 3.1 EMI Attractiveness Index 2016–2017: choice of degree course according to prior residence 3.2 Institutional signage in three Italian Engineering departments 3.3 Non-institutional signage in three Italian Engineering departments 6.1 Profiles of student participants 6.2 A list of syllabi collected 7.1 Number and ratio of Japanese and international undergraduate students in the EMI programme at the university in Tokyo 8.1 Interviewee details 10.1 Data collection faculties at the University of Southampton
28 54 67 67 129 131 152 177 228
CONTRIBUTORS
Laurie Anderson is Professor of English at the University of Siena (Italy) and collaborates part- time with the Max Weber Post- doctoral Programme at the European University Institute (Florence). Her research focuses on the use of ELF in institutional contexts (academic, healthcare), with particular reference to the multilingual practices of international scholars. Will Baker is Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics and Deputy Director of the Centre for Global Englishes, University of Southampton. Recent publications include: co-editor of the Routledge handbook of English as a lingua franca (2018), and the monograph Culture and identity through English as a lingua franca (DeGruyter Mouton, 2015). Yasemin Bayyurt is a professor of Applied Linguistics in the Department of Foreign Language Education, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey. Currently, she is involved in projects investigating ELF-aware in-and pre-service teacher education, telecollaboration/ intercultural communication in social media. Her research interests include mobile/blended learning, EMI in university contexts and metadiscourse in academic writing. Jill Doubleday is a founding member of the Centre for Global Englishes, University of Southampton. Her doctoral research focuses on international students’ perceptions of their English, and her interests lie in language policy, ELFA and ways in which UK universities are adapting their policies and practices for international students. Fan (Gabriel) Fang obtained his PhD from the Centre for Global Englishes, the University of Southampton, UK. He is currently Associate Professor in Applied Linguistics at Shantou University, China. He has published articles in journals
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including Asian Englishes, ELT Journal, English Today, Language Teaching Research, and System, among others. Mahnaz Hall holds a PhD in Applied Linguistics from Monash University, Australia. She has held different roles within the School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures, and Linguistics, and continues to teach ELICOS courses at Monash University English Language Centre. Her research interests concern English as a lingua franca, phonology, and Cultural Linguistics. Masakazu Iino PhD (University of Pennsylvania) is Professor of Sociolinguistics at the School of International Liberal Studies and the Graduate School of International Culture and Communication Studies, Waseda University, Tokyo. Janin Jafari received a PhD in Applied Linguistics from Monash University in 2018. Her doctoral thesis concerns English as a lingua franca (ELF) and communication strategies. She has given several presentations on these themes at international conferences. Her current interests include ELF, intercultural communication, and pedagogical implications of ELF. Jennifer Jenkins is Chair Professor of Global Englishes at Southampton University, where she is founding director of the Centre for Global Englishes. She has published numerous monographs, edited volumes, articles, and chapters on ELF since 1996, including her first monograph, The Phonology of English as an international language (OUP, 2000). Ali Karakaş is an assistant professor of Applied Linguistics in the Department of Foreign Language Education, Mehmet Akif Ersoy University, Burdur, Turkey. Currently, he is interested in research on teaching competencies of EMI lecturers and ELF-oriented pedagogy in Turkey. His research interests include ELF, language policy and planning, and language teacher education. Jagdish Kaur is a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, University of Malaya. She conducts research in the areas of English as a lingua franca, intercultural pragmatics, and global Englishes. She has published her work in journals such as World Englishes, Journal of Pragmatics, Intercultural Pragmatics, and Text & Talk. Mayu Konakahara is an assistant professor at the Department of English, Kanda University of International Studies, Japan. She also teaches part-time at Waseda University, where she obtained a PhD. Her research interests mainly lie in the investigation of discourse-pragmatic features in ELF interactions and ELF users’ attitudes and identities. Jennifer Leung has a Masters in Applied Linguistics from Monash University, Australia and a Bachelor of Education from Boston College, USA. Her thesis “Montessori Classroom in Australia: An English as an International Language Perspective” received First Place in the American Montessori Society (AMS) Outstanding Master’s Thesis Award in 2016.
xii Contributors
María José Luzón is Senior Lecturer at the University of Zaragoza, Spain. She has a PhD in English Philology and has published papers on academic and professional discourse and on language teaching and learning in the field of English for Specific Purposes. Her current research interests include academic genres and genre ecologies, online academic genres, academic writing by multilingual scholars, and ELF in academic written discourse. Ida Mauko has a Master’s degree in English Philology from the University of Helsinki, where she is currently also working on her PhD. Her research focuses on issues of language identity and ideologies, especially in the context of English as a lingua franca. Anna Mauranen is Professor and Research Director at the University of Helsinki. Her major research projects have investigated changing English, spoken and written ELF, and language processing. She is co-editor of Applied Linguistics and former co- editor of the Journal of English as a Lingua Franca. Recent books: Changing English (2017, edited with Filppula, Klemola, & Vetchinnikova); Exploring ELF (2012). Kumiko Murata is Professor of English and applied linguistics at the School of Education and the Graduate School of Education, Waseda University. Her edited and co-edited books include English-medium instruction from an English as a lingua franca perspective: Exploring the higher education context (2018, Routledge), Exploring ELF in Japanese academic and business contexts (2016, Routledge) and Global Englishes in Asian contexts (2009, Palgrave). Carmen Pérez-Llantada is Professor of English Linguistics at the University of Zaragoza (Spain). She has published research on genre analysis, English for Academic Purposes, academic literacy development, and advanced academic writing. At present she is investigating genre-based biliteracy practices using ethnographic methods. Her main aim is to understand how multilingual scholars communicate in their work environment through the use of different genres and languages. Marzieh Sadegh Pour holds a PhD in Applied Linguistics from Monash University. She teaches within the Program of EIL, in the School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures, and Linguistics. Her research focuses on the place of world Englishes in ELT. Marzieh has published in leading international journals such as Asian Englishes. Ignacio Vázquez is Full Professor of English Linguistics at the Department of English and German Philology of the University of Zaragoza. His research interests include Pragmatics and Discourse Analysis, Systemic Linguistics, Translation and Contrastive Studies (English-Spanish). He has recently been coordinating a research project on ELF (2012–2016), and he is interested in the use of ELF for professional and academic purposes, more specifically for legal purposes. Ying Wang is a lecturer in Global Englishes in the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics, University of Southampton. She has published research
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on ELF and language ideologies in relation to Chinese speakers and China, and edited a special issue, “Language policy in Asian contexts”, European Journal of Language Policy (2017). Xiaowen (Serina) Xie is an instructor of Shantou University after graduating from 2013–2014 MSc TESOL at the University of Edinburgh, UK. She is currently researching ELF, ELT pedagogy, and language and curriculum design. She is also experienced in communicative language teaching and task-based learning teaching in the multicultural classroom. Zhichang Xu holds a PhD in Applied Linguistics from Curtin University of Technology, Australia. He is Senior Lecturer in the School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures, and Linguistics at Monash University, and Associate Editor for English Today. His research involves applied linguistics, world Englishes, English as a lingua franca, and cultural linguistics. Siti Zaidah Zainuddin is a senior lecturer in the Department of English Language, Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, University of Malaya. Her primary research interests lie in discourse studies, particularly genre analysis, in both written and spoken academic discourse, as well as corpus linguistics.
Introduction
1 RESEARCHING LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY ON ENGLISH-MEDIUM CAMPUSES Jennifer Jenkins and Anna Mauranen
1. Conceptual and empirical origins of the project: English as a lingua franca Mobility has had a fundamental effect on our world, and for language this has meant a proliferation of multilingual encounters and language contact. Mobility affects all levels of society and all types of jobs and professions. Academia has had its share of mobility, not least because it has actively encouraged this among researchers, teachers, and particularly students, with quite remarkable success (see, for example, Erasmus: Facts, Figures, & Trends, 2014) since the turn of the millennium. The “international university” thus offers one of the most interesting settings for studying issues concerning multilingual environments. And in this respect, one of the most prolific research foci has been a body of studies exploring how international students and/or staff communicate, negotiate meaning, and reach common understandings, often involving the use of English as their common language, or lingua franca (e.g. Björkman, 2013; Jenkins, 2014; Mauranen, 2006, 2012). Additionally, studies have been carried out on university language policy and regulation (e.g. Hynninen, 2016; Soler & Vihman, 2018). English as a lingua franca (henceforth ELF) is a crucial enabling factor in much of contemporary international mobility, and certainly in almost all academic contexts; universities nevertheless also tend to offer opportunities for learning local languages to exchange and degree students and to staff members hired from abroad. Thus, the need to communicate with the rest of your social environment, not only your place of work or study, seems well understood in universities. What is less clearly understood is that ELF encounters necessarily also incorporate multilingualism, and take place in multilingual settings even if the university itself is monolingual outside its specific international programmes.The conceptual relevance of multilingualism to ELF was outlined in Jenkins (2015), and the notion has been central to
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the international LDIC project (Linguistic Diversity on the International Campus) that is the subject of this volume. The volume thus has its origins in research into the phenomenon of ELF. Clearly, English has been used as a lingua franca for centuries in various parts of the world, but its use has expanded exponentially since the second half of the twentieth century, and only began to be researched empirically in the 1990s. Since then, it has been reconceptualised in line with the findings of its increasing body of empirical data, and has extended its remit to a growing number of domains, of which business and higher education (henceforth HE) are pre-eminent. In respect of the former, there is a massive body of research exploring Business ELF, or BELF. Meanwhile, the latter started first, and remains the most researched ELF domain. This is primarily because of the early work of Mauranen in establishing her corpus of ELF in Academic Settings, or ELFA (see Mauranen, 2003), and subsequently the research that she and her colleagues and students have conducted on the basis of the data provided by the corpus. The current volume, as its name makes clear, is likewise concerned with higher education, and in this first chapter, we explain the volume’s genesis. But first, for readers less familiar with ELF, we will briefly outline its establishment as a key field of research into English around the world, one in which it would be no exaggeration to claim that the two co-editors of this volume have played a major role. In its earliest days, ELF researchers were heavily influenced by the (then) relatively new field of world Englishes (henceforth WE). And since that time, ELF research has continued to share WE’s language ideology according to which native English speakers (henceforth NES) are neither the global owners of English nor the arbiters of its use and development. In line with this ideology, scholars working within the WE paradigm established the legitimacy of a range of Englishes in post-colonial settings, leading to the acknowledgement of named varieties such as Indian English, Nigerian English, and the like. However, towards the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century came the realisation that ELF is not amenable to the bounded varieties approach of WE. Rather, ELF could be described as “variably variable”, with its variability depending more on who is involved in an interaction than on the first languages of the interlocutors, and with accommodation skills, which had already been identified as crucial for ELF pronunciation (Jenkins, 2000), being fundamental at all linguistic levels. Because of this realisation, ELF research moved away from the varieties approach of WE, and ELF scholars instead began to focus on the implications of ELF’s crossing of language boundaries and the processes involved in the resulting linguistic variability. At this time, ELF was generally referred to as the use of English as a contact language among speakers from different first language backgrounds, with one of the most frequently used definitions, that of Seidlhofer following soon afterwards: “any use of English among speakers of different first languages for whom English is the communicative medium of choice and often the only option” (2011, p. 7). Mauranen’s (2012) conceptualisation of ELF as “similects” in “second-order contact” has been particularly important and influential in terms of explaining
Researching linguistic diversity on EMI campuses 5
ELF’s variability and complexity. Rather than abandoning altogether the notion of first language influence in ELF communication, she argues that ELF users’ first languages do, indeed, exert an influence on their English. This, she calls their “similect”, which will make their ELF use similar in at least some respects to that of their first language peer group. However, as she goes on to point out, ELF users by definition do not develop their English further in communication with their first language peer group, as this is more likely to take place in the first language itself; thus, Finns speak to other Finns in Finnish, Japanese people in Japanese, and so on. Instead, ELF users develop their English further in communication with English users from different first languages. Mauranen argues that this “makes the communities linguistically heterogeneous, and ELF a site of an unusually complex contact” (2012, p. 29).This is what she calls “second-order contact”, which she contrasts with “first-order contact” (when speakers of two different languages use one of them in communication) and describes as follows: ELF might be termed “second-order language contact”: a contact between hybrids … Second-order contact means that instead of a typical contact situation, where speakers of two different languages use one of them in communication (“first-order contact”), a large number of languages are in contact with English, and it is these contact varieties (similects) that are, in turn, in contact with each other … To add to the mix, ENL [English as a native language] speakers of different origins participate in ELF communities. The distinctive feature of ELF is nevertheless its character as a hybrid of similects. 2012, pp. 29–30 Still more recently, ELF’s intrinsic multilingualism has received far greater emphasis in ELF research. As with Mauranen’s reconceptualisation of ELF as similects in second- order contact, this began with a further reconceptualisation, or more exactly, a repositioning of ELF and multilingualism, by Jenkins (2015). ELF had, of course, always been understood as a multilingual phenomenon, for without the multilingualism of the vast majority of its users, it would have no reason to exist. However, up to that point, the majority of ELF scholars were tending to focus on the “Englishness” of ELF and seeing multilingualism merely as one of its characteristics, rather than focusing on its multilingual nature and exploring it within a framework of multilingualism. This includes the possibility that although all those present in a particular interaction are able to speak English, they may choose not to use it for some, or even all, of the time. For this reason, and in order to highlight ELF’s multilingualism, Jenkins redefined ELF as “multilingual communication in which English is available as a contact language of choice, but is not necessarily chosen” (2015, p. 73), thus taking the main attention away from “English” and focusing it on ELF’s multilingualism. She also pointed out that much ELF communication involves transitory encounters, for which the Communities of Practice framework (Wenger, 1998), often used by ELF researchers, is of limited use. This is because the framework involves a shared element among participants, whereas what may (or
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may not) be shared is often unknown at the start of a transitory encounter (Jenkins, 2015). Again, Jenkins suggested that the term “repertoires in flux” should replace that of “multilingual repertoire” often used by ELF scholars. This is because it is more dynamic, and has a far better fit with Mauranen’s “second-order contact” which depends on the identities of those present in a specific interaction, whereas “multilingual repertoire” implies an all-purpose, fixed repertoire. This brief account of ELF serves to explain the approach that we, the editors of this volume, and the authors of each chapter, take to English, and which underpins the project upon which the volume is based. For a more detailed discussion of the development of the ELF research paradigm, and further details relating to the conceptualising of ELF and its similarities to/differences from WE, see Jenkins (2018). Now, however, we turn to consider the ELF relevance for global higher education.
2. International higher education and the ubiquity of English It should be clear from what we have already said, that settings where English is the medium of higher education are essentially ELF settings, or as Smit puts it, HE is “a prototypical ELF scenario” (2018, p. 387). This is true even in mother-tongue English countries, where most universities recruit large numbers of so-called “international students” from a wide range of mostly non-English mother-tongue countries, and teach them in English medium. The use of English as the language through which academic content is taught anywhere in the world is typically labelled “English-medium instruction”, or EMI for short. However, neither the term nor the concept itself is uncontested. One problem is that EMI is hard to define in a global sense because its use varies so much according to local context. For instance, Baird (2013) found in his own research that “many East Asian university contexts are investing in English as the medium of instruction without much of an international student presence, and without a great deal of linguistic diversity among the student population” (p. 17). His observations of lectures and discussions with faculty and students led him to observe that “English is used and written, but … not always utilised in classes where another language is available to most of the students” (2013, p. 17). The same was found in other research, including that of Hu (2015) in China, and Costa and Coleman (2012) in Italy. On the basis of his findings across several East Asian settings, Baird (2013) argues against reifying EMI as a stable entity. Dafouz and Smit (2016), meanwhile, eschew the term “instruction” entirely, preferring the term “education”, while also bringing the multilingualism of ELF HE contexts to the fore with their concept of EMEMUS, or “English-Medium Education in Multilingual Settings”. On the other hand, it is commonplace to find the term “English-dominant” used to refer to universities in Anglophone settings, and “EMI” to be reserved for those in non-Anglophone contexts. For the purposes of this volume, however, we use “EMI” to cover both types of setting (while also acknowledging that “education” rather than “instruction” may often better reflect reality).
Researching linguistic diversity on EMI campuses 7
Our reason for avoiding “English-dominant” in the present setting is that while it accurately represents the UK institution’s top–down language policy, it does not represent, and indeed misrepresents, the prevailing multilingualism-in-practice of many of the students (and, increasingly, the staff) in either the UK or the Australian university. Global HE, then, is essentially international. “International” has become something of a buzzword and can also be used as a euphemism for EMI. Paradoxically, the increasing demand for English on their campuses by university managements and other language policy makers around the world is coinciding with the greatest linguistic diversity that many campuses in many parts of the world have ever experienced. To put it another way, just as universities are becoming linguistically superdiverse, they are being steered top–down to focus for academic purposes on just one language, English. Having said that, there is still a proportion of universities that operate at a purely national level using their local language(s) rather than English. There are also HE institutions that claim international status but operate in lingua francas other than ELF. However, these represent a tiny fraction of international universities (see Jenkins, 2017). By contrast, almost 8,000 courses were taught in English medium in non-Anglophone countries in 2016 (Mitchell, 2016), and that number has since grown substantially. Meanwhile, in September 2017, it was reported in Times Higher Education, a British-based HE magazine, that in the eight years up to that time, the number of English-taught bachelors’ courses in continental European universities increased 50-fold from a mere 55 in 2009 to 2,900 in 2017 (Bothwell, 2017).Walkinshaw, Fenton-Smith, and Humphreys (2017) similarly provide extensive statistics in respect of the Asia-Pacific HE sector demonstrating the exponential growth of EMI in the region’s universities over the past ten years, with the purpose of increasing staff and student mobility, inward and outward. The swift increase in EMI activity in HE has led to a corresponding proliferation of research publications on the subject. In this respect, Wilkinson (2017) reports a Google Scholar search that he had conducted over the previous six years on “English-medium instruction/EMI” in “higher education/university”. His search produced 550 books and articles, and significantly, the number increased by only another 50 when he lengthened his search to ten years rather than six, and 72 if he increased it to all time. A substantial amount of this increase in research interest in EMI, Wilkinson observes, relates to East and Southeast Asia, particularly China, Japan, Malaysia, and South Korea. Thus, it appears that EMI, initially a European initiative resulting from the Erasmus programme and subsequently bolstered by the Bologna Declaration (see Murata & Iino, 2018), has spread far from its original setting. So much for the basic facts. The more interesting question, however, is what this rapid rise in EMI universities, programmes, and individual courses means to and for those who are involved, the answer to which was one of the LDIC project’s aims. At its simplest, EMI involves a change in the composition of university campuses through the recruitment of students, and to a lesser extent, staff, from a range of other nationalities and languages. Some, indeed, argue that recruitment of high fee-paying
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“international students” is the primary aim of some university managements who introduce EMI onto their campuses (see, for example, Ferguson, 2007). It certainly seems that way to many international students in the UK according to those interviewed for this volume and in the interview study in Jenkins (2014). However, it is not purely a matter of financial gain. Even though our focus in this volume is on education and the multilingualism that it entails, it is important to remember that universities are also the principal upholders of science and scholarship, and science has never been as international as it is today. Competition for research resources has become more international, and in many fields of enquiry projects are quite global. Researchers have never been as mobile as over the last two decades, and the extent of collaboration across national boundaries has probably never been greater (Franzmann, Jansen, & Münte, 2015). Most universities nevertheless include education in their reach for greater globality along with research, as they perceive the potential benefits in the complex interactions of hiring international research and teaching staff, accumulating publications, and recruiting students; these together can lead to the variety of perspectives coming together that is required for tackling novel and difficult questions with unforeseen approaches.The scientific ideal nevertheless tends to get diluted and muddled as it seeps through the administrative bodies inside and outside universities. And realities that universities face as institutions can be harsh, obfuscating the issues further. Universities obviously compete for resources –for funds from governments and funding agencies, for students, and increasingly, for talent. Universities thus tend to appreciate the presence on their campuses of staff and students from elsewhere in the world for the variety of perspectives, traditions, and approaches to science and scholarship that they bring with them; universities set high hopes on the ensuing synergies. The international flavour that students from other countries bring to the institution is also welcome and felt to be attractive. Moreover, over the last dozen years or so universities have become acutely aware of the competition imposed upon them by global league tables such as the QS World University Rankings. Institutions are aware that in their local contexts they are also assessed by their success in such global rankings, and their chances of funding and development, sometimes survival, are affected by their results. In recent years these league tables have begun to include a category concerning the number of international faculty and students. International staff and students can therefore serve to increase their reputations both globally and in their domestic contexts. University managements thus welcome the national diversity that their international students and staff bring to their campuses, and can often be found on their websites congratulating themselves for the large numbers of countries from which they recruit. By contrast, they do not offer the same welcome to the inevitable linguistic diversity that results. Quite the opposite: there seems to be an underlying assumption among many university managements that the diversity they see and hear around them should not translate into linguistic diversity, but that the only language to be promoted especially in class should be English. Not infrequently this is understood as only native English, by which is meant certain kinds of “standard” British and/or
Researching linguistic diversity on EMI campuses 9
American English (though rarely both on the same campus). Little has changed, it seems, since Smit (2010a) first argued that the E of EMI should stand for ELF rather than “English” (see also Murata et al., this volume; Smit, 2010b). It was our experience of this native English ideology that suffuses much of international HE where EMI is present that was the impetus for the research underlying the current volume. It seemed to us that not only in the case of the majority of Anglophone universities, but also of large numbers of EMI institutions in non-Anglophone settings, the linguistic orientation fitted in with what Foskett (2010) calls the “imperialist universities” category.1 By this, he means universities which “have strong international recruitment activities to draw students from overseas, but have done relatively little to change their organization, facilities or services ‘at home’ ” (2010, p. 44). And this seemed to us to sum up what we had found in much of our previous research and our first-hand experience of international universities, our own institutions included. We were, however, prepared to be proved wrong!
3. The Linguistic Diversity on the International Campus project Turning now to the current volume, the project reported in its chapters to an extent grew out of previous book-length studies by us two editors, Mauranen (2012) Exploring ELF: Academic English shaped by non-native speakers (CUP), and Jenkins (2014) English as a lingua franca in the international university: The politics of academic English language policy (Routledge). In addition, we were heavily influenced by an argument made by Doiz, Lasagabaster, and Sierra (2013) that: every context has its own characteristics and, therefore, studies rooted in each specific context will be much welcomed. Results from other contexts may always be helpful and enlightening, but every institution should carry out its own research, which ideally will lay the foundations of the most appropriate language policy for them. p. 219 This corresponded with our own experience in which our richest and most insightful data had come from research carried out in our own respective institutions, Helsinki and Southampton. Finally, we wanted to apply the “multilingual turn” to ELF in higher education. That is, we believed that ELF research had hitherto not taken sufficient account of multilingualism, and that since international universities were, by definition, prime sites of ELF communication, it was essential to explore the extent to which these universities were building not only ELF, but ELF-within- multilingualism into their ethos. The volume is the end product of a three-year collaborative research project led by the two editors. It began life as a comparative/contrastive study between two universities, Southampton and Helsinki, who jointly funded the research. However, we soon realised the project’s potential to highlight important similarities and contrasts between higher education institutions in different national contexts,
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and it was expanded to universities in other parts of the world. In essence, teams of researchers in Helsinki and Southampton, along with those in seven other settings across Europe, Asia, and Australasia, used a shared theoretical and methodological framework, and set of research questions to explore the linguistic environment on their own campuses. Three of the nine institutions are in Asia: Shantou University in China; the University of Malaya in Malaysia; and Waseda University in Japan. Four of the nine are in mainland Europe: the University of Helsinki in Finland; the University of Siena in Italy; the University of Zaragoza in Spain; and Boğaziçi University in Turkey.The remaining two institutions are both in Anglophone countries: Monash University in Australia; and the University of Southampton in the UK. However, as explained above, we refer to all nine as EMI institutions rather than employing the often-used term “English dominant” for the Australian and UK institutions. Finally, a key condition for participation in the project was that each researcher was employed by the institution that they were exploring at the time of the project, in accordance with Doiz et al.’s (2013) argument quoted in the previous paragraph, that each university should research its own practices. The overarching aim of the project, and hence of its main product, the present volume, was to explore the English and other language policies and practices on the campuses of nine universities that claimed international status. We were interested in their overt and covert language policies, the extent to which they favoured or required particular kinds of English, and their orientation to the use on campus of languages other than English, including, in the case of the institutions in the eight non-mother tongue English countries, the home language. Along with the linguistic focus, we were also interested in evidence of intercultural awareness among the institution’s staff and/or students. Once the nine teams had completed their parallel studies, we (Jenkins and Mauranen) then compared them, looking for similarities and differences across the different settings so as to be able to consider the potential implications. Our approach was informed theoretically not only by research into ELF/ELFA and multilingualism, but also by work on critical language policy and its interface with language ideology (see Jenkins, 2014). In this respect, Spolsky (2004, 2009) provided a useful initial framework, with his conceptualisation of language policy as comprising practice, beliefs, and management. As he observes, language practices refer to “observable behaviors and choices –what people actually do” (2009, p. 4). These, he argues, are the “real” policy rather than the top–down diktats from management that staff and students do not necessarily observe in classrooms. By “beliefs”, Spolsky is talking about ideology, and in particular, the “values or statuses assigned to named languages, varieties, and features” (2009, p. 4) which, in turn, relate to the status of those who use a specific language/variety/feature. In terms of the LDIC project, this was a key aspect of our research, relating to beliefs about both multilingualism and ELF (as opposed to native-like English) on campus. By “management”, Spolsky means “the explicit and observable effort by someone or some group that has or claims authority over the participants in the domain to modify their practices or beliefs” (2009, p. 4). It should not be necessary to point out
Researching linguistic diversity on EMI campuses 11
that in this case we were interested in the ways in which university managements might be imposing language policy top–down, including aspects such as English language entry requirements, classroom language, signage, and so on. Shohamy (2006) draws on Spolsky’s original (2004) tripartite language policy framework to produce an expanded conceptualisation of language policy that links it more overtly to language ideology by means of introducing what she calls “mechanisms”.These, she defines as “policy devices [which serve] as means through which policies are introduced and incorporate the hidden agendas of language policy” (p. 52). More specifically, “mechanisms” are “overt and covert devices that are used as the means for affecting, creating, and perpetuating de facto language policies” and that within Spolsky’s framework “lie at the heart of the battle between ideology [i.e. his ‘beliefs’] and practice” (p. 52). Shohamy’s mechanisms are: rules and regulations; language education; language tests; language in public space; and ideology, myths, and propaganda coercion, all of which have relevance to the focus of the LDIC project. The research questions for the nine teams of researchers were as follows: 1. To what extent do language practices correspond to stated language polices in the partner institutions? In particular: • To what extent are other languages than English used/accepted? • What kinds of English are used/accepted? • What evidence is there of intercultural communicative awareness? 2. What are the overt/covert English language expectations of/made of students and staff, and how far do students and staff feel they meet these? We hoped to discover a range of things from these two questions and sub-questions. These related primarily to the claims that the nine institutions –management and teaching staff –were making (or not making) in respect of their language policies and linguistic and intercultural practices, how far these matched the reality on their campus, and the effects on those at the receiving end, primarily students, but to an extent also staff. There was also a third question that we, the editors, would answer after all nine teams had reported their findings: 3. What similarities, differences, and implications from questions 1 and 2 emerge across the nine research settings? From the answer to this third question, we hoped to be able to identify best practice across the institutions. We envisaged that the information thus revealed would enable those teams whose institutions’ practices in respect of linguistic diversity fell short, to approach their managements with the findings and make policy recommendations for improvements. In terms of methodology, in each of the nine institutions, a researcher team consisting of employees of the institution took an ethnographic case study approach (Duff, 2008; Green & Bloome, 1997) to exploring the linguistic policies and
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practices of their own institution, or “case”. Each team selected from a range of mutually agreed potential data collection methods, all of which involved naturally occurring data. The agreed datasets consisted of any or all of documents (including the university’s website), interviews, observation of lectures and seminars, and linguistic landscaping. Clearly, the universities varied in terms of how explicit their policies were, and to what degree these were documented.The local research teams also had their own preferences and possibilities in their approaches, but all were able to focus on important facets of Shohamy’s (2006) “mechanisms”. Documents were approached in a broad sense, and involved any of the following: policy documents including items on the institution’s website, staff development documents, programme or course handbooks, reports such as internal/external examiner reports, and assignment feedback. In all these cases, the interest was in both overtly stated and covertly implied language policy, and in what was absent – or “erased” –as much as what was present. The interviews included both international and home staff and students, and where feasible focused on disciplines within the Social Sciences, Humanities, and Natural Sciences. They were semi-or unstructured, but in either case, the approach we took was in accord with Talmy’s notion of the interview as “social practice” rather than as “research instrument”. The former, he observes, conceptualises the interview as “a site or topic for investigation itself ”, with its data regarded as “accounts of truths, facts, attitudes, beliefs, interior states, etc. coconstructed between interviewer and interview” (2010, p. 132; see also Mann, 2011;Talmy, 2011). On the other hand, the latter treats the interview as a “resource … for collecting information” and its data as decontextualised “reports [which] reveal truth and facts and/or the attitudes, beliefs and interior mental states of self-disclosing respondents” (p. 132). In this respect, we also adopted Kvale and Brinkmann’s (2009) notion of the interviewer as “traveller”, journeying through the conversation with the participant, rather than as “miner”, excavating their lived worlds in order to become “the great interpreter” of their innermost meanings (p. 218). For the classroom observation, the aim was to capture “the construction of meanings and perspectives, the adaptation to circumstances, the management of interests in the ebb and flow of countless interactions containing many ambiguities and conflicts” (Woods, 1996, p. 7). Observers thus entered lectures and seminars often in the role of participant observers, in order to explore the participants’ language choices and preferences, their English language expectations, and the intercultural awareness that was (or was not) revealed during the course of classroom interaction. The focus was on the extent to which participants were aware of –and how they addressed –their linguistic and cultural diversity so as to achieve their teaching (for staff) or learning (for students) outcomes. Both recordings and fieldnotes were used, notwithstanding Emerson, Fretz, and Shaw’s (2001) observation that fieldnotes are of necessity selective and it is thus inevitable that the observer’s subjectivity will act as a filter. This, however, is a feature of all qualitative research, and many qualitative researchers would argue that, in linguistics at least, quantitative research likewise has its subjective points, but the subjectivity simply occurs at an earlier stage (e.g. in
Researching linguistic diversity on EMI campuses 13
determining which items to include in a questionnaire or how many scale points to use for responses). Moreover, in the interpretation of data and findings, all fields of enquiry necessarily rely on individual humans imposing their viewpoint on the data and it is only in this way that any findings become meaningful. Like much linguistic landscaping (henceforth LL) research, ours was concerned primarily with “the written language of public space in multilingual settings” (Gorter, 2013, p. 192). Although LL studies have been carried out for around 40 years, as a more established field of applied-and sociolinguistic research with its own range of research methods it has existed for barely 20 years. This contrasts substantially with the other kinds of research approaches and methods used in the LDIC project. Despite LL’s relatively short life, there has nevertheless been a burgeoning literature in the field from its beginnings, often identified as the seminal study of Landry and Bourhis (1997) to the present day, and especially in the past few years, during which there has been “an explosion of publications” (Gorter, 2013, p. 201). In essence, LL is concerned with “the written languages of public space” (Gorter, 2013, p. 192) in multilingual settings. But while the studies of the past ten to 20 years share this primary focus, a proliferation of LL theoretical frameworks has emerged along with a range of diverse methodological approaches. This has led to calls by some LL scholars for greater rigour in both theory building and methodology (e.g. Blommaert, 2016) as well as for less descriptive approaches (e.g. Gorter, 2013), or what one scholar even calls “holiday snaps” (Graddol, no date). Notwithstanding such criticism, a substantial number of LL publications, particularly over the past ten years, provide examples of best practice and guidance as to how LL research may be conducted in new contexts in the future. These include many of the chapters in the edited volumes of Gorter (2006) and Shohamy and Gorter (2009), as well as Backhaus (2016), Maly (2016), Pennycook (2010, Chapter 4), and Shohamy (2012) to name but a few. And despite the various differences among these and other studies, there is also a certain amount of overlap among them going beyond their basic shared focus on written language in the social environment. A number, for example, including some of the contributors to Shohamy and Gorter’s (2009) volume and to this volume, make use of Reh’s (2004) four-way taxonomy of the arrangement of multilingual information on signage. The four categories are: (1) duplicating, with all information being shown in both (or all) languages, (2) fragmentary and (3) overlapping, where some but not all content is provided in both (or all) languages, and (4) complementary, where the languages provide different information (see also Anderson, and Karakaş and Bayyurt, this volume). Many LL scholars are concerned particularly with power relations between dominant and subordinate groups and the language ideologies that underpin these relations. In their studies, such scholars identify power (including aspects of language policy) and solidarity among those who produce the written language under analysis, and in some cases, the effect on those at its receiving end. Shohamy, for instance, sums up the goal of LL studies in these respects as follows:
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to describe and identify systematic patterns of the presence and absence of languages in public spaces and to understand the motives, pressures, ideologies, reactions and decision making of people regarding the creation of public signage. In other words, for LL researchers, language in public spaces is not arbitrary and random. Rather, they attempt to explore systematic patterns in the relationship between LL and society, people, politics, ideology, economics, policy, class, identities, multilingualism, multimodalities and to describe and analyse various forms of representation. 2012, p. 538 This summary serves well as the conceptual starting point for the analysis of the LL in the LDIC project and this volume, where, as is evident in the individual chapters, “the patterns of the presence and absence of languages” and the underlying language ideologies are heavily (and predictably) systematic in both the physical and virtual environment. For the analytical framework, each LDIC research team selected its specific methods of analysis as appropriate to their particular data. In some cases, as explained in the respective chapter, a method was used only in an individual case. An example of this is the LL analysis of the Southampton team where, given the almost complete lack in the environment of signage involving languages other than English, it would have been pointless to document the entire linguistic landscape. The team’s LL researcher therefore focused on the rare cases where other languages than English occurred, and analysed the LL data in terms of “English only”, “English plus” (an/ other language/s), and “other language(s) only” (see Chapter 10). Leaving aside such idiosyncrasy related to an individual setting, there was general consensus among the nine teams on certain aspects of our analysis. One element of this consensus was that in line with our common ethnographic approach, our analysis would be largely qualitative (e.g. Schreier, 2012) in order to enable us to access latent or “deep structural meaning” (Berg, 2001, p. 242) at a range of levels, whether in the institution’s stated language policy and more covert sources demonstrating its position such as revealed by the LL and on the website, or in the ideologies expressed by staff and students in interviews and observed classes. Some of us combined Qualitative Content Analysis with (small “c”) critical Discourse Analysis (that is, exploring the discourse with a critical-ideological eye –or ear –rather than either analysing its surface features or following the methodology of “big C” Critical Discourse Analysis, or CDA). For the analysis of websites, in addition critical Discourse Analysis, a tool used effectively by Saarinen and Nikula (2013) in exposing the language ideology of four Finnish university websites, the analytical frameworks of Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) and Pauwels (2012) provided further guidance. These two frameworks enabled us to explore unapparent/less apparent meanings relating to the positioning of items and the use of multimodality, and to identify what was being marginalised by having no presence at all, or only a limited one. More specifically, the six stages of Pauwels’ “multimodal framework for analysing websites
Researching linguistic diversity on EMI campuses 15
from both a medium-specific and socio-cultural perspective” (p. 247) demonstrated how we might uncover the various layers of ideological meaning in our institutions’ websites in respect of both what was present and what was absent. Meanwhile, Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006), and Knox’s (2007) revised version provided us with a systematic means for exploring the relative importance of web items in terms of their positioning on screen, and which screen (homepage or subsequent) they appeared on. As regards the LL analysis, the focus was primarily on the amount of diversity on written signs: in particular, which languages were displayed on them (including differences between official and unofficial signs), and how the languages were displayed, for example, in respect of how much prominence was given to the different languages in terms of their positioning, font size, colour, and the like. Like many LL researchers, some LDIC researchers took a more multimodal approach in that they also explored non-written material on signs, i.e. images as well as the written word. There is also a growing LL interest in multimodality going beyond signage altogether, to explore other phenomena in the environment including linguistic soundscapes (e.g. Backhaus, 2016), graffiti (e.g. Pennycook, 2010), and even smellscapes (Pennycook & Otsuji, 2015). But while the Monash team included what they call “mindscapes” (see Chapter 9), non-visual multimodality was not otherwise systematically included in the current project, notwithstanding observations, where relevant, on a contrast between the LL and soundscape.The overall objective, whichever analytical approach was adopted, was to expose issues of language policy, power and status, identity, political and social positioning and the like in the LL, in effect to answer Malinowski’s (2009) simple but critical (in both senses) question about the authorship of the LL: who are the people responsible for putting up the signage, and why do they select the specific language(s) over others?
4. The organisation of this volume The volume is divided into three main parts. Part I includes four chapters/studies relating to European institutions, namely those in Finland, Italy, Spain, and Turkey. The second section covers the three East and Southeast Asian institutions, i.e. those in China, Japan, and Malaysia. And the final section consists of two institutions in Anglophone settings, one in Australia, the other in the UK. The last chapter of the book, by the co-editors Mauranen and Jenkins, draws the findings of the nine individual studies together, answers the third research question, and considers the implications both for the institutions involved in the project, and for HE language policy and practices in the wider world. The first of the three parts, Continental Europe, begins in Chapter 2 with the Finnish study conducted by one of the two co-editors, Anna Mauranen, and Ida Mauko, at the University of Helsinki. Their analysis focuses on their university’s stated language policy, the use of different languages on their university’s public and internal websites, the LL of one of its campuses, and international students’ metalinguistic representations of their own language use as revealed in semi-structured
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interviews. Chapter 3, the Italian study was conducted by Laurie Anderson at the University of Siena. Her analysis relates to three types of written institutional discourse related to internationalisation, namely university language policy documents, university webpages, and signage in the LL. Chapter 4 is the work of the Spanish team, Ignacio Vázquez, María J. Luzón, and Carmen Pérez-Llantada at the University of Zaragoza, who investigated a wide range of university documents including the institution’s strategic action plan and website (including all online documents), carried out observations of lectures and seminars, and conducted semi- structured interviews with science, humanities, and business students. For Chapter 5, the Turkish team, Ali Karakaş and Yasemin Bayyurt, at the University of Boğaziçi, carried out language policy document analysis including the institution’s website, linguistic landscaping, and semi-structured interviews with both lecturers and students. Turning to Part II, East and Southeast Asia, in Chapter 6, Fan Fang and Xiaowen Xie of Shantou University, China, analysed university documents and the university website, conducted face-to-face and email interviews, and collected and analysed LL data from signage in their Centre for Independent Language Learning. In Chapter 7 the Japanese team, consisting of Kumiko Murata, Masakazu Iino, and Mayu Konakahara, explored the situation in relation to an EMI programme at Waseda University.Their study involved document analysis, classroom observations, interviews with students, and, unusually in the LDIC project, online questionnaires administered to students and lecturers. Lastly, in Part II, Chapter 8 turns to the University of Malaya, where Jagdish Kaur and Siti Zaidah Zainuddin investigated the degree of correspondence between the institution’s EMI policies and practices and by means of semi-structured interviews, the extent to which academic staff and students, both local and international, felt they met the university’s linguistic expectations. Their participants represented the Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, and Humanities. In Part III, Chapter 9, the first of two chapters involving institutions in an Anglophone setting comes from the University of Monash, Australia. There, the team composed of Zhichang Xu, Jennifer Leung, Mahnaz Hall, Janin Jafari, and Marzieh Sadegh Pour, analysed a range of documents including policy documents, staff development documents, handbooks, and the institution’s website, conducted semi-structured interviews with staff and students, observed lectures and seminars, and explored the university’s linguistic landscape as well as the “linguistic mindscape” of its members, which they propose as a new area of research. And finally, in Chapter 10, the Southampton, UK team consisting of the other co-editor, Jennifer Jenkins, along with Will Baker, Jill Doubleday, and Ying Wang, analysed the university’s policy documents and website, interviewed staff and students, observed lectures, and carried out linguistic landscaping with all datasets covering the Faculty of Business, Law and Arts, and the Faculty of Humanities, and other datasets variously covering the remaining five faculties (Engineering and the Environment, Health Sciences, Natural and Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Engineering, Social, Human, and Mathematical Sciences).
Researching linguistic diversity on EMI campuses 17
As will be clear, the coverage of the LDIC project is both relatively wide while also preserving a depth that is generally not found in research that explores HE in a range of countries. And although the methods of data collection and analysis used by the nine research teams are largely similar, the findings among them, both within each broad geographical context and across the three contexts, have a number of striking differences.These, along with the similarities and implications, are discussed in Chapter 11.
Note 1 Foskett (2010, pp. 43–45) presents a model of internationalisation according to which universities fit into one of five categories depending on their orientation to internationalisation abroad and at home. The five categories, ranging from “low engagement” to “high engagement”, are: domestic universities; imperialist universities; internationally aware universities; internationally engaged universities; and internationally focused universities.
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Mauranen, A. (2003). The corpus of English as a lingua franca in academic settings. TESOL Quarterly, 37(3), 513–527. Mauranen, A. (2006). Signaling and preventing misunderstanding in English as lingua franca communication. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2006(177), 123–150. doi:10.1515/IJSL.2006.008 Mauranen,A. (2012). Exploring ELF:Academic English shaped by non-native speakers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mitchell, N. (2016). Universities compete by teaching in English. Retrieved from www.bbc. co.uk Murata, K., & Iino, M. (2018). EMI in higher education: An ELF perspective. In J. Jenkins,W. Baker, & M. Dewey (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of English as a lingua franca (pp. 400– 412). London & New York, NY: Routledge. Pauwels, L. (2012). A multimodal framework for analysing websites as cultural expressions. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 17, 247–265. Pennycook, A. (2010). Language as a local practice. London: Routledge. Pennycook, A., & Otsuji, E. (2015). Making scents of the landscape. Linguistic Landscape, 1(3), 191–212. Reh, M. (2004). Multilingual writing: A reader-oriented typology –with examples from Lira Municipality (Uganda). International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 170, 1–41. Saarinen, T., & Nikula, T. (2013). Implicit policy, invisible language: Policies and practices of international degree programmes in Finnish higher education. In A. Doiz, D. Lasagabaster, & J.M. Sierra (Eds.), English-medium instruction at universities worldwide (pp. 131–150). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Schreier, M. (2012). Qualitative content analysis in practice. London: SAGE. Seidlhofer, B. (2011). Understanding English as a lingua franca. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Shohamy, E. (2006). Language policy: Hidden agendas and new approaches. London: Routledge. Shohamy, E. (2012). Linguistic landscapes and multilingualism. In M. Martin- Jones, A. Blackledge, & A. Creese (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of multilingualism (pp. 538–551). London: Routledge. Shohamy, E., & Gorter, D. (Eds.). (2009). Linguistic landscapes: Expanding the scenery. London: Routledge. Smit, U. (2010a). Conceptualising English as a lingua franca (ELF) as a tertiary classroom language. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics, 39, 59–74. Smit, U. (2010b). English as a lingua franca in higher education. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Smit, U. (2018). Beyond monolingualism in higher education: A language policy account. In J. Jenkins,W. Baker, & M. Dewey (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of English as a lingua franca (pp. 387–399). London & New York: Routledge. Soler, J., & Vihman,V. (2018). Language ideology and language planning in Estonian higher education: Nationalising and globalising discourses. Current Issues in Language Planning, 19, 22–41. Spolsky, B. (2004). Language policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Spolsky, B. (2009). Language management. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Talmy, S. (2010). Qualitative interviews in applied linguistics: From research instrument to social practice. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 30, 128–148. Talmy, S. (2011). The interview as collaborative achievement: Interaction, identity and ideology in a speech event. Applied Linguistics, 32(1), 25–42. Walkinshaw, I., Fenton-Smith, B., & Humphreys, P. (2017). EMI issues and challenges in Asia-Pacific higher education: An introduction. In B. Fenton-Smith, P. Humphreys, & I.
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Walkinshaw (Eds.), English medium instruction in higher education in Asia-Pacific: From policy to pedagogy (pp. 1–18). Berlin: Springer. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wilkinson, R. (2017). Trends and issues in English-medium instruction in Europe. In K. Akerley, M. Guarda, & F. Helm (Eds.), Sharing perspectives on English-medium instruction (pp. p 35– 76). Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Woods, P. (1996). The divided school. London: Routledge.
PART I
Continental Europe
2 ELF AMONG MULTILINGUAL PRACTICES IN A TRILINGUAL UNIVERSITY Anna Mauranen and Ida Mauko
1. Introduction The University of Helsinki, the context of this study and the workplace of the authors, is the oldest and largest university in Finland, which puts internationalisation high on its agenda and which likes to see itself as a trilingual university, as will be discussed below (section 4.3). English as a lingua franca is recognised in the language policy of the university, in part as a result of the ELF research that has been done at Helsinki. The university hosts two large corpora of academic ELF, one spoken (ELFA) and one written (WrELFA), freely available for researchers (www.helsinki.fi/elfa). The databases have been put to good use in both quantitative and qualitative research concerning the ways in which ELF shapes English in academic contexts (e.g. Mauranen, 2012; Ranta, 2013). Related research has been carried out on the effectiveness of academic ELF lectures and their reception by students (Suviniitty, 2012), language ideologies held by lecturers in ELF situations (Pilkinton-Pihko, 2013), and how language norms emerge in academic ELF interaction (Hynninen, 2016), to give just a few examples. Altogether, these studies among many others at Helsinki and elsewhere (e.g. Björkman, 2013; Mortensen & Fabricius, 2014; Smit, 2010) have helped us understand what academic ELF is like and how it is used, as well as how it relates to world Englishes and learner language (Jenkins, 2015; Laitinen, 2016; Laitinen, Lundberg, Levin, & Lakaw, 2017; Mauranen, 2012). In the present study, we address the issue of multilingual practices from the perspectives of university policies, linguistic landscapes, and student experience.
2. Setting and framework The general theoretical framework of this study builds on that detailed in the Introduction of this volume, which sets the scene for the entire international project
24 Mauranen & Mauko
(Linguistic Diversity on the International Campus) that this study is a part of. The setting is the university where we work: the University of Helsinki. It is the oldest and largest as well as the most successful university in Finland and consistently ranks among the top 100 universities in the world. Helsinki is a bilingual, comprehensive university, which covers a very wide variety of disciplines with its 11 faculties, over 35,000 students and nearly 8,000 staff. Even though it is old (founded in 1640), its ambitions are very much geared towards the contemporary world of research and education, with a strong future orientation. The university sets great store on its role as an international university with high global awareness. This has been given top priority in its two most recent strategy papers, including the current one of 2017–2020 (Strategic Plan of the University of Helsinki 2017–2020, www.helsinki.fi.strategia). Moreover, the university published a specific road map (Global Impact: Internationalisation at the University of Helsinki 2017–2020, www.helsinki.fi/globalimpact/en) for internationalisation in 2017, laying down goals for increasing the number of international students and staff, developing international collaboration and exchange at every level from the entire university to individual researchers, teachers, and students, and encouraging mobility outwards from the university as well as towards it. In this study, our central organising concepts are languaging, multilingualism, and linguistic landscapes, in addition to the overarching framework of ELF. The notion of languaging has many origins, including non-linguists (Maturana, 1978; Maturana & Varela, 1998;Vygotsky, 1980), and early linguist users like Becker (1988, 1995) and Swain (1985). The concept highlights the dynamic nature of language in both interaction and cognition, which is why we adopt it here. In the present context, a more recent development of languaging, namely translanguaging is relevant in accounting for the practices that an international university calls for. Garcia and Li (2014) define it as “the dynamic process whereby multilingual language users mediate complex social and cognitive activities through strategic employment of multiple semiotic resources to act, to know and to be” (p. 7), thus stressing its multilingual aspects.A related term and concept is polylanguaging, stating that rather than languages, “[s]speakers use features [which] may be ascribed to specific languages (or specific categories which are called languages)” (Jørgensen, 2008, p. 165). While there have been other similar conceptualisations (Canagarajah, 2007; Pennycook, 2017), we see the plethora of concepts in these models and arguments as basically well covered by languaging, which can then be further contextually specified as the need arises. Thus, we adopt the term cross-languaging for students’ self-reporting on their perceptions of different languages being drawn on. When talking about what speakers do or report doing as they go about their daily communication activities, we use the term languaging practices. One of the characteristics of ELF languaging practices relates to obviating misunderstandings despite the sometimes highly diverse language backgrounds of conversationalists. Such practices have been identified in a few previous studies through discourse and/or corpus analysis (e.g. Cogo & Dewey, 2012; Mauranen, 2006) as well as conversation analysis (e.g. Kaur, 2010; Pietikäinen, 2017). These
A trilingual Finnish university 25
studies have directly analysed users’ spoken ELF, whereas here we tackle similar questions by inviting speakers to talk about their language use.
3. Data and methods In order to come to grips with the university as a linguistic environment, we adopted a three-pronged approach to its manifestations: (1) how the university frames its relation to languages in its language policy; (2) how these principles are manifest digitally on its website and in its physical spaces; and (3) how international students perceive the language environment and its affordances. The data that we analysed is thus the following: 1 . 2. 3. 4.
The University Language Policy. Use of different languages on public and internal university websites. Linguistic landscapes on one of its campuses. International students’ metalinguistic representations of their own language use.
The principal research methods were discourse analytical and content analytical, with some ethnographic influence. Specifically, they comprised an analysis of the university’s Language Policy document, observational notes of websites and linguistic landscapes, and semi-structured interviews with discourse analysis tapping the metalinguistic representations of languaging by international students. The currently valid University Language Policy dates from 2014 (see section 4.2) and was analysed in terms of its content. Data from university websites was collected during summer 2015, and they consisted of observations about the main university website, together with the faculties of Arts and Science. The faculties’ intranet pages were also scrutinised. Linguistic landscapes were explored in spaces frequented by students from anywhere in the university (the Main Library, the Language Centre, the Main Building entrance hall, and the student cafeteria in the Main Building). In addition, one academic department with a clear subject focus (Art History) was taken on board.This selection thus represents the anonymous and formal along with the more individual and informal. The exploration drew on photographs taken in environments where writing was visible. Any languages that were visible were taken note of. Pictures, together with fieldnotes, were taken in February 2016. The interviews were conducted with international students self-selected at the university’s “Welcome Fair” in September 2015 and January 2016. At both fairs, our team1 set up a desk inviting students to sign up and “share their experience as an international student at the University”. In order to represent both the fields of Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH), as well as Science,Technology, Engineering, and Medicine (STEM), we targeted students from the faculties of Social Sciences, Law, and Science. During the autumn we interviewed 14 students, with an additional six in the spring, making the final SSH-to-STEM ratio 12:7.The distribution of interview participants from EU and non-EU countries was fairly even at 11:9,
26 Mauranen & Mauko
with five of the total 20 participants self-identifying as native English speakers.2 Most participants were on a semester-or year-long exchange, and two had started full-time Master’s degree studies. Each of the students participated in two semi-structured interviews: the first within the two initial weeks of the semester, and the second approximately one- and-a-half to two months later. Both interviews included questions on the students’ linguistic and cultural background, choice of courses, accommodation, social interaction (in and out of class), day-to-day use of language(s), etc., with the second interview focusing on any changes that may have occurred since the first interview (see Appendix 1 for full list of questions). What proved especially interesting were students’ comments about how they utilise their multilingual repertoires and various languaging practices while talking to peers. All interviews were audio-recorded and subsequently partially transcribed. As the analysis focused on uncovering recurring themes and topics in the interviews rather than on the spoken language itself, no strict transcription convention was used. Semi-structured interviews were used as a way of enabling the participants to steer the interview towards issues which they themselves deemed relevant or interesting. The interview data was analysed through an inductive approach. In order to discern relevant patterns in the data and determine our foci, each team member initially listened to all interviews and made notes on any points of interest, after which these notes were jointly compared and discussed.We identified discourses on specific languaging practices, use of languages other than English, and ELF speaker identity. The data was then examined more closely to crystallise the individual subcategories, as well as to extract exemplifying quotes. The names of the identified categories therefore reflect the ways in which students talked about them, rather than mirroring terms or notions from previous studies on languaging.
4. Context and documents 4.1 The broader context: languages in Finnish academia Finland is a country with two national languages, a few recognised minority languages, and even more minority languages that are spoken but do not have a recognised status. Altogether 159 languages are currently listed by Statistics Finland, but according to evidence from Karlsson (2017), the more accurate number is around 500. As an old university, Helsinki has undergone a few changes in its languages. At the outset, in the early seventeenth century, the university was already bilingual in its official functions: the language of instruction and official ceremonies was Latin, while the language of administration and governance was Swedish (Kajanto, 2000). Swedish was the language of administration and governance in the country at the time, and the main language of education alongside Latin.“Country” in this historical context means Sweden, with Finland as a Swedish province. It is likely that Swedish was spoken informally quite widely, as students and especially professors tended to speak it as their home language. A reasonable guess would be
A trilingual Finnish university 27
that at least some Finnish was also spoken informally, because despite the status of Swedish in administration, education, and governance, it was not widely spoken among the general population in the region that is now Finland. In the early eighteenth century, the university modernised remarkably and attracted a fair proportion of international students, which probably increased the number of languages actually used on campus. By the nineteenth century Swedish had replaced Latin as the dominant language of university instruction. From 1809 onwards (until 1917), Finland was affiliated to Russia as an autonomous grand duchy but maintained Swedish as the administrative language. At the same time, the Finnish language was increasingly promoted by influential groups (with Russian support) including many intellectuals, bringing the university into the eye of the storm. We can get an illustrative glimpse into this by looking at doctoral theses in the mid-nineteenth century: in linguistics, a thesis was defended in Latin in 1850, one in Swedish in 1852, and in literature, the first thesis was written in Finnish in 1858 (Hovdhaugen, Karlsson, Henriksen, & Sigurd, 2000). After Finnish independence in 1917, the University of Helsinki was made bilingual Finnish-Swedish. It was the only university in the country at the time, and it remains the only major bilingual university. The other bilingual university is very small and specialised: the University of the Arts in Helsinki. Other universities are either monolingual Finnish (ten) or Swedish (two) by their legal status, as specified in the Universities Act (558/2009). However, the actual language practices are far more varied, with especially English programmes proliferating in many places. With its long history of multilingualism, the university has been sensitive to language issues, which were hotly debated in national politics in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, gradually calming down only towards the Second World War. These debates concerned basically the relative positions of Finnish and Swedish. Swedish was always a minority language in Finland, accounting for 17.4% in the seventeenth century, and steadily declining from that towards its present 5.4% (Statistics Finland). Despite being the language of a minority, Swedish was still powerful in the nineteenth century, but gradually lost out to Finnish in all domains of life in the course of the first half of the twentieth century. Language remains a recurrent issue in Finnish politics, where in the last few decades debates have revolved around the teaching of Swedish in schools: it has been obligatory to learn both national languages in secondary school, one of which is presumed to be a student’s mother tongue. This reflects the reality less and less accurately, with speakers of languages classified as “foreign” put together easily outnumbering Swedish (Statistics Finland).
4.2 Institutional intention: the University Language Policy In view of the linguistic sensitivities in the country, it is perhaps not surprising that the university has an official language policy document (www.helsinki.fi/strategia/ pdf/kieliperiaatteet.pdf). The current policy was confirmed officially as the University Rector’s decision, and published in three languages (Finnish, Swedish,
28 Mauranen & Mauko
and English) in 2014. It is the second of its kind, the first dating from 2006.The subheading of the Language Policy summarises the guiding idea as “From guidelines to practice: towards functional multilingualism.” The points of departure are: (a) languages as the university’s resources; (b) the university as an educational institution; and (c) the university as a research institution. The general point of departure, which declares languages as resources, highlights the value of multilingualism and internationalism. The second viewpoint of the university as an educational institution stresses a need to safeguard the national languages (Finnish and Swedish) and to develop them as languages of research and education. Finally, the third perspective on the university as a research institution puts the emphasis on internationalisation and English. The policy specifically mentions English as a lingua franca: “The English language has become an academic lingua franca, and as an international institution, the University of Helsinki participates in this development” (Language Policy of the University of Helsinki, 2014, p. 48). Overall, the document highlights multilingualism, internationalism, parallel language use, and protection of the national languages. The individual languages mentioned in this 11-page document are Finnish, Swedish, and English. No other language is specified, although the learning of unspecified “other languages” is encouraged. As we can see in Table 2.1, the three specified languages are most commonly mentioned as a combination of the three together, with the combination Finnish+Swedish on a par with English on its own. If we count references to each language individually, Swedish dominates the scene: it gets mentioned altogether 39 times, well beyond 32 references to Finnish and 30 to English (in effect references to Swedish add up to 130% of those to English and 122% to Finnish). By merely looking at these figures, we might think Swedish is the most important language of the university. In reality, its prominence in the document reflects the linguistic sensibilities in Finland over the last 200 years. This national bias is evident in the university’s “bilingual degree programme”, where the languages are Finnish and Swedish. Likewise, in the section on instruction in language and communication skills (Language Policy, 2014, p. 51) we learn that: “High-quality learning requires the development of communication and interaction skills in parallel in the native language and in other languages relevant to the field.” This statement TABLE 2.1 Mentions of individual languages in the Language Policy of the University of
Helsinki Language or combination of languages
Mentions
Finnish, Swedish, and/or English Finnish and/or Swedish English Swedish Finnish Total
16 14 14 9 2 55
A trilingual Finnish university 29
builds on two presuppositions: (1) that languages are clearly identifiable entities, and every individual has one native language; (2) that the native languages can only be Finnish or Swedish at Helsinki (the policy stipulates communication skills in only those two). Both presuppositions are problematic. Languages are not as discrete and clear-cut as the document implies, and students at Helsinki are not monolingual: for instance, Swedish-speaking Finns are typically bilingual from very early on. Neither do all students have Finnish or Swedish among their first languages; yet no mention is made of any other mother tongue in need of attention. Finally, the presumption that a high quality of learning is naturally linked to the mother tongue is equally questionable, but this is not the place to go deeper into that issue. Altogether, trilingualism is a coherent thread throughout the document, but the position of Swedish is blown up compared to reality (see sections 5 and 6), reflecting a policy maker’s wish more than actual practices.
4.3 The university website The university’s websites are in principle supposed to be available in Finnish, Swedish, and English. While this is true of the more prominent main university homepage, faculty main pages, Student Services, information for prospective and current international students, etc., the same is not always the case for specific department or teaching unit pages. Both the external (public) and the internal (staff and student-only) pages contain links for switching between languages. However, in some cases, switching from a Finnish to an English or a Swedish version either renders a blank page or only a condensed version of the Finnish text. One might think that faculties and units which attract more international students would have the most complete English language information. However, the Faculty of Arts, which has the largest inflow of foreign students, seemed not to have full website coverage in English; the English version featured links to International Master’s Degree Programmes and comprehensive information on these, with only a limited overview of other departments and programmes (not taught in English). By contrast, the Faculty of Science external website was upon observation equally complete and contained the same information in all three languages. For a student at the university, the availability of information in English and/or Swedish on the internal pages (Flamma) depends significantly on the department or unit. Flamma can be a rich source of detailed information on degree requirements, and it is also where students find most study-related documents, important forms, etc. However, unless one is studying in an exclusively English (or Swedish) medium programme, the information can be difficult to find since the intranet pages rarely mirror the same content in all three languages.
5. Linguistic landscapes Linguistic landscapes represent the physical experience of space and text. In contrast to electronic, trans-local text spaces, physical space is quintessentially local.
30 Mauranen & Mauko
It embodies a here-and-now, immediate reality where the experiencer shares the physical space with the written text. The present brief exploration of linguistic landscapes focuses on a small sample of three kinds of environments where writing is visible, as described above (section 3): public spaces used by the whole university community, a single university department, and students’ noticeboards, which constitute a continuum from the relatively anonymous and formal towards the more personal and informal. Straddling these types is the student cafeteria, which is public but not formal, and where language is more immediately directive, involving directions for immediate choices and physical action such as moving in the right spaces, and performing actions in the right order. A primary gatekeeping function is exercised by doors: even if they are unlocked, they indicate who the target users of the premises are. The language(s) on doors are therefore worth noting. To start with anonymous, public spaces, we first go to the University Library, which, is accessible not only to all in the university, but also open to the general public. The Library is much visited by people who are not members of the university community. At the entrance, the fixed letters above the door spell out Helsingin yliopisto (“the University of Helsinki” Figure 2.1) in Finnish, but the glass doors give the name of the building, Kaisa-talo, Helsinki University Main Library in three languages. Inside, the entrance space is modern, light, and spacious. Texts abound, many on electronic screens, which alternate between the three languages in the University Language Policy: Finnish, Swedish, and English, virtually always in this order (Figure 2.2).
FIGURE 2.1 Entrance
to Main Library
A trilingual Finnish university 31
FIGURE 2.2 Digital
notices inside the Main Library
Many contain news: upcoming lecture series open to all; new collections on trial use; news from other campus libraries. Permanent, stable information is provided in all three languages simultaneously. The information is generic, in principle addressed to anyone who might find themselves in that space, with no target addressee written into the text. Any reader could identify themselves as the addressee simply by being there. In practice, however, a more specific addressee is implied by the kind of information provided: one who wants to read books or journals of an academic kind; wants to find a space for reading; or needs help from library computer services. Most texts relate to acquiring knowledge and accessing data –or getting help with language (Figure 2.3). Sometimes the implied reader is a student (Tired of studying? –Have a break!), once explicitly a cyclist (Cyclist, please don’t block the main entrance!) who is guided to appropriate cycle parking in three languages, complete with a photo. The entrance hall holds shelves for new publications, including a section on new doctoral dissertations. The book covers on these shelves show more linguistic variation than the guidance, with the sample from February 2016 displaying also Russian, French, German, and Japanese. Despite the openness of the library to the general public, the selection of publications contributes to selecting the expected audience. Moving on to the Language Centre, also open to outsiders of the university community, the target reader is interested in learning languages. All information, starting from the street entrance (Figure 2.4) is, again, in three languages. Brochures are provided in the same languages (Figure 2.5) –although, as in the picture, there
FIGURE 2.3 How
to get help from dictionaries
FIGURE 2.4 Entrance
to the University Language Centre
A trilingual Finnish university 33
FIGURE 2.5 Advice
–in three languages, but run out in two!
may only be some left in Swedish! The term was well on its way at the time of photography, no courses about to start, and all information updates are supplied digitally via mobile apps, so it may not be entirely surprising that printed handouts had run out. That the leftovers were all in Swedish, reflects on the language policy (see section 4.3): in the interests of three-language even-handedness, Swedish gets overrepresented compared to its actual use. Continuing to the university Main Building, the street doors date from 1937 and were thus well in place before the current wave of internationalisation. They display permanent gilded text in Finnish and Swedish (Figure 2.6). Temporary notices attached to the glass doors tell different stories: if you are a cyclist, you are expected to understand Finnish (Figure 2.7), if a smoker, you are addressed in three languages (Savuton alue; rökfritt område; Non-smoking area). These seemingly arbitrary choices may reflect the simple fact that the non-smoking signs are widely distributed stock phrases, likely to be identically formulated in the university’s hundreds of buildings around the city. By contrast, the sign concerning bicycles is local and specific: “No bikes in front of the door” refers to a door which is the only wheel-chair accessible route to the building (signalled by a wheel-chair icon on the same door; Figure 2.6). The piece of paper may have been put up by one of the janitors. While many of the janitors actually speak fluent English, this is not a requirement, and spontaneously translating a notice for public display may not feel a comfortable task.
34 Mauranen & Mauko
FIGURE 2.6 Doors
FIGURE 2.7 “No
to the Main Building
bikes in front of the door”
Next our journey leads to an academic unit, Art History. Although it is organisationally part of a larger department, physically the small unit is located in the space it has occupied since 1963. The space shows certain identifying semiotic features that suggest either the classics or art history: plaster copies of ancient Greek and Roman statues (Figure 2.8). The target reader of all texts is a student of Art History. Most
A trilingual Finnish university 35
FIGURE 2.8 No
words needed: this is Art History
FIGURE 2.9 Announcing
a new seminar, in Finnish
are notifications about studies (Figure 2.9).The reader is expected to know Finnish, starting from a note warning about the fragility of the statues (Figure 2.10). Swedish only shows up once: on the glass doors to the department, together with Finnish. Professors’ doors give their office hours in Finnish. Only the administrator’s hours appear in Finnish and English, implying a potential reader who might not master names of weekdays in Finnish. Among notifications and announcements in Finnish, occasional conferences and special lectures are announced in English. Recent doctoral theses are displayed in glass cases, some with English titles. In all, Finnish is the default language, with little regard to the official Finnish-Swedish bilingual policy,
36 Mauranen & Mauko
FIGURE 2.10 Careful
with fragile statues –if you read Finnish
FIGURE 2.11A Students
can eat in three languages
and almost no English. Texts orient to studying and teaching, presenting an all- Finnish study environment. Back to more public spaces. Downstairs in the student restaurant the target reader is anyone who wants to eat. Texts relate to food, dishes, the choices available, and navigating the arrangements (Figure 2.11a). The primary expectation is that the reader is a student at the university, even though the space is open to anyone. The restaurant chain is owned by the Students’ Union, and they appear as “student restaurants” in new students’ webpages in three languages. All menus are in three languages, including special notices (Picture 2.11b) and waste recycling instructions (Figure 2.12). The client who comes in finds a balanced trilingual environment,
A trilingual Finnish university 37
FIGURE 2.11B Students
FIGURE 2.12 Recycle
can eat in three languages
your waste in three languages
and the staff speak at least Finnish and English. Again, a temporary arrangement notice about the café being used for film making at a given date was in Finnish only, possibly for the same reason as the cycle placement notice: it is spatio-temporally specific and it is not part of the author’s job description to have translation skills.
38 Mauranen & Mauko
On the way out is the students’ noticeboard, where the target reader is variably specified, if at all. Notices are temporary, anyone can put them up, and in principle anyone passing by can be the reader. In practice, the location effectively circumscribes the readership: academic staff are unlikely to read these somewhat out- of-the-way boards, which alternate with more official, glass covered noticeboards directed at international and home students. Some sections are dedicated to student organisations, others are unspecified. The notices are all on paper, thus transitory, but the specificity of addressees varies: printed announcements for events, websites, or internet groups are designed with images and colour; they are clearly copies of a large stack distributed around similar noticeboards in other buildings. Different languages are in use, and the addressee is comparatively generic, apart from the tacit limitation by placement. In contrast to the printed notice, individuals’ printouts consist only of text, tend to be in Finnish only, detail their addressees more narrowly, and contain handwritten details (Figure 2.13:“Looking for a flatmate. Hi, you religious woman without a home…”). Such individual notices sometimes also offer tuition, say, for International English Language Testing System (IELTS) preparation, and can be in English. Altogether, the space that texts are placed in structures text reception: out-of-the-way placement excludes readers who do not seek out the signage, official announcements in glass cases close them off from the freedom of open public noticeboards; Students’ Union sections rely on headers claiming the territory, while physically they are open. In older university buildings, the permanent texts on and around for example doors are in Finnish and Swedish, whereas in more recently built or renovated buildings they are in three languages, reflecting a shift towards internationalisation. Clearly, spaces dating back prior to the 1990s would not have had much need
FIGURE 2.13 Flatmate
candidates sought in Finnish
A trilingual Finnish university 39
to accommodate to students or staff without Finnish or Swedish in their repertoire. Latin inscriptions remain in the Great Hall used for ceremonial purposes and for public events, helping construct the identity of an institution with a long history. The less permanent the notices are, the more they vary in all semiotic ways, including language, as we have seen.
6. Students’ metalinguistic representation of languaging practices At the outset, we identified the amount of English international students speak in relation to other languages while in Finland. Almost everyone claimed to speak more than one language, including native English speakers who had at some point learned a foreign language. Nevertheless, two of the native English speakers (British and American) did speak of their monolingualism as a disadvantage in this setting, as is seen in Extract 1 (see Appendix 2 for the Table of participants). [1] Q: So, you would say that most of the day you’re speaking English? K3F(NS): Yeah and I feel really bad about that … because all the other exchange students have their own language, and then they talk English on top of that as well. I just rely on people speaking English to me. I feel like the English are quite lazy in that aspect. […] I get a bit self-conscious as well when people talk in a different language around me, cause I’ve got no idea what they’re saying. *chuckles* In addition to these two native speakers, three other participants reported speaking solely English while in Finland. The lowest English-to-L1 ratio was around 50:50, reported by three participants. Most participants (11) estimated their use of English to be over 50%. As described in section 3, the analysis of interview data focused on discourses about multilingualism and languaging practices, which we thematised into three main categories, described in sections 6.1–6.3 exemplified by quotes from interview data.
6.1 Receptive languaging Discourse on receptive languaging pertains to how one makes sense of their interlocutors’ speech, especially when the message is not entirely clear. In our data, students spoke about two languaging practices which could be described as receptive: contextualisation and fragment recognition.
6.1.1 Contextualisation If speakers say things that hearers find difficult to make sense of, they can rely on the context for understanding. As can be seen in the following example, contextualisation was used to label descriptions of message deciphering, i.e. understanding
40 Mauranen & Mauko
what is said even though there are unexpected expressions or gaps in what the interlocutor is saying. In the following example, it has been marked bold: [2] Q: If you’re ever having just a one-on-one conversation with somebody, and your English levels are, sort of, very different –do you also have any difficulties communicating or does it always sort of resolve somehow? S9M: We have one girl from Czech Republic, for example, and she is always running out of words and she doesn’t know how to say, but there’s never a problem when you talk to her, just the two of you. You can always imagine what she wants to say and you ask her “Do you mean this?” and she’s “Ah yeah ok, thank you!” –so it’s never that a conversation stops at a point due to different language levels, so there are no problems at the moment. Contextualisation was not referred to only in non-native to non-native speaker communication, but was also brought up by native English speakers reflecting on their communication with non-natives: [3] Q: How are communication problems resolved? S10F(NS): I guess based on the context of what you’re saying, so if they’re trying to go “Oh no what is it, what is it? I know it in Italian, I don’t know how to say it”, and then “Is it this word?” … “Oh yeah, that’s, the word, I couldn’t remember it in English” … so our conversations are maybe a bit slow but I do try to understand what they’re trying to say based on context, previously of what they were saying. However, as examples 2 and 3 show, contextualisation rarely stands alone and is instead often followed by offering the missing word to the interlocutor –thus entering into cooperative languaging (discussed in section 6.3).
6.1.2 Fragment recognition While discussing the ways in which they communicate with peers, several participants remarked on how they sometimes notice fragments of other familiar languages and how this enables them to join a conversation.The receptive element here, therefore, is initial noticing of the foreign word or phrase. For example, two Russian students commented how they routinely “pick up on” conversations of their Croatian colleagues –and vice versa –since both speak Slavic languages and can recognise certain words. [4] Q: Does it happen that people just don’t understand each other? L2F: […] I have a friend from Croatia and we’ve already found out so many, not even similar words, the same words in their language –so sometimes
A trilingual Finnish university 41
when we speak, this guy, he hears some Russian words and says “Oh, I know these words!” So funny. Contextualisation and fragment recognition, therefore, both seem to depend on some degree of familiarity. While contextualisation is aided by previous encounters with the same person, or people of similar linguacultural backgrounds, fragment recognition relies on shared linguistic repertoire outside the current language of communication.
6.2 Productive languaging Productive languaging subsumes discourse on strategies which participants told they used in order to make themselves as clear and understandable as possible. It can be likened to the notion of recipient design (Malone, 1995). The categories we recognised here were lexicogrammatical simplification and phonetic simplification, which are intentional. However, some participants also mentioned accidentally slipping into another language, which we also took to be productive languaging, albeit unintentionally so.
6.2.1 Lexicogrammatical simplification Lexicogrammatical simplification was used to describe talk about changes to one’s choice of words or phrasing –usually in an attempt to be better understood. In our data, lexicogrammatical as well as phonetic simplification was most often expressed by, but not limited to, native English speakers. For example, an American student remarked the following: [5] Q: [Regarding people’s communication problems] Was it because they were missing certain words or … What was the problem? K7M(NS): I have a more detail-oriented and very sophisticated language type to almost, like, English –like British English –and when I would do some of these more detail-oriented and more abnormally used words, [others] were not certain of what I was discussing or mentioning. So, then I would have to use … other descriptive words that were lighter in tone, to where they could understand. And then they would be “Oh okay yeah, I understand.” However, non-native English speakers also recounted simplifying their language: [6] Q: So it’s kind of, like, everybody figures out everything in the end? S8F: Yeah, yeah. I think –we try to speak with not too much complicated vocabulary and so on and to make things easier.
42 Mauranen & Mauko
6.2.2 Phonetic simplification By phonetic simplification, we refer to discourse about efforts to change phonetic and prosodic features including speech rate, to make oneself better understood: [7] Q: Do you ever feel conscious about your own language –the way you speak to [non- native speakers], what kind of vocabulary you should use? K3F(NS): When {I talk to non-native speakers} I don’t feel like I’m talking slowly, but I’m definitely not talking fast, and I’m making sure that I don’t stumble over my words, that I pronounce everything in a certain way, and I’ve been told that by people –that when I’m talking to people that are native English speakers, that sometimes I mumble.
6.2.3 Slipping In Mauranen (2013), “slips” refer to unintentional code-switches containing only one pragmatic item and passing unnoticed or without any action. While the present study also defines “slipping” as non-deliberate code-switching from English into one’s native language, in our data participants mentioned how speakers may utter several phrases or sentences in a foreign language before becoming aware of it, and subsequently apologising. We nevertheless use the same term as in Mauranen (2013) because it echoes the words used by the participants themselves, as seen in the following example: [8] Q: How would you describe this type of English that people use? K7M(NS): We’re having a conversation and it kind of just slips, that they start speaking their own again. Like, it’s normal for them –and then they’ll be, like, “Oh, sorry!”
6.3 Cooperative languaging Cooperative languaging refers to discourse which highlights group effort in languaging and meaning negotiation in communication. In the sphere of cooperative languaging we identified the subcategories of co-construction and cross-languaging.
6.3.1 Co-construction Co-construction was used to label discourse on various interrelated meaning- negotiation strategies, used to clarify or overcome communication problems. Here are two examples of how this is represented by the participants: [9] Q: So how does it work, then, if somebody can’t … really think of the right word – how do you usually go about it?
A trilingual Finnish university 43
S11F(NS): We’ll be like “this thing?” and then we’ll try to describe it, “this thing or this thing?” One time I was trying to figure out –we were talking about, like, a vegetable and we were trying to figure out what it was and it was a cabbage, but we had to describe it, and just, like, talk about it and think about pop culture references she could have seen, and so on. But we did figure out we were both talking about cabbage. [10] Q: When you’re talking to your roommates or your classmates … is it easy or is it difficult to … find a common ground, that everyone understands each other and that everything “works” in English, so to speak? K5F:Yeah, it’s kind of difficult –I’m not sure … one of my friends, she’s in Computer Science, she’s Chinese and another one is from Pakistan and they have different ways of expressing things, like they sometimes have a hard time looking for a word or express what they want to say, so sometimes we try to fill in the blanks for them –“So, is it this that you wanted to say, or is it this one…?” In these examples, we can see how the participants talk about “describing”, “talking about”, “figuring out” meanings, and “filling in the gaps” –moreover, they describe doing so as an active process involving the interlocutor, thereby making this effort cooperative.
6.3.2 Cross-languaging Cross-languaging is similar to co-construction in the sense of cooperating with the goal of reaching common understanding, but the differentiating factor is that, in this case, participants highlight the use of one or more additional languages as scaffolding tools. Most commonly, participants describe cross-languaging as occurring in larger group settings where at least two people are proficient in the same language and can thus translate “missing” words or offer clarifications for peers: [11] Q: Do you ever notice if any other students in your class … speaking a different language together, other than English? S1F: Sometimes it happens that some Finnish person say “Oh, I don’t know how to say this word”, and says it in Finnish, and then someone “Oh, it’s that in English!” and that’s all. […] You just ask the people in your native language “Sorry what’s the word for that again?” and then you’re “Ok thank you” and then you can go on. [12] Q:When the whole tutor group is sort of together and everybody’s communicating with each other … do people sometimes go off and speak their own mother tongue or is it English 100% of the time, and if so, are there any glitches in the communication or does the conversation just flow perfectly?
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K7M: A lot of us know many other languages, actually. Dutch, Portuguese or something, German, Italian –almost all of us know at least one other language that the other knows, so English is our primary discussion, on our WhatsApp and Facebook and everything, it’s all in English, but when we’re having conversations, some of us will do a “language club” or a “language bar”, you know, where you can go and chat in another language if we want to, we’ll talk in one’s native tongue or the language that they want to discuss. We’ll start, like, in Italian or in Dutch or something else, and the others who don’t understand will translate for us and so on. From this data, it appears that cross-languaging is most often initiated by a person who is unable to express something in English and asks for help.They do so knowing there is someone present who shares their native language. However, e xample 11 shows that a person may switch to their L1 even if there are no other speakers of that language present. In that case, the implicit assumption is that someone else can derive the meaning from either partial knowledge of that language, or a similar one. As noted by Mauranen (2013), this kind of prompting for help in a foreign language is not uncommon in ELF communication, and is often achieved either by replacing a single unknown word with one’s L1 equivalent, or by asking for help entirely in one’s L1 (pp. 237–238).
7. Discussion The topic of this study was one multilingual university with its language policies and practices.We framed the study in its socio-historical language context, and went on to explore the current manifestations of linguistic diversity and multilanguaging from three perspectives: the university’s strategic statements of internationalisation and language policy; manifestations of these strategic principles in texts found in digital and physical spaces that were more or less in the university’s control; and how language use was experienced by international students enrolled in the university in the academic year 2015–2016. Linguistic diversity was nothing new to the university, which had observed bilingual policies since its inception in the seventeenth century. Tensions between language groups and language ideologies have also been part of the picture over the last couple of centuries –sometimes calmer, sometimes flaring up. The languages involved have changed over time, currently the focal ones being Finnish, Swedish, and English. Against this backdrop, the co-presence of different languages was as expected. In our analysis we combined top–down and bottom–up approaches, which turned out to be quite revealing. A top–down analysis showed a clear awareness of language issues on the part of the university leadership and top management, written up in a policy document and meticulously implemented in public spaces that were largely in the hands of university management. Yet the further away from the centre one looks and the less formal the communication becomes, the more variability seeps in. The experience at the grassroots level of international
A trilingual Finnish university 45
students disclosed a complete ignorance about a trilingual language policy: in their experience, there was one local language (Finnish), one international language (English), and for the rest, international speakers had their own, frequently multilingual, backgrounds that they used to their advantage in various ways. Unlike much of the research carried out at Helsinki (however, with the exception of the Studying in English as a Lingua Franca (SELF) project, which adopted an ethnographic approach on university discourses in English: www.helsinki.fi/ elfa/self), the present study focused on how ELF speakers talk about their own multilingual talking – that is, what interview participants say they do in terms of languaging practices. The participants’ metalinguistic representations revealed three main themes: (1) making sense of other people’s language (receptive languaging); (2) accommodating their language to be better understood (productive languaging); and (3) mutual efforts by several parties in negotiating meaning (cooperative languaging). Ultimately, most categories were similar to those found in previous research –contextualisation, lexicogrammatical and phonetic simplification, slipping and co- construction are familiar phenomena seen in previous studies (e.g. Björkman, 2013; Cogo & Dewey, 2012). In this study, the terminology was somewhat different, as it arose from the interviewees’ own usage. Notably, participants spontaneously raised the use of their multilingual language resources, especially in fragment recognition and cross-languaging. The multilingual character of ELF communication turned out to be something that they were aware of, indicating it is not only a concept used by linguists (e.g. Jenkins, 2015; Mauranen, 2012; Seidlhofer, 2011). Likewise in line with other studies (Cogo, 2012; Cogo & House, 2017; Hülmbauer, 2009), the participants rarely expressed any concern about understanding others or making themselves understood, and spoke of both English and other languages in a positive light. Such discourse often revolved around a sense of unity in non-nativeness and a necessity to feel comfortable with English if one is an international student. Limitations and further research: first of all, the student interviewees had self- selected for the study, and they may have represented a more outgoing and cooperative end of the spectrum. Samples in the linguistic landscapes and the website analysis were smallish, although probably sufficient for this case study, given that they looked at the reality from different viewpoints. For future research, the experiences of academic and administrative staff as well as home students would be of interest: do they see the issues like the leadership, like international students, or in altogether different ways? International academic staff would be a particularly interesting group to interview. Similarly, domestic staff might have divergent perspectives from the group so far investigated, and the same goes for home students. Finally, other language minorities than Swedish speakers who are so well represented at policy level, should also be heard. In all, we noticed some divergence between grassroots practices and the official university line: the public face of the university appears very welcoming to international staff, students, and visitors, and international students seem happy enough, but several gaps in the officially trilingual policy were also identified. With a firm language policy, the university maintains a trilingual appearance, which protects and supports a historically strong minority language. At the same time, much of the
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rest of the multilingualism passes unnoticed, and despite the good intentions of the policy, it seems to lag behind the fast-moving reality.
Notes 1 Our research team consisted of four members. The interview and website data was gathered and analysed by Ida Mauko, with assistants Laura Murto and Saana Kallioinen. The background of the languages of Finland and the University of Helsinki and its language policy, together with linguistic landscapes data were gathered and analysed by Anna Mauranen. 2 In the quotes, native English speakers have been marked by adding (NS) to the participant code –which normally represents the participant’s faculty (S = social sciences, L = law, K = science) and gender (M/F).
References Becker, A.L. (1988). Language in particular: A lecture. In D.Tannen (Ed.), Linguistics in context (pp. 17–35). Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Becker, A.L. (1995). Beyond translation: Essays toward a modern philosophy. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press. Björkman, B. (2013). An analysis of polyadic English as a lingua franca (ELF) speech: A communicative strategies framework. Journal of Pragmatics, 66, 122–138. Canagarajah, S. (2007). Lingua franca English, multilingual communities, and language acquisition. The Modern Language Journal, 91(1), 923–939. Cogo, A. (2012). English as a lingua franca: Concepts, use, and implications. ELT Journal, 66(1), 97–105. Cogo, A., & Dewey, M. (2012). Analysing English as a lingua franca: A corpus-driven investigation. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. Cogo, A., & House, J. (2017). The pragmatics of ELF. In J. Jenkins, W. Baker, & M. Dewey (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of English as a lingua franca (pp. 210–216). Abingdon: Routledge. Garcia, O., & Li, W. (2014). Translanguaging: Language, bilingualism and education. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Global Impact: Internationalisation at the University of Helsinki 2017–2020. Retrieved from www.helsinki.fi/globalimpact/en Hovdhaugen, E., Karlsson, F., Henriksen, C., & Sigurd, B. (2000). The history of linguistics in the Nordic countries. Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica. Hülmbauer, C. (2009). We don’t take the right way. We just take the way that we think you will understand:The shifting relationship between correctness and effectiveness in ELF. In A. Mauranen & E. Ranta (Eds.), English as a lingua franca: Studies and findings (pp. 323–347). Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Hynninen, N. (2016). Language regulation in English as a lingua franca: Focus on academic spoken discourse. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Jenkins, J. (2015). Repositioning English and multilingualism in English as a lingua franca. Englishes in Practice, 2(3), 49–85. doi10.1515/ eip-2015-0003 Jørgensen, J.N. (2008). Polylingual languaging around and among children and adolescents. International Journal of Multilingualism, 5(3), 161–176. Kajanto, I. (2000). Latina, kreikka ja klassinen humanismi Suomessa keskiajalta vuoteen 1828. Helsinki: SKS. Karlsson, F. (2017). The languages of Finland 1917–2017. Helsinki: Lingsoft.
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Kaur, J. (2010). Achieving mutual understanding in world Englishes. World Englishes, 29(2), 192–208. Laitinen, M. (2016). Ongoing changes in English modals: On the developments in ELF. In O. Timofeeva, A.C. Gardner, A. Honkapohja, & S. Chevalier (Eds.), New approaches to English linguistics: Building bridges (pp. 175–196). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Studies in Language Companion Series. Laitinen, M., Lundberg, J., Levin, M., & Lakaw, A. (2017). Revisiting weak ties: Using present- day social media data in variationist studies. In T. Säily, M. Palander-Collin, A. Nurmi, & A. Auer (Eds.), Exploring future paths for historical sociolinguistics (pp. 303–325). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Language Policy of the University of Helsinki. (2014). Helsinki: Unigrafia. Retrieved from www.helsinki.fi.strategia/pdf/kieliperiaatteet.pdf Malone, M.J. (1995). How to do things with friends: Altercasting and recipient design. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 28(2), 147–170. Maturana, H.R. (1978). Biology of language: The epistemology of reality. CEPA reprint 549 (HRM-1978a). Retrieved from www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/archive/fulltexts/549.html Maturana, H., & Varela, F. (1998). [1st ed. 1973, rev. ed. 1987] The tree of knowledge: The biological roots of human understanding. Boston, MA & London: Shambhala. Mauranen, A. (2006). Signaling and preventing misunderstanding in English as lingua franca communication. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2006(177), 123–150. doi:10.1515/IJSL.2006.008 Mauranen,A. (2012). Exploring ELF:Academic English shaped by non-native speakers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mauranen, A. (2013). Lingua franca discourse in academic contexts: Shaped by complexity. In J. Flowerdew (Ed.), Discourse in context (pp. 225–246). London: Bloomsbury Academic. Mortensen, J., & Fabricius, A. (2014). Language ideologies in Danish higher education. English in Nordic Universities: Ideologies and Practices, 5, 193–223. Pennycook, A. (2017). The cultural politics of English as an international language. London:Taylor & Francis. Pietikäinen, K.S. (2017). English as a lingua franca in intercultural relationships: Interaction, identity, and multilingual practices of ELF couples (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Helsinki, Finland. Pilkinton-Pihko, D. (2013). English-medium instruction: Seeking assessment criteria for spoken professional English (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Helsinki, Finland. Ranta, E. (2013). Universals in a universal language? Exploring verb-syntactic features in English as a lingua franca (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Tampere, Finland. Seidlhofer, B. (2011). Conceptualizing “English” for a multilingual Europe. In A. de Houwer & A.Wilton (Eds.), English in Europe today: Sociocultural and educational perspectives (pp. 133– 146). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Smit, U. (2010). English as a lingua franca in higher education: A longitudinal study of classroom discourse. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Strategic Plan of the University of Helsinki 2017–2020. Retrieved from www.helsinki.fi/strategy Suviniitty, J. (2012). Lectures in English as a lingua franca-interactional features (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Helsinki, Finland. Swain, M. (1985). Communicative competence: Some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensible output in its development. Input in Second Language Acquisition, 15, 165–179. Universities Act 2009. Ministry of Education and Culture, Finland. Retrieved from www. finlex.fi/en/laki/kaannokset/2009/en20090558.pdf Vygotsky, L.S. (1980). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Harvard, MA: Harvard University Press.
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Appendix 1. List of interview questions Interview 1 1. Do you feel like you’ve received enough information? 2. How does the atmosphere feel? Does it seem welcoming, inviting, international? 3. How prepared do you feel in starting your studies? How difficult was it to find courses in English? 4. How were your English skills assessed when you were applying? 5. What are your accommodation arrangements? 6. Whom do you talk to the most and in which language? (The clock method; what languages do you speak during the day and whom to?) 7. Are there any language misunderstandings in your group? How do people communicate? 8. What does “international” mean to you? What do you expect from the experience?
Interview 2 1. How have your classes been? 2. Do you mostly hang out with other international students or have you befriended Finns as well? 3. How many of your teachers are international and how many Finnish? a. Who is your favourite teacher? What makes them a good teacher? 2. How do people behave in classes? Do they interact only with people of their own nationality? What languages do you hear in the classroom? 3. Have you taken any courses in academic English at your home university? 4. How much do you have to: a. Write in English? (Essays, essay exams) b. Read in English? (Books, articles) c. Speak English? (Presentations, discussions) d. How easy or difficult is it?
A trilingual Finnish university 49
Appendix 2. Study participants Country Total number of participants: 20 (18) Code
Gender
K1F K2M K3F K4M K5F K6M K7M
Female Male Female Male Female Male Male
Germany Germany UK Brazil Philippines Costa Rica USA
L1F L2F S10F
Female Female Female
Russia Russia Singapore
S11F
Female
USA
S1F
Female
S2F S3F S4M S5F S6F S7F S8F S9M
Female Female Male Female Female Female Female Male
Czech Republic USA Estonia Colombia Italy Hungary China France Germany
L1
NES/ NNES
Faculty
Campus
German German English Portuguese Cebuano Spanish English/ Finnish* Russian Russian English/ Malay English/ Finnish Czech
NNES NNES NES NNES NNES NNES NES
Science Science Science Science Science Science Science
Kumpula Kumpula Kumpula Kumpula Kumpula Centre Kumpula
NNES NNES NES
Law Law Social Science
Centre Centre Centre
NES
Social Science
Centre
NNES
Social Science
Centre
English Estonian Spanish Italian Hungarian Cantonese French German
NES NNES NNES NNES NNES NNES NNES NNES
Social Science Social Science Social Science Social Science Social Science Social Science Social Science Social Science
Centre Centre Centre Centre Centre Centre Centre Centre
* only spoke a little Finnish as a child with one parent. NES = native English speaker; NNES = non- native English speaker.
3 INTERNATIONALISATION AND LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY IN A MID-SIZED ITALIAN UNIVERSITY Laurie Anderson
This chapter presents the results of an analysis of links between internationalisation and language policy and use at the University of Siena, a mid-sized institution located in central Italy. It takes as a starting premise the view that any analysis of policy must attend to the specific structures of governance within which policy- making takes place and that any analysis of language use must consider the intended addressees. Using this dual lens, in the course of this article I will show how, in a national higher education context characterised by the rapid spread of English- medium instruction (EMI), the diverse concerns of institutional stakeholders manifest themselves in a multi-layered language policy that is pragmatically attuned to the target recipients of specific instances of institutional communication. I have taught at the University of Siena (henceforth, UNISI) for close to 25 years and in the Italian university system for considerably longer. Hence, this analysis – like the other studies in this volume –has been informed by ongoing participation in my specific national and institutional context. In order to make it accessible to readers from different settings, in the first section I provide some preliminary background about higher education in Italy and about the country’s current linguistic and social situation. Section 2 contains a brief description of the internationalisation process at UNISI. Section 3 presents the rationale behind the data selection: here I briefly highlight why I have chosen to conduct a three-pronged analysis focusing on policy documents, university webpages and selected linguistic landscapes on the university campus. Sections 4, 5, and 6 present the results of the three analyses. While the nexus between internationalisation and English turns out to be salient in all three discourse types, some interesting divergences emerge concerning what role English should play in the Italian higher education context and what constitutes appropriate language use. These divergences reflect the level of university governance at which texts are produced and the degree to which policy is an explicit concern. Section 7 presents some general conclusions emerging from the analysis.
A mid-sized Italian university 51
1. The Italian university system in transition: globalisation, European integration, and the role of EMI In Italy, a country with a population of approximately 61 million, higher education has traditionally been overwhelmingly public. Still today over 90% of the university students in Italy attend public institutions. There are currently 61 public and 19 “non-public” universities, serving approximately 1,640,000 students (Italian Ministry of Education data 2015–2016). This relatively large number of universities reflects a movement towards mass higher education in the aftermath of the 1968 student protests, which profoundly influenced the structure of the Italian university system: new universities were established in areas previously without any institutions of higher education (e.g. the southern regions of Calabria and Basilicata) and a policy of open access to anyone with a high school diploma was put in place. Currently student fees remain relatively low by European standards and, with the exception of a certain number of “limited access” degree courses established in recent years, attendance is not obligatory. Teaching and administrative staff are civil servants, and hiring procedures are regulated on a national level. Most faculty members are Italian nationals, leading some observers of academic job markets (e.g. Marimon, Lietaert, & Grigolo, 2009) to refer to Italy –alongside countries such as France and Spain –as a “closed Continental system”. Structurally, universities are organised in terms of departments, responsible for both research and teaching. Institutional policies and policy-making are two-tiered, and involve both the central administration and departments. Despite a neoliberal turn since the 1990s towards “new public management”, this two- tiered system helps assure that decision-making by the professoriate –traditionally strong in the Italian context –remains an important governance mechanism. Among decisions taken collegially on a departmental level that impact language policy and use, for instance, are decisions about whether to propose new degree courses (and, if so, if in English) and what weight to place on language skills in recruiting new staff. As in many other countries, in recent years there has been increasing attention to accountability in the Italian university system, with funding to individual universities now linked to the reaching of specific benchmarks. These benchmarks are indicated every three years in national legislation (most recently for the periods 2013–2015 and 2016–2018) and regard both student numbers and performance and research output. They apply to both public universities and to “non-public” universities wishing to obtain government subsidies and, given caps on funding to higher education since the 2008–2009 financial crisis, have led to increasing competition amongst institutions for both domestic and foreign students. This competition does not stop at the national level: within individual universities, financing to different departments is to a large extent contingent on student enrolments. This situation should be viewed against the broader backdrop of a persistent socio- economic gap between the more industrialised north and less florid southern parts of the country, one in which institutions in northern Italy with long-standing
52 Anderson
traditions have traditionally attracted large numbers of students from the south.This trend has been accentuated in recent years by university rankings released annually by major survey institutes and newspapers, in which measures of internationalisation figure prominently.1 Two principal factors have contributed to the linguistic and cultural diversity visible on Italian campuses today: a general increase in immigration into Italy for economic and other reasons and the impact of European Union (EU) initiatives designed to encourage student and staff mobility. The percentage of permanent residents in Italy who are not Italian citizens rose between 2005 and 2014, from 4.6% to 8.5% of the total population (OECD, 2016). Newcomers include both EU nationals who have relocated to Italy (particularly after the 2004 and 2007 eastward expansions) and immigrants from neighbouring regions (North Africa and the Middle East; non-EU countries in the Balkans). Since acquiring Italian citizenship is difficult (and, for other EU nationals unnecessary in practical terms), the children of most of these migrants remain foreign nationals. This makes it difficult, in examining university enrolment statistics, to distinguish between enrolment by resident non-nationals and student recruitment from abroad (which is usually how “internationalisation” is defined). The OECD International Migration Outlook 2016 indicates that in 2014 there were 70,340 “foreign students” attending degree courses in Italy; of these, 41,900 were on temporary student visas and hence presumably non-EU nationals recruited from abroad (precise statistics for EU nationals are not available). In addition, every year over 20,000 students taking part in the EU Erasmus student mobility programme (in constant expansion since 1987) choose Italy as their destination.2 EMI in Italian universities must be contextualised against the institutional and sociolinguistic backdrop outlined above.Tracing its evolution in quantitative terms is not easy, as different studies have drawn on different sources: Costa (2012, 2016) and Costa and Coleman (2012) on survey data; Campagna and Pulcini (2014) on data collected by the national university association; Helm (2014) on a government-run portal designed for international students. At any rate, EMI in Italian universities – which regards overwhelmingly the second-cycle (MA) and third-cycle (PhD) levels –has clearly been on the rise since at least 2010, with a peak in new programmes in 2015–2016. Various factors have influenced its adoption. These include geography (with adoption earlier and more widespread in northern Italy), the location of institutions in major urban centres (Milan, Rome, Turin, etc.), whether the institution is specialist or generalist (with earlier adoption in polytechnics and universities specialising in economics and related disciplines), and whether the institution is private or public (with earlier adoption in private universities). EMI has attracted the attention of applied linguists in various Italian universities, with research groups particularly active in Milan, Padua, Pavia, Turin, and Venice. Studies have ranged from surveys of administrators’, lecturers’, and students’ opinions to observational investigation of EMI classrooms. The latter have tended to take primarily a content and language integrated learning (CLIL) perspective (e.g. Costa, passim, on attention to content vs. attention to form) and have highlighted how the
A mid-sized Italian university 53
largely monologic nature of communication in Italian university classrooms may be accentuated when English is used (Anderson, 2016; but for more positive reports, see Gotti, 2014; Guarda & Helm, 2016). EMI has also attracted attention from the broader university community and the media, particularly following a 2013 court against one of Italy’s leading public technical universities, the Milan Polytechnic, after it announced a decision to teach all of its Master’s programmes in English in order to increase its attractiveness to international students. Maraschio and De Martino (2013), Pulcini and Campagna (2015) and Tosi (2016) provide insightful overviews of the ensuing debate and of the educational and cultural issues at stake.
2. “Old” and “new” internationalisation at the University of Siena Within the Italian university panorama succinctly outlined above, the University of Siena with its circa 14,600 students can be considered a mid-sized generalist university. Located approximately one hour from Florence, it has traditionally hosted a large number of study abroad students (approximately 400 North American and 380 Erasmus students annually). In addition, it currently has 1,161 non-nationals studying on degree courses: among the non-EU citizens enrolled, roughly half entered directly from abroad (495 out of 977, i.e. 50.7%); among the EU citizens, roughly a quarter (47 out of 184, i.e. 25.5% of the total). Foreign students have traditionally been attracted to Siena by the city’s Tuscan setting and its rich historical and artistic heritage. The following motivation statement, written by a recent incoming Erasmus student (BA in history), nicely synthesises this appeal: Siena is in the very heart of Italy and is strategically placed so that it gives me the ability to travel to the rest of northern Italy and beyond. It is also an incredibly beautiful city that still harks back to the bi-gone age of City states. On researching the city I have fallen in love with the romance of it, be it the Tuscan countryside, the Palio di Siena and the passion associated with it, the district street parties, the local markets and of course.. the nightlife! Siena looks like a city I would want to live in, a city where I could learn and improve my Italian, a city where I could embrace the culture of the region which is so often lost in the bigger cities. Having set my mind on it, I have become near infatuated with idea of spending a year there, and hope that I will get the opportunity to do so. Alongside this long-standing form of internationalisation (to the significance of which we will return below), the University of Siena has participated in the general trend within the Italian university system towards offering degree courses in English: from four in 2011–2012, the number of EMI degree courses rose to 13 in 2016–2017, with three more planned by 2018–2019. In terms of the adoption of EMI in the Italian context, Siena can thus be considered part of the “early
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majority”.3 Currently, approximately 7% of the university’s degree-seeking students are studying wholly in English. Table 3.1, organised by discipline, summarises the EMI degree courses currently offered and their total enrolments as of the 2016–2017 academic year, distinguishing between students who enrolled directly from abroad and students who were already resident in Italy. Examining enrolments from abroad by discipline, one notes that EMI in the humanities attracts the fewest students from abroad (27% of those enrolled), economics, science, and political science are roughly equally attractive TABLE 3.1 EMI Attractiveness Index 2016–2017: choice of degree coursea according to
prior residence (includes Italian nationals) Discipline
Started
Economics Economics
11–12 11–12
Degree course
Finance Accounting and Management Economics 11–12 Economics Economics 15–16 Economics and Banking (BA) Engineering 12–13 Computer and Automation Engineering Engineering 12–13 Electronics and Communications Engineering Engineering 16–17 Applied Mathematics Science 11–12 Medical Biotechnologies Science 14–15 Chemistry Science 16–17 Biodiversity and Environmental Health Pol. Science 14–15 European Studies Pol. Science 16–17 Political and Cultural Diplomacy Humanities 14–15 Language and Mind Students enrolled in 2016–2017 all 13 EMI degrees (12 MA, 1 BA)
Entered from Italy
Entered from abroad
Total
135 115
74% 58%
48 82
26% 42%
183 197
28 81b
54% 45%
24 98
46% 55%
52 179
48
48%
52
51%
99
9
24%
28
76%
37
11 100% 44 63%
0 26
0% 37%
11 70
15 4
45% 67%
18 2
55% 33%
33 6
41 14
60% 54%
27 12
40% 46%
68 26
40 585
73% 58%
15 431
27% 42%
55 1,016
a Organisationally, Accounting and Management, Economics, Economics and Banking, Biodiversity and Environmental Health and European Studies are technically curricula within degree courses; as the students enrolled attend only EMI courses and they are promoted as separate offerings, I have treated them as degree courses for the purposes of this analysis. I am indebted to the UNISI International Office for their assistance in compiling the data analysed in this section. b Of these 81 students, 40 are Italian (a further Italian entered from abroad). So, the total number of non-nationals in this BA curriculum is 138 (78%).
A mid-sized Italian university 55
(41–42%), and engineering exerts the greatest pull (53% of the students enter from abroad). So-called “internationalisation at home”, i.e. teaching in English to domestic students, is therefore an important part of the picture. Thanks to (anonymised) data for both Italian and English- medium degree courses regarding nationality, country of origin and country of residence prior to enrolment, it is possible to tease out the extent to which the possibility of studying in English makes Siena attractive to students from different parts of the world. It is also possible to identify some country-specific patterns, which I will report making use of Kachru’s (1992) distinction in terms between Inner, Outer, and Expanding circle countries. EMI is a strong drawing card for students from the Indian subcontinent (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh): 200 (85%) of these students enrolled from abroad, of whom 163 (82%) in EMI degree courses. Among prospective students from these three outer-circle countries, business and economics are particularly popular. Siena’s EMI degree courses also attract students from sub-Saharan Africa: of the 59 students from these countries who enrolled from abroad (another 34 already resided in Italy), 73% chose EMI degrees. Most of these students were from former British colonies –the lion’s share from Ghana. More surprising is the appeal of EMI in the Italian context to students from Russia and ex-Soviet republics (Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Moldavia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan), all of which are expanding- circle countries: of the 42 students from these countries who enrolled from abroad (54% of the total), 32 (76%) did so in EMI degree courses. Students from North Africa and the Middle East are less attracted by the prospect of EMI in Siena: of the 59 students who enrolled directly from their countries of origin (63% of the total), only slightly over half (31, i.e. 53%) are attending English-medium degree courses. Of these, all but three are from Iran, suggesting that either country-specific dynamics or network effects − rather than an EMI “pull” − may be at work. Siena currently attracts a limited number of students from East Asia; enrolment statistics suggest, however, that EMI may exert some appeal (eight out of the 20 students who entered from these countries chose English-medium courses). There is little evidence that EMI in Siena is currently attracting students from other parts of the world. In 2016–2017 there were 171 non-EU students from the neighbouring Balkan peninsula, but 86% of them were already resident in Italy and those who did enter from abroad opted overwhelmingly for Italian-medium courses. This is not surprising, as most were from Albania, where the population in general possesses high levels of proficiency in Italian. As for EU nationals, roughly three- quarters of the 184 enrolled were already residents: Romanians, Poles, Bulgarians, and Croatians (in that order) whose parents had presumably migrated to Italy after the 2004 and 2008 EU enlargements. Of the 47 EU students who entered directly from abroad, roughly two-thirds were attending Italian-medium EU-approved degree courses in the health sciences (pharmacy and medicine); these students came mainly from Greece and France, where places in degree programmes in these areas are limited. The 18 citizens of South American countries enrolled at UNISI in 2016–2017 were already residents in Italy.
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The above overview highlights that the linguistic and cultural diversity observable at the University of Siena has three components: (1) temporary, non-degree-seeking exchange and Erasmus students (“old internationalisation”); (2) degree-seeking non-nationals already resident in Italy; (3) students who have enrolled for degree programmes directly from abroad (“new internationalisation”). Among the third group, EMI attracted primarily students from outer-circle countries, but also from the ex-Soviet republics. To probe to what extent university policies about language and language use − and the way these are communicated − come into the picture, we now turn to an analysis of the discourses about internationalisation produced by the university.
3. Analytic framework and motives for data selection Language policy and language use are part of a complex “ecology” in which a wide range of factors –social, political, economic –come into play (Spolsky, 2004). In the analysis of the interface between internationalisation and language use at the University of Siena presented here, I have privileged three organising principles. First, in a given institutional context, it is important to consider the structures of governance (decision-making): who makes policy and at what level. Second, both explicit language policy and implicit language policies (the ideologies or “hidden agendas” that shape how language is used; cf. Shohamy, 2006) must be taken into account. Third, and most crucially, since all communication –whether by individuals or by institutions –is always addressed to a particular recipient or recipients, it is essential to consider the issue of audience design. The analysis focuses on three types of written institutional discourse linked to the internationalisation process: policy documents; university webpages; and linguistic landscapes. These discourse types, which functionally instantiate different degrees of explicitness, can be seen as primarily addressed to three different audiences or end-users: respectively, the Ministry of Education and governmental funding bodies; prospective students and their parents; students, faculty, and visitors physically present on the university premises. To a greater or lesser extent, all three types are produced by both the central administration and individual departments. The analysis of policy documents focuses on the three- year strategy plans produced at two levels of university governance (central and departmental), examining these against the backdrop of the policy guidelines prepared by the Ministry of Education; this analysis draws methodologically on qualitative content analysis (Schreier, 2012; see Introduction to this volume). The webpage analysis examines the webpages of the UNISI International and Enrolment Offices and departmental webpages aimed at prospective students, and is informed by the multimodal approach to institutional websites proposed by Pauwels (2012) and by Jenkins’s (2014) comparative analysis of university websites.The linguistic landscapes analysis adopts Reh’s (2004) four-way analysis of language choice in bilingual signage (also used by various contributors to Shohamy and Gorter’s (2009) volume) in order to provide a comprehensive description of language use in public space in UNISI’s
A mid-sized Italian university 57
engineering department; the results obtained are assessed against the dual backdrop of patterns of signage in two other Siena departments and in the engineering departments of two other Italian universities to permit the reader to evaluate the relative impact of institutional and disciplinary factors. In the sections devoted to the three analyses (sections 4, 5, 6), the aims and research design of the specific investigation are synthetically indicated, followed by a summary of the main results.4 The conclusions (section 7) bring together insights from the three interlocking analyses in order to highlight how relative position within the institutional “pecking order”, intended audience and factors such as disciplinary affiliation come into play in discourses about language and internationalisation.
4. The internationalisation–English nexus in policy documents This section presents the most significant results of the analysis of the internationalisation– English nexus in the main UNISI policy documents for 2013– 2015 and 2016– 2018, against the backdrop of the general Ministry of Education guidelines for the same two periods. The university’s 2016–2018 document also includes strategy statements produced by the individual departments, making it possible to observe how attitudes towards language use are expressed at two levels (central university governance; departments) and with different institutional interlocutors in mind (respectively the Ministry of Education and, for the departments, the central university administration). The analysis draws on a close examination of patterns of lexical choices and of the use of argumentative linkers in order to pin down the implied referents of expressions that refer to language and language use (e.g. “bilingual”, “in a foreign language”, and the like). This approach, as I will show, makes it possible to uncover underlying assumptions and ideologies in the policy documents in question. The national university policy guidelines for 2013–2015 and 2016–2018 indicate a series of actions to “promote the quality of the university system” (2013– 2015, p. 3). For each strategic area, individual universities must choose the actions they consider most appropriate and feasible for their particular institution, keeping in mind that a significant portion of potential funding will be linked to reaching the relative benchmarks specified. In both three-year ministerial documents, internationalisation is broadly defined in the following terms: “promote territorial integration in order to enhance the international dimension of research and teaching” (DM, 2013–2015, p. 3).5 The reference to “territorial integration” echoes the EU objective of establishing and consolidating a common European Higher Education Area (EHEA): in other words, in national policy, internationalisation is presented as taking place through regional integration.6 Among the possible actions indicated as ways of reaching this goal are “recruiting scholars currently working abroad”, “attracting foreign students”, “promoting mobility for study or training purposes”, and “increasing the number of first, second and third-cycle degree courses in a foreign language, including those involving joint and double-degree courses with
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foreign universities” (DM, 2013–2015, pp. 3–4). This last action is worded so that setting up a joint or double degree with a foreign university is preferable but not obligatory: to reach the benchmark, it is enough to open a degree course “in a foreign language”. In the 2016–2018 guidelines the criteria for defining a degree course as “international” are spelled out in slightly more detail, but are substantially similar.7 Most significantly –and coherently, one might argue, with the EU’s multilingualism strategy –nowhere in either of the two ministerial documents does the word “English” appear. In the two UNISI strategy documents,8 in contrast, the internationalisation=English nexus is placed centre stage. Let us first examine how this emerges in the circa 550 pages of the two documents drafted by the university’s central administration and which reflect the positions of the rector, academic senate, and board of administration. The section of the 2013–2015 document dedicated to goals related to “Teaching” opens as follows: L’obiettivo è quello di incrementare i percorsi formativi in lingua inglese, tramite una pluralità di interventi. L’Ateneo intende, da un lato, potenziare l’offerta delle lauree magistrali in inglese, dall’altro estendere l’offerta formativa in lingua alle lauree di primo livello. UNISI, 2013–2015, p. 81, emphases added The objective [not “an objective”!] is to increase study options in English through a series of actions. On the one hand, the university intends to expand the [number of] second-cycle degree courses in English, on the other hand it aims to extend the provision of teaching in a foreign language to first-degree courses. UNISI, 2013–2015, p. 81, emphases added This view that internationalisation is impossible without the use of English permeates both documents. In the following excerpt, for instance, English is presented as an indispensable condition (conditio sine qua non) for establishing double degrees with foreign universities:9 Uno degli elementi su cui è necessario insistere, come evidenziato in precedenza, è l’offerta di corsi di laurea in lingua inglese. La presenza dell’offerta formativa in lingua inglese è conditio sine qua non per la creazione anche di programmi di doppi diploma, che verranno anche essi ad essere ulteriormente sviluppati nel corso del prossimo triennio. UNISI, 2013–2015, p. 84, emphasis added As previously stressed, one aspect on which it is necessary to place great emphasis is degree-course offerings in English. EMI degree courses are an indispensable condition for the creation of dual degree programmes, which must also be further developed in the next three years. UNISI, 2013–2015, p. 84, emphasis added
A mid-sized Italian university 59
To reach this objective the university is prepared to put its money where its mouth is: greater weight will be attributed to each hour of teaching in English when calculating staff members’ teaching loads (indications about this weighting, i.e. that each hour of teaching in English is to be weighted as 1.5 hours, appears in a separate internal policy document). This decision seems to reflect an unstated recognition that teaching in English may not be attractive or at any rate is more onerous: Ai fini della promozione della dimensione internazionale della formazione, ciascuna ora di insegnamento nell’ambito di un corso tenuto in lingua inglese sarà oggetto di specifica ponderazione. UNISI, 2013–2015, p. 81, emphasis added In order to promote the international dimension of the teaching-learning offerings, each hour of teaching as part of an English-medium course with be attributed a specific weighting. UNISI, 2013–2015, p. 81, emphasis added Of even greater interest are the numerous points in the UNISI strategy documents at which the internationalisation=English assumption must be activated if the reader is to follow the line of reasoning advanced. The following extract describes “problem-solving projects” being set up between several EMI second-cycle degree courses and local companies. These projects will give students a chance to apply what they are studying in the classroom to real-life problems in the workplace. The working language, we learn, will be English: Data la presenza di alcuni percorsi di Laurea Magistrale offerti interamente in lingua inglese e con crescente presenza di studenti non italiani, è prevista la definizione di alcuni progetti pilota in lingua inglese offerti da particolari realtà aziendali fortemente internazionalizzati. UNISI, 2013–2015, p. 129, emphases added Given the presence of several second-cycle degree courses offered entirely in English and the growing presence of non-Italian students, several pilot projects in English with certain highly-internationalized companies will be offered. UNISI, 2013–2015, p. 129, emphases added This description makes sense only if the reader activates several implicit assumptions about the project participants. First, that “highly internationalized companies” are doing business in English (rather than in other languages) and hence that a considerable portion of their staff –or at least the people with whom the students will be in contact –speaks English; second, that the “non-Italian students” attending EMI degree courses do not possess strong enough Italian language skills to engage in “problem-solving projects” in Italian. Neither of these assumptions about linguistic competence (possession of English skills on the part of company staff; lack of Italian
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skills on the part of non-Italian EMI students) is stated directly, yet both need to be activated on the reader’s part if English is to be unproblematically accepted as the default working language. The use of the causal subordinate clause “Given…” facilitates this operation. This internationalisation=English nexus is reinforced –indeed, one might argue, “naturalised” –by a flattening of the linguistic universe of the two texts. In part this is due to the paucity of references to the Italian language, except when it is mentioned in relation to English (only seven to eight free-standing mentions appear in the parts of the two documents drafted by the university’s central administration). But largely it is due to a conflation of expressions like lingua straniera (foreign language) and in lingua (in a foreign language) with “English”. The following excerpt exemplifies this tendency. The second-degree- level courses taught in English mentioned, i.e. economics, engineering, and biomedical sciences, are declared to be in “disciplinary areas which are traditionally most oriented towards teaching in a foreign language”: clearly, this statement can be taken as true only if the referent of “foreign language” is assumed to be coterminous with “English”: I corsi di studio in lingua inglese offerti nell’a.a. 2012/13 si collocano tutti nel secondo livello della formazione e interessano aree disciplinari più tradizionalmente vocate all’insegnamento in lingua straniera, anche avendo riguardo alle esperienze scientifiche e di ricerca. Infatti, i corsi di laurea magistrale in inglese sono attivati nei settori dell’economia e della finanza, nonché nel settore dell’ingegneria e nel settore biomedico. Nell’anno accademico 13/14 l’offerta è invariata. UNISI, 2013–2015, p. 80, emphases added The degree courses in English offered in 2012/13 are all second-cycle courses and regard disciplinary areas which are traditionally most oriented towards teaching in a foreign language, due in part to past scientific and research experiences. The second-cycle courses in English are in fact in the areas of economics and finance, engineering and biomedical sciences. For the 2013–14 academic year the degree course offerings will remain the same. UNISI, 2013–2015, p. 80, emphases added A similar reduction of the universe of foreign languages to “English” is visible in the use of other language-related terms. Observe, for example, the way in which bilingue (bilingual) is used in the following excerpt about a project designed to increase enrolments (the video clips mentioned regard not only EMI degree courses but all of the university’s degree offerings). If the two alternatives are English subtitles or “bilingual”, then by exclusion “bilingual” can refer only to “Italian-English”: Utilizzando anche risorse interne, saranno realizzate videoclip descrittive di ciascun corso di studi che verranno a loro volta pubblicate sulla piattaforma
A mid-sized Italian university 61
iTunesU e sul canale YouTube dell’Ateneo. Tali clip […] dovranno essere di grande qualità e dovranno obbligatoriamente essere bilingue o sottotitolati in inglese. UNISI, 2013–2015, p. 102, emphasis added Using internal financial resources, descriptive video clips for each degree course will be produced which will then be published on iTunesU and the UNISI YouTube channel. These clips […] are to be high quality and must obligatorily be bilingual or with English subtitles. UNISI, 2013–2015, p. 102, emphasis added Up to this point we have focused on language policy and implicit ideologies as articulated on the level of the UNISI central administration. As mentioned earlier, however, the 2016–2018 document also contains strategy statements drafted by the university’s 15 departments. While many of these line up roughly with the orientations discussed above, a range of language and internationalisation agendas are visible. The Humanities department, for example, sees little utility in activating degree courses in English. Creating incentives for student mobility is instead the key to true internationalisation: In alcune delle aree scientifiche coltivate nel DEPT NAME, l’attivazione di corsi di laurea, o anche di singoli corsi, in lingua inglese risulterebbe poco significativo (o addirittura privo di senso, come nel caso dell’italianistica). Deve invece essere incentivata la mobilità Erasmus in uscita, sia nel triennio sia nelle lauree magistrali. UNISI, 2016–2018, p. 79, emphasis added In a number of the disciplines belonging to DEPT NAME, activating degree courses or even individual courses taught in English is of little importance (or indeed meaningless, as in the case of Italian Studies). Instead, incentives are needed in order to get students to participate in Erasmus exchanges, both at the BA and MA levels. UNISI, 2016–2018, p. 79, emphasis added The Political Science department represents the other end of the spectrum. There an English-only approach and a nativist ideology in terms of language use and language accuracy prevail, as demonstrated by the following quotes from its departmental strategy statement: […] migliorare la qualità della comunicazione on line sui siti web di dipartimento, rendendo immediatamente disponibile e trasparente in lingua inglese e esclusivamente in essa, tutte le informazioni relative ai corsi offerti in lingua inglese. […] Per questo, la richiesta è per una unità di personale, madre- lingua inglese, nativo digitale ed esperto di web design. UNISI, 2016–2018, p. 88, emphases added
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[…] improve the quality of online communication on the department websites by making immediately available and transparent in English and exclusively in English all information about EMI degree courses. […] To achieve this objective, the department requests an additional member of the administrative staff who is English mother-tongue, a digital native and expert in web design. UNISI, 2016–2018, p. 88, emphases added When viewed against the backdrop of the national guidelines, the two-tiered analysis of university language policy provided here offers some important insights. First, in the face of what appears to be an almost deliberate silence on the national level about the dominance of English in academia (both globally and in the European context), on the level of the UNISI central governance the nexus between internationalisation and the use of English is explicitly recognised. More significantly this nexus must also be assumed if readers are to activate the inferencing processes required to coherently interpret the patterns of discourse reference present in the central administration’s policy documents as a whole. A second, and equally important, point is that perspectives on language and language use within the university are far from monolithic: when departmental strategy statements are examined, a spectrum of stances on language and internationalisation can be observed. The presence of this diversity is a reminder of the importance of attending to who produces certain types of discourse and for whom, i.e. for what addressee or addressees. With this caveat in mind, let us now turn to the analysis of the university’s webpages.
5. Website analysis: representing the university and EMI degree courses to potential students The second phase of the analysis was an examination of three sections of the UNISI English and Italian websites: the webpages managed by the International Office, those managed by the Student Enrolment Office, and the online descriptions of the 13 EMI degree courses prepared by the various departments.10 Discourses originating at two levels of the university administration (central, departmental) were thus again involved. The analysis presented below aims to articulate the embedded point(s) of view, implied audience(s) and purposes of these webpages, in order to pinpoint how language requirements needed for admission are presented to prospective students and their families and to identify shared and divergent viewpoints on links between internationalisation and language use. The International Office is responsible for providing logistic and practical support to incoming study abroad and degree-seeking students. The most complete version of its webpages is the English one, and the language used is relatively standard and colloquial. Its centrepiece is an online Prezi presentation, in which the office markets itself to prospective and newly arrived students as “International Place”, a virtual city square –like Siena’s central Piazza del Campo –in which incoming students can find all the help they need in adapting to their new setting.
A mid-sized Italian university 63
“Whether you stay in Siena for some months or for years as a student of our University” (emphasis added), a slide reads, “you will find all the information required at the International Place.” Overtly, therefore, the presentation targets study abroad and exchange students but also degree-seeking students, so what I have termed both “old” and “new” internationalisation (see section 2). In terms of content, however, it mainly addresses the first group –students who, like the incoming Erasmus student quoted earlier, want to experience the Italian way of life. “We want you to live here a fruitful and enjoyable period of your life”, a slide announces, “learning about Italian culture, traditions and … food!” and taking part in “extra-curricular activities … such as informal conversation in Italian language” (what language will be used in the classroom is not mentioned). Fittingly, the presentation is bilingual, with the Italian text positioned above and in larger print. A second document,“Ten reasons to study at the University of Siena” (in English only), highlights that degree courses “are taught in Italian or English” (with Italian mentioned first) and that there are summer schools and other programmes “in various fields related to Italian culture and society”; readers are also told that they will be able to obtain “Italian language certification”. However, unlike the presentation, this document is clearly addressed to degree-seeking students. Readers are told, for example, that as international students they “can spend a period of between 3 and 12 months in another European country, through the LLP/Erasmus programme” and that “some departments offer study grants to particularly deserving students” –both opportunities available only to students enrolled for degrees. In both documents, as in other texts on the International Office’s pages, the criteria for attractiveness that underpin the pitch to prospective incoming students are primarily those of the university’s “old” internationalisation: while prospective students, whether study abroad or degree-seeking, may indeed enter these pages (and, metaphorically, the UNISI universe) through the medium of English, the language in question is essentially a conduit that will facilitate contact with an Italian institution and with the rich cultural and sensorial experience of “Chiantishire” (as Siena and the surrounding countryside are labelled in yet another text). In short, in the experience about to take place, Italian culture and heritage –and with them, the Italian language –will play a central role. The webpages managed by the Student Enrolment Office and aimed at recruiting students from abroad are more contained and straightforward. The homepage, like that of the International Office, is in English. From it, a laconic indication “first-degree courses/second-degree courses” directs the reader without further ado towards two subpages on which drop-down menus indicate, respectively, the university’s undergraduate and graduate degree courses (the two pages also contain synthetic indications about application requirements, to which I will return shortly). In both menus, the degree courses taught in English are listed first; those in Italian, below. These links lead to short pop-up descriptions: in English, for the English-medium courses; in Italian, for the others. From here, readers who desire further information about a particular course of study are directed to pages which, while respecting a layout common to all of the university’s degree courses,
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are managed directly by the department-based committee for the individual degree. The English used on this latter group of pages varies considerably, but contains various traces of “non-nativeness” and interference from Italian. The reader’s experience of the Enrolment Office pages is quite different from that of the pages managed by the International Office: the pages are utilitarian, rather than promotional. The functional slant of the textual material is offset, however, by large photos that stretch across the upper third of the screen, in which groups of obviously non-Italian students are portrayed in dynamic interaction. In one photo, taken during what appears to be a welcome reception, a group of dark- skinned girls (three in colourful African headdresses) smile directly at the observer, while to their left –jostling to get on camera –a mixed-gender group of varied ethnic backgrounds lean forward with a small EU flag. In another shot, taken from above, a group of students is shown running clockwise around the fifteenth-century courtyard of the university’s central administration building, flags in hand; alongside the flags of the USA, France, Germany, and (of course) Italy, appear those of several extra-European countries, including Belarus and Togo –the latter held by a rather pale, fair-haired girl. The visual message conveyed is thus one of recognition of international students’ identities in a context of mutual acceptance and exchange. Let us now turn briefly to how language is dealt with explicitly on the central Enrolment Office site and on the embedded pages managed directly by the individual EMI degree courses. How are entrance language requirements formulated? And how is language referred to (if at all) in the descriptions of the study experience? As regards language requirements, the impression is one of ambiguity –even, one might argue, of deliberate vagueness. On the main enrolment page, prospective foreign students considering Italian-medium degree courses are advised simply that “to apply for courses taught in Italian a good knowledge of the Italian language is required.” No specific cut-off level is indicated here or elsewhere: in the list of required documents, applicants are simply requested to “attach a certificate of proficiency in Italian, with language level”. For the English-medium degree courses, the main page declares that “a good verbal and written command of this language is essential”. Unlike for Italian, the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) levels B1 and B2 are mentioned but the timeframe for meeting language requirements is unclear: on the same page we read “in general, a B2 level must be obtained within the first year of the course”; “some programs require at least the B1 level at the enrolment”; “in some programs, a B2 level is required before the enrolment”.The list of documents required to apply to the EMI degrees is not of greater help, as here we read simply that applicants who are not “native English speakers” must present “a transcript of English proficiency test (TOEFL [Test of English as a Foreign Language], Cambridge, etc.) or any statement proving an equivalent proficiency”.This wording can, of course, mean both all and nothing: the TOEFL and the Cambridge Syndicate exams place those who take them along a range of levels and the term “proficiency”, if used at all, is usually reserved for only the highest results (CEFR C2). As for an eventual “statement proving an equivalent proficiency”, the page does not specify by whom this should be issued. The
A mid-sized Italian university 65
prospective student must thus turn to the department-level descriptions. Here he or she will finally learn whether a specific language level (B1, B2) is required upon entrance (in a number of cases, no level is specified). In only one case is information provided about how applications which lack a TOEFL or Cambridge exam result will be treated.11 This absence of information about required language skills is surprising, since in many cases very specific indications are instead provided about what disciplinary-specific knowledge will be assessed before a place is granted. A final revelatory feature of the EMI degree course descriptions are the limited references to the role of English in students’ projected study experience. While the materials presented to the Ministry to obtain approval for the EMI degree courses contain various references to the value of EMI in promoting internationalisation-at- home or enhancing students’ knowledge of English,12 in the online descriptions the added value of attending a degree course in English is rarely mentioned. The two exceptions identified are thus of interest. The first is the comment, in the description of the first-degree course in Economics and Banking, that “graduates will also attain a significant advantage for progressing to a number of graduate courses and, in particular, for the two MSc programmes in Economics and Finance taught in English at Siena”: here, studying in English as an undergraduate is presented as facilitating admission to second-cycle degree courses taught in English.The second mention occurs in the description of a second-cycle course in Language and Mind located in the Humanities department, which reads as follows: Courses are offered in English in order to stress the international character of the master program and favour the enrolment of international students as well as the interaction between Italian and foreign students; to enhance the opportunity to access international doctoral programs, the capacity of students to actively participate in international conferences and seminars, the possibility to access job opportunities abroad. https://language-mind.unisi.it/en/course/description Here is where the utility of examining discourses produced at different levels of governance and addressed to different audiences begins to emerge as useful. As will be recalled (see section 4), it was precisely in the Humanities department’s strategy statement that discordant views about the utility of English in achieving internationalisation were expressed. It is possible that intra-departmental disputes or politics –together, of course, with the fact that here linguists are directly involved –may go some way towards explaining the rather extensive attention dedicated to the presumed benefits of EMI in this degree course description.
6. Linguistic landscape analysis The third phase of the analysis was an investigation of selected linguistic landscapes. The objective was to identify salient aspects of the everyday language experience
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of staff, students and visitors of the University of Siena premises in order to understand to what extent this experience reflects the explicit language ideologies and implicit practices found in the other types of institutional discourse examined. The University of Siena is an urban institution, with buildings disseminated throughout the city’s medieval urban centre, in turn a popular tourist destination. I therefore decided to limit my investigation to public areas on the university premises themselves (excluding, for example, adjacent store fronts). The use of English in academic settings is known to vary widely by discipline and setting. I thus decided to adopt a comparative case study format focusing on the UNISI Engineering department, which, as highlighted in section 2, has so far proved most successful in attracting incoming students from abroad. This comparison was two-fold. First, with the help of a student,13 I carried out a comprehensive linguistic landscape analysis of the department and of the Engineering departments of Milan Polytechnic (an EMI “early innovator”; see section 1) and Florence (which, as it lacked EMI degree courses in engineering at the time of data collection, can arguably be considered a “laggard”). This within-discipline analysis was quantitative: a digital database of photographs of all visible signage in the public areas of all three Engineering departments normally accessible to students and visitors (with the exception of classroom interiors) was compiled and analysed in terms of authorship, function, and language(s) used. Second, I sampled the linguistic landscapes of two other departments at the University of Siena, chosen to represent different orientations towards internationalisation through the use of English: the Economics department (which, as the policy document analysis has highlighted, exhibits a strong English language orientation) and the Department of Educational Sciences, which does not currently offer EMI degree courses.14 The results of the within-discipline analysis of the three Engineering departments are synthesised in Tables 3.2 and 3.3, which show respectively the distribution of Italian and English in institutional signage (i.e. produced by the university) and non-institutional signage (i.e. produced by other authors). A comparison of the totals for institutional and non-institutional signage in each department (respectively the bottom rows of Tables 3.2 and 3.3 for each institution), shows that in Milan non-institutional signage dominates the public space (91 institutional vs. 368 non-institutional items). In Florence, the presence of institutional and non-institutional signage is roughly equal (respectively 123 vs. 122). The linguistic landscape of Siena’s Engineering department, instead, is highly institutionalised, with 90% of the linguistic landscape authored by the university (204 items authored by the central administration or department vs. only 22 by other authors). This prevalence of institutional signage in the Siena context makes the effects of the language choices made by university actors (see Table 3.2) particularly salient. A first aspect that strikes even the casual visitor is the high presence of monolingual English-only signage compared to the other two contexts: 38.7% of all institutional signage in Siena vs. 14.6% and 1.6% respectively in Milan and Florence. This is primarily due to the large number of scientific posters produced by UNISI staff and
A mid-sized Italian university 67 TABLE 3.2 Institutional signage in three Italian Engineering departments
Milan Monolingual Italian Monolingual English Duplicating (all info in both Itl and Eng) Complementary (different info in Itl and Eng) Overlapping (some info duplicated, some only in Itl)
Florence
Siena
44 12 16
53.7% 14.6% 19.5%
19
12.2%
18
14.6%
0
0%
1
0.8%
91
102 82.9% 2 1.6% 0 0%
123
87 42.6% 79 38.7% 15 7.4% 22 10.8% 1
0.5%
204
TABLE 3.3 Non-institutional signage in three Italian Engineering departments
Milan Monolingual Italian 283 Monolingual Englisha 27 Duplicating (all info in both Itl 4 and Eng) Complementary (different info 50 in Itl and Eng) Overlapping (some info duplicated, 4 some only in Itl) 368
Florence
Siena
76.7% 7.3% 1.1%
94 17 0
77.0% 13.9% 0%
9 7 0
40.9% 31.8% 0%
13.6%
9
7.4%
6
27.3%
1.1%
2
1.6%
0
0%
122
22
a In Milan, one monolingual Chinese and one Italian-Chinese item were also present.
doctoral students hanging in the corridors. Posters of this sort are usually presented at scientific conferences, where the readers are scholarly peers; here, instead, the target viewers are students and visitors to the department. This displacement in terms of addressees suggests a shift in purpose: rather than scholarly diffusion, the posters serve to display recent research and concurrently, given that they are in English, “internationality”. An analysis of bilingual signage helps uncover other implicit language ideologies and ideas about language use. Duplicating signage, for instance, presents the same information in both languages: building signage, emergency indications, prohibitions, and instructions are among the type of materials that typically appear in this parallel format. In Milan, as befits the university’s status as an EMI “early innovator”, such signage appears to originate at the level of the central administration and utilises standard English.15 In Siena, instead, it is produced at the departmental level and Italian clearly dominates. This dominance manifests itself in terms of position: where freestanding texts are involved, Italian always appears on the left or at the top, English on the right or at the bottom; where Italian and English
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Ricevimento studenti (Office Hours)
• Lunedi (Monday): 10:00–12:00 • Martedi (Tuesday): 10:00–12:00
• For other appointments please send an e-mail to: [email protected]
FIGURE 3.1 Office
hours sign
are intertwined, the English equivalents are presented second and in parentheses (Figure 3.1). It also manifests itself, however, in terms of conditions of text production: the English versions are clearly translated versions of the Italian “originals” and contain calques and structural anomalies. Instructions to students posted on the departmental secretary’s door, for instance, read “Attention: for streamlining procedures and sparing lines at the counter, forms that have already filled out, can be let go in the postbox”, a more or less literal, word-by-word rendering of the Italian equivalent on the left (“N.B.: Al fine di snellire le procedure ed evitare code allo sportello, i moduli già compilati possono anche essere lasciati nella cassetta della posta”); a sign on the door to an area reserved for study groups (Figure 3.2) reminds students that they must use “electronic dispositives” only at a low volume or with earphones, a clear claque of the equivalent Italian warning that appears immediately above: “PUOI …tenere dispositive elettroniche a basso volume o con auricolari.” Complementary signage in the department (i.e. posted items in which some information is in English, other in Italian) also reveals traces of linguistic ideology to an attentive eye. As one enters the department, a large sign displayed on a sleek metallic pedestal guides the newcomer towards the “FRONT OFFICE” (written in capital letters in the upper half) where “informazioni” (written in italics in the lower half and accompanied by a stylised “i” in a circle) can be obtained. On the wall to the left, a colourful poster displays a robotic hand holding what appears to be a drill; below it, the prospective student is encouraged to “CONNECT TO THE FUTURE” (the name of the department, written in Italian, appears in smaller print). In these and similar notices and posters addressed to prospective and current students, English appears to index pedagogic innovation, independently of whether actual teaching will take place in it. A qualitative, small-scale sampling of the linguistic landscapes in the Economics and Educational Sciences departments reveals both continuities and differences. In neither setting, apart from a couple of isolated cases in the Economics department,
A mid-sized Italian university 69
FIGURE 3.2 Study
area sign
are the scientific posters that massively line the walls of the Engineering department in view. There are, however, a number of English-only notices publicising upcoming lectures by visiting scholars and study opportunities abroad. Rather than exercising a display function, these notices are addressed directly to the department’s students and staff. As in Engineering, in both departments the use of English to index pedagogical innovation is common: in notices in Italian about upcoming initiatives directed towards domestic students in the Educational Sciences department, for example, English expressions like “soft skills” and “flipped classroom” used to refer to innovative, participatory approaches to pedagogy abound. This “decorative” use of English can at times lead to incongruities. For instance, a recent workshop on reading techniques designed to improve retention of information from Italian textbooks and articles was publicised with an English title; when a colleague from the language section pointed out that publicising in English a course designed to develop study skills in Italian might lead to confusion, the comment was met with puzzled expressions (personal communication).
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7. Structures of governance, intended addressees, and the explicitation of language policy Read together, the analyses of three types of discourse produced at the University of Siena –policy documents, web communication and linguistic landscapes – produce some important insights into how language policy gets articulated and communicated in the Italian higher education context. First, it is clear that the structure of governance matters.The Ministry of Education (perhaps under scrutiny from the EU Commission?) has articulated an “internationalisation through European integration” agenda in which any mention of English as the dominant language of academia is noticeably absent. The University of Siena central governance is instead explicit about the internationalisation–English link. Finally, at a lower level of university governance –that of individual departments –a plurality of voices and positions can be discerned. Second, the target audience or audiences for a particular type of discourse and the functions that discourse is intended to carry out are profoundly important. Conveying strategic goals to institutional higher ups, recruiting potential students in an already over-crowded EMI market, and manifesting “internationality” and engagement in innovative pedagogical practices to students and visitors as they circulate around university premises are very different communicative acts. The three analyses indicate how practical decisions about language and language use and how these are presented (including issues of standards and requirements) can vary widely. The mapping proposed in this chapter between institutional actors, types of institutional discourse and addressees is clearly a simplification. Many policy documents are posted on university websites and are thus also potentially available to the general public; conversely, university webpages are routinely examined by the Ministry of Education in order to assess whether strategies indicated in policy documents have actually been implemented. We can thus expect documents to contain evidence of not only audience but also referee design (Bell, 1984). Texts of one type, moreover, may explicitly set up links with others: university policy documents, for example, routinely contain links to relevant webpages describing how the goals indicated have been implemented. Institutional discourse is thus permeated by intertextuality. The classification does, however, have the advantage of placing institutional actors, audience and purpose at the heart of the analysis, thus permitting a comparative approach. The more fine-g rained picture that emerges indicates that the English–internationalisation nexus has been largely naturalised in the Italian higher education context, but that it is not –in either theoretically or practical terms –the only discourse possible.
Notes 1 The national newspaper La Repubblica, for example, uses the percentage (with respect to the total number of students enrolled) of international students, exchange students, and degree course students who spend a period abroad; a fourth indicator is the amount spent per student to support student mobility abroad.While the first two criteria coincide with
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indices indicated by Pillar and Cho (2015, p. 177) for the South Korean context, the latter two highlight how the notion of “internationalisation” in the European context is tied to the EU policy of tighter integration of the European Higher Education Area.Two other indices indicated by Pillar and Cho –number of foreigners belonging to teaching staff and amount of EMI teaching –are not considered. 2 http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/education_culture/repository/education/library/statistics/ erasmus-plus-facts-figures_en.pdf 3 As for other forms of institutional change, Rogers’ (1962/2003) distinction between innovators, early adopters, majority (early, late), and laggards is in my view a useful tool for examining the spread of EMI in Italy and worldwide. 4 Where documents were in English, attention was also paid to whether writers were orienting to towards “native speaker” standards in terms of grammatical accuracy and idiomaticity (and, if so, towards what standard). 5 Available respectively online at the following links: http://attiministeriali.miur.it/anno- 2013/ottobre/dm-15102013.aspx; http://attiministeriali.miur.it/anno-2016/agosto/ dm-08082016.aspx 6 Another policy hidden between the lines of the Ministry’s internationalisation agenda is that of encouraging privatisation of the higher education sector: for the period 2013– 2015, we learn (p. 5) that no new public universities can be founded, whereas “non- public universities” can if –alongside an adequate research background on the part of the proponents and an adequate financial base (apart from eventual state funding) –the offerings include at least one degree course (first or second cycle) “completely taught in a foreign language”. 7 The appendix to the 2016–2018 document indicates four criteria for evaluating if a degree course is “international” (significantly, in the original document the term “international” in this context appears between quotation marks).These are: teaching is carried out in conjunction with foreign universities; the curriculum includes structured international mobility (i.e. all students spend some time abroad); the degree course has received financing through the EU Erasmus plus 2014–2020 programme (only for second-cycle courses); all teaching takes place “in a foreign language”. The more of these criteria that are met, the more “international” the degree course is, but, as the applicability of the third criterion to only second-cycle courses makes clear, all four are not needed for a degree course to qualify as “international”. 8 Available online respectively at the following links: www.unisi.it/sites/default/files/ Pro3_2013_2015.pdf; www.unisi.it/sites/default/files/Pro3_REV_9feb2017-1.pdf 9 This insistence on English being “necessary” is purely rhetorical, as can be verified by a close perusal of the ministerial guidelines or indeed by simply examining the university’s own website, where one of the departments proudly showcases a double degree programme in the humanities with a French university, in which the teaching languages are French and Italian. 10 The analysis of the university webpages has benefited from insights provided by students attending courses or preparing final projects on English and globalisation. In particular I would like to acknowledge the contribution of Mirco Cheli, Alessandra Chiarini, Simone Gori, and Antonella Valdarchi. 11 The Masters in Applied Mathematics notes that, in the absence of a “certificate of English language knowledge up to level B2” the “teaching committee will check that the applicant knows the English language up to level B2” (from the surrounding cotext, one intuits that this will take place in the context of an oral interview). 12 The ministerial document presented by the second-cycle degree in Chemistry, for example, lists “permitting a good knowledge of oral and written English” as an expected
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learning outcome; its counterpart for Cultural Diplomacy notes that “carrying out all activities in English will provide immediate practice in intercultural interaction and eliminate language obstacles for graduates who will be working in international settings or in any case in close contact with institutions and representatives of different cultures”. 13 I would like to thank Matteo Manneschi for his assistance in collecting and analysing the data. 14 In line with previous studies on linguistic landscapes in university settings (e.g. Yavari, 2012), for the Engineering departments, signage was categorised in terms of authorship (institutional, student, other e.g. commercial) and language use (monolingual, duplicating, overlapping, complementary); the latter classification reflects the categories developed by Reh (2004), as adapted in Huebner (2009) and Spolsky (2009). For multilingual signage, dominant/subordinate language was identified on the basis of position, font size, etc. The qualitative “spot checks” of the other two departments focused on the bi/multilingual and English-only signage present in the two settings, in particular on the functions attributed to the use of English. 15 In Florence, an EMI laggard, no duplicating signage was found.
References Anderson, L. (2016).Why context matters in English-medium instruction (EMI): Reflections based on experience in the Italian university system and in an EU-funded programme for early-career scholars. In N. Tsantila, J. Mandalios, & M. Ilkos (Eds.), ELF: Pedagogical and interdisciplinary perspectives (pp. 136–144). Athens: Deree –The American College of Greece. Bell, A. (1984). Language style as audience design. Language in Society, 13(2), 145–204. Campagna, S., & Pulcini,V. (2014). English as a medium of instruction in Italian universities: Linguistic policies, pedagogical implications. Textus. English Studies in Italy. Perspectives on English as a Lingua Franca, 27(1), 173–190. Costa, F. (2012). Focus on form in ICLHE lectures in Italy: Evidence from English-medium science lectures by native speakers of Italian. Integrating Content and Language in Higher Education: Gaining insights into English-medium instruction at European universities. AILA Review, 25, 30–47. Costa, F. (2016). CLIL (content and language integrated learning) through English in Italian higher education. Milan: Edizioni Universitarie di Lettere Economia Diritto. Costa, F., & Coleman, J. (2012). A survey of English-medium instruction in Italian higher education. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 15(1), 1–17. Gotti, M. (2014). Cooperative meaning-making activities in ELF university courses. Textus. English Studies in Italy. Perspectives on English as a lingua franca, 27(1), 17–33. Guarda, M., & Helm, F. (2016). “I have discovered new teaching pathways”: The link between language shift and teaching practice. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 20(7), 897–913. Helm, F. (2014). EMI in Italy –the current situation. Retrieved from www.education.ox.ac. uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/HELM_EMI_ITALY.pdf Huebner,T. (2009). A framework for the analysis of linguistic landscapes. In E. Shohamy & D. Gorter (Eds.), Linguistic landscape: Expanding the scenery (pp. 70–89). London: Routledge. Jenkins, J. (2014). English as a lingua franca in the international university: The politics of academic English language policy. London: Routledge. Kachru, B. (Ed.). (1992). The other tongue: English across cultures (2nd ed.). Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.
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Marimon, R., Lietaert, M., & Grigolo, M. (2009).Towards the “fifth freedom”: Increasing the mobility of researchers in the European Union. Higher Education in Europe, 34(1), 25–37. Marschio, N., & De Martino, D. (Eds.). (2013). Fuori l’italiano dall’università? Inglese, internazionalizzazione, politica linguistica [Will Italian be kicked out of the university? English, internationalisation, language policy]. Roma/Bari: Laterza. OECD. (2016). Italy. In International Migration Outlook 2016. Paris: OECD Publishing. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/migr_outlook-2016-24-en Pauwels, L. (2012). A multimodal framework for analysing websites as cultural expressions. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 17, 247–265. Pillar, I., & Cho, J. (2015). Neoliberalism as language policy. In T. Ricento (Ed.), Language policy and political economy: English in a global context (pp. 162–186). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Pulcini, V., & Campagna, S. (2015). Internationalisation and the EMI controversy in Italian higher education. In S. Dimova, A.K. Hultgren, & C. Jensen (Eds.), English-medium instruction in European higher education (pp. 65–87). Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter. Reh, M. (2004). Multilingual writing: A reader-oriented typology –with examples from Lira Municipality (Uganda). International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 170, 1–41. Rogers, E. (1962/2003). Diffusion of innovations (5th ed., 2003). New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. Schreier, M. (2012). Qualitative content analysis in practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Shohamy, E. (2006). Language policy: Hidden agendas and new approaches. London: Routledge. Shohamy, E., & Gorter, D. (Eds.). (2009). Linguistic landscape: Expanding the scenery. London: Routledge. Spolsky, B. (2004). Language policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Spolsky, B. (2009). Prolegomena to a sociolinguistic theory of public signage. In E. Shohamy & D. Gorter (Eds.), Linguistic landscape: Expanding the scenery (pp. 25– 39). London: Routledge. Tosi, A. (2016). Cui prodest? L’uso dell’inglese nell’insegnamento delle lauree magistrali in Italia [Who benefits? The use of English in second-cycle degree teaching in Italy]. In F. Gatta (Ed.), Parlare insieme: Studi per Daniela Zorzi [Talking together: Studies in memory of Daniela Zorzi] (pp. 91–103). Bologna: Bonomia University Press. Yavari, S. (2012). Linguistic landscape and language policy: A comparative study of Linköping University and ETH Zürich (Unpublished Master’s Thesis). Linköping University, Sweden. Retrieved from www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A574524& dswid=-6305
4 LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY IN A TRADITIONALLY MONOLINGUAL UNIVERSITY A multi-analytical approach Ignacio Vázquez, María J. Luzón, and Carmen Pérez-Llantada 1. Background of the study Present-day interest in multilingual education in the Spanish higher education (HE) area has mainly derived from the need to harmonise education in Europe, enhance the competitiveness of European universities, and promote the employability of European citizens (van der Wende, 2000). Attainment of the objectives of the Bologna Declaration was planned “in full respect of the diversity of cultures, languages, national education systems, and of university autonomy” (p. 306). In the Spanish HE context, alignment with the Bologna Declaration came along with a perceived drift towards the commodification of knowledge and easily discernible political and institutional discourses advocating the “excellence” national- based research and teaching in the international arena. Concurrent with ideological discourses supporting the value of English as a global “language for communication” and international outreach, Spanish, the national language, was viewed as a highly valued international language for education, mobility, cooperation, and professional development. Spanish is spoken by 567 million speakers in the world, of which, 472 million people speak it as a first or second language (Cervantes Institute, 2016). Additionally, the fact that more than 21 million students in the world study Español como Lengua Extranjera (ELE), that is, Spanish as a foreign language (p. 4) attests to the scope of Spanish as a major world language today. The status of Spanish is geolinguistically different from the statuses of Scandinavian languages (where the practice of parallelingualism in HE is well established), and from those of national languages in Eastern and Southern Europe that, at least to date, do not hold statuses of world languages. Spanish is preserved and regulated by the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language,1 which tracks and describes Spanish language variation and actively promotes and disseminates the
A Spanish university 75
knowledge of Spanish in Latin America. Spanish maintains the historical and cultural links between the two sides of the Atlantic, transatlantic regional cooperation as well as science dissemination among/across Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain, and Portugal. In this respect, it is worth noting the crucial role that the Cervantes Institute plays in supporting the Spanish language and culture and disseminating the Hispanic cultural heritage and history.2 In the Spanish HE system, which comprises a total of 83 universities (50 public and 33 private universities) (Ministerio de Educación, Cultura, y Deporte, 2016, p. 5), Spanish is a shared language that enables a rich institutional exchange between Spanish and Latin American universities through, e.g. EU programmes such as ALAMED, INCO, or ALFA and through Spanish-based AECID and Fundación Carolina (Acosta, Cuvi, & Roque, 2003; Pérez-Llantada, 2012). Out of the total number of students (1,529,730) only 5.6% are foreign students (Ministerio de Educación, Cultura, y Deporte, 2016, p. 101). Erasmus mobility involved 33,500 outgoing students in 2014–2015 (p. 105). In 2012–2013 there were 39,249 outgoing students (to Italy, Germany France, and UK), representing almost 15% of all mobilities in Europe (a total of 268,143). For the past years Spain is the most popular destination of incoming Erasmus students (e.g. 40,202 in 2012/2013) (SEPIE, 2014). The University of Zaragoza (UZ) is a traditionally monolingual research and teaching institution located in Southwest Europe (the Spanish Peninsula). It has three main campuses located within the regional community of Aragón: the largest campus in Zaragoza, and two smaller campuses, one in the North province of Aragón, Huesca (on the border with France) and one in the South province,Teruel. The UZ also belongs to the Iberus campus of international excellence (www. campusiberus.es/), a strategic research, teaching and innovation-oriented alliance with other universities of the Ebro valley. At present, the UZ has 28,368 undergraduate students, 1,938 Master’s students, 1,211 doctoral students, and 4,163 staff.3 In the academic year 2014–2015 the university registered 906 incoming students from mobility programmes. The UZ promotional leaflet (Figure 4.1) describes the institution as “a leading university in the process of adapting to the European Space of Higher Education”, “innovative, committed, international, everybody’s university”.4 Domestic undergraduate students represent 96% of the student population. The remaining percentage is represented by international students coming from Erasmus and Latin America exchange programmes. Teaching is mainly conducted in the national language, Spanish, with the exception of courses taught in departments of languages and, outside those departments, only a few courses offering EMI instruction. UZ is ranked among the top 500 universities in the Academic Ranking of World Universities5 and in the QS World University Rankings.6 The latest world ranking position of UZ is 389 in the National Taiwan University Ranking.7 High- impact factor research is conducted in mainly English, with the Faculty of Science taking the lead, with more than 1,000 articles published per year in the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) Web of Science.
76 Vázquez, Luzón, & Pérez-Llantada
FIGURE 4.1 UZ
promotional leaflet
2. Internationalising the Spanish HE sector The study English-taught programmes in European higher education (ETPs heretofore) (Wächter & Maiworm, 2014), which surveyed a total of 1,558 European higher education institutions from all EU and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries,8 refers to a marked North–South divide as regards the general trend towards the implementation of English-medium courses: […] there are considerable regional differences in the spread of ETPs and size of enrolment. Most common are ETPs in the Nordic region where
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61% of institutions offer Bachelor and/or Master programmes completely taught in English, 20% of all programmes fall into this category and 5% of all students are enrolled in ETPs. Central West Europe and the Baltic states follow with a substantial proportion of institutions offering ETPs (44.5% and 38.7% respectively), a share of ETPs at about 10% of all study programmes and an enrolment share of about 2%. In all other regions at most one fifth of institutions are running ETPs, at most 5% of all programmes are ETPs and not more than 1% of students are enrolled. p. 17 While this trend has been most noticeable in the Scandinavian countries (Dimova, Hultgren, & Jensen, 2015), EMI in the Spanish HE sector has not yet been widespread, possibly due to the status of Spanish as an international language and a popular foreign language. That said, recent years have witnessed a dramatic upsurge of ETPs. This has possibly been the outcome of the “Strategy for the internationalisation of Spanish universities 2015–2020” issued by the Spanish Ministry of Education (2014) to enhance “efficiency, excellence and competitiveness in a global environment” (p. 2). This policy explicitly refers to two value-laden languages to foster the internationalisation of the university system: Spanish as an international language of education and quality education in English as well as in other foreign languages. Both of them are described as having potential to attract international talent, increase competitiveness in the international sphere, and enhance cooperation with other world regions. This policy also encourages HE institutions to increase the number of full or partial bilingual degrees (English-taught programmes or English-taught subjects) and double degrees with European universities. It also invites them to engage in other initiatives such as “internationalisation of the curriculum” and “internationalisation at home” (the inclusion of intercultural competence skills, foreign language-related extracurricular activities, etc.). Setting up incentives to foster mobility, which at present is relatively low, is also encouraged as part of universities’ action plans. The shift towards ETP can also be explained by the Spanish public demand of EMI in primary and secondary education, bilingual education being “a fundamental skill crucial for mobility and employability and not simply a foreign language” (Dearden, 2014, p. 21). It should be noted, though, that only HE institutions in officially bilingual autonomous communities in Spain (Galicia, the Basque Country, Catalonia, and the Valencian Community) have systematically developed policies to regulate language use on campus with a view to preserving the regional community’s language (Cots, Llurda, & Garrettt, 2014; Garrett, Cots, Lasagabaster, & Llurda, 2012). In contrast, language policy has not been developed so comprehensively in monolingual (Spanish-only) autonomous communities, like the UZ is based at, though policies aiming at regulating language-related aspects and implementation of EMI and internationalisation of the curriculum have been set up as in, e.g. universities in Madrid’s community (Alcón, 2014).
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If we turn to research, according to the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology Spain is ranked among the top ten world countries for scientific research output production, “with 77,000 scientific papers published in 2014 –3.2% of all science articles published worldwide”.9 We noted elsewhere (Ferguson, Pérez-Llantada, & Plo, 2011; Pérez-Llantada, 2012) that the current national research assessment system conducted by the National Commission for the Assessment of Research Activity (CNEAI) values (almost only) publications in Institute for Scientific Information (ISI)/Journal Citation Report (JCR) journals, all of them English-medium journals. Effects of similar “publish in English or perish” policies have also been reported in other countries such as Canada, Germany, Romania, Sudan, or Sweden, inter alia, amidst controversy coming from those who support the use of the national language for research purposes (ElMalik & Nesi, 2008; Gentil & Séror, 2014; Kuteeva, 2015; Lillis & Curry, 2010; Muresan & Nicolae, 2015; Schluer, 2015). This chapter examines the scope of linguistic diversity at the UZ in relation to the specific research and teaching practices in three disciplinary communities, their views of what internationalisation means, and their own stance towards the use of English as the international lingua franca. Succinctly, we looked into policies, practices, and multilingual realities using an ethnographic case study approach (Duff, 2008).
3. Datasets and analytical frameworks We collected three different datasets to gain insight into the university site: institutional documents and the institution’s website, data from actual EMI practices (recordings/observation of lectures), and data from semi-structured interviews with a small population of scholars. Regarding the last two sets of data we specifically looked at the disciplines in Humanities, Sciences, and Economics for comparative purposes, in the belief that there exist distinctive linguistic and communicative practices across disciplinary communities, as reported earlier (Becher & Trowler, 2001; Swales, 1998). For each dataset, we collected the following raw data: •
Documents: these included the governance strategic action plan and the institution’s website (with sufficient textual and visual data to make interpretations), as well as all online documents intended to inform students, teachers and researchers, including webpages of the university and of the different faculties (especially those labelled as “international”, “international students”, etc.), university leaflets and brochures, undergraduate and postgraduate prospectuses, programmes and course descriptions. Website analysis served to identify language use and information related to the language of instruction in the university website and online documents. In her analysis of international universities’ websites, Jenkins (2014) draws on Pauwels’ (2012) six-phase framework for analysing websites but focuses only on the most relevant aspects for her research. Following Jenkins, we took into account only some aspects of Pauwels’ framework. We focused mainly on the presence of salient features and significantly
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SOCIAL SCIENCES (6 Lectures)
NATURAL SCIENCES (6 Lectures)
Undergraduate degree in Business Administration
Master in Nanostructured Materials for Nanotechnology Applications
FIGURE 4.2 Dataset
•
•
HUMANITIES (6 Lectures)
Undergraduate degree in English Studies
Undergraduate degree in Modern Languages
for lecture observations
absent features (phase 2), on the analysis of content and formal choices (phase 3), and on the analysis of implied audiences and purposes (phase 4). Observations of naturally occurring EMI lectures and seminars. The analysis was carried out in two ethnographic phases. As seen in Figure 4.2, 18 lectures from disciplines10 within Social Sciences, Humanities, and Earth Sciences (six from each group) were first collected as raw data for their observation and interpretation. The lecturers and students who operated in these English- medium instruction programmes all used English as a lingua franca (ELF). The recorded data was supplemented by follow-up interviews (15–20 minutes each), aimed at investigating possible indications of whether students’ academic subject learning was affected when learning through EMI and, on the other hand, teachers’ perceptions of the level of English needed by students to follow a course in EMI and how they could reach that level. Semi-structured interviews with Sciences, Humanities, and Business scholars (n = 16 scholars). Each interview lasted approximately 40 minutes.The interviews were recorded and transcribed manually. The scholars were contacted using convenience sampling techniques (Dörnyei, 2007) and all showed willingness to collaborate. Interview questions moved beyond their EMI practices and aimed at exploring the scholars’ attitudes and perceptions and actual use of academic languages in their research, teaching, and managerial activities. The guiding probes used to conduct the interviews included the following keywords: language practices; language needs; internationalisation policies; and intercultural encounters.
For documents, interviews, and lectures/seminars observations both qualitative content analysis (Schreier, 2012) and discourse analysis (without prosodic analysis of the recorded data) were employed. With the three datasets, we intended to address the following research questions: 1. Which languages are stated at a policy level and which languages are actually used?
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2 . To what extent are languages other than English used/accepted? 3. What kinds of English are used and presented as acceptable? What evidence is there of intercultural communicative competence? We sought to find out to what extent language practices correspond to stated language policies.We also sought to explore the English language expectations of both students and staff and how far they felt they needed to meet them.
4. Results 4.1 Document analysis Document analysis showed that internationalising the university and providing “global”/international education were clear strategic interests. This is somehow paradoxical, as, except for the B1 graduation requirement, there has not yet been any attempt to regulate multilingual practices at an institutional level (e.g. language planning, management, and ensuing language instructional intervention).The institution describes itself as “internationally recognised” and actively involved in the Erasmus + mobility programme and strategic geographic alliances both with cross- border campuses (Iberus international campus of excellence in the Ebro valley) and Southern universities (University of Pau and University of Toulouse, France).11 Spanish and English are described as the main languages for campus internationalisation (mobility, education, and cooperation). The institutional discourse grounds itself on the claim that “it is essential to profit from the value of Spanish”, a “global lingua franca” language and “above all, improve language competence in English”, “the world’s vehicular language par excellence”. The governance’s Action Plan explicitly states a number of strengths and weaknesses regarding language use and language competence. The Plan links institutional strengths to both English and Spanish language-related practices, namely “research teams involved in international collaborations”, “a vehicular language spoken by more than 500 million speakers in the world” (Spanish), and “a long- standing tradition in student mobility under EU programmes”. As for weaknesses, it acknowledges that “insufficient English language competence, the international language par excellence” hampers “international visibility and recognition”. Additionally, some structural factors, such as “limited possibilities for recruitment of international staff ”, are seen as a threat to internationalisation. There thus seems to be a mismatch between the internationalisation aspirations based on English (equating excellence, modernity, and greater opportunities to attract students from abroad), and the existing linguistic realities, given the self-perceived low proficiency levels in the English language. Lastly, the governance’s discourse explicitly acknowledged the need for an English version of the institutional website so as to enhance the worldwide visibility of “UNIZAR’s strengths in research, Spanish-taught education, the assets of the university’s geographic location, and its rich offering of taught programmes”.
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FIGURE 4.3 UZ
homepage (www.unizar.es)
Website analysis seemed confirmatory of the governance’s perceived need for gaining visibility through the use of English. All the institutional pages intended for staff are in Spanish, but almost all research institutes have websites in both English and Spanish. The page of the EURAXESS Centre in Aragon also displays information in English, as well as in French, for researchers taking part in mobility programmes. The university’s homepage is Spanish-medium, yet there is an English flag on the upper right corner indicating the existence of an English version (Figure 4.3). However, a click on this flag does not lead to an English version of the homepage, but to an “institutional page” (Figure 4.4) exclusively targeted at incoming students: basic information on the institution (e.g. history, geographical situation), basic information on programmes (list of degrees and studies, grading system, admission requirements), and other useful information (e.g. libraries, accommodation). The webpages for “Mobility” and “International” display information in Spanish for outgoing students and in English for incoming students. English is also the language used in the description of the courses taught in English. Although Spanish is the prevailing language, other languages are used. On the “institution” homepage there is a hyperlink to a promotional leaflet in English, where UZ’s main facts and figures are provided. Some pages and online documents are both in Spanish and English: promotional information and leaflets about the university and the “course descriptions” of courses which students can choose to study in Spanish or English (Figure 4.5). Along with English, other languages (i.e. French, Chinese, and Portuguese) are used as well on the university website. For instance, the leaflet for international students available on the “international” page is in French (also in Spanish and English), as there are cooperation agreements between the UZ and the universities of Toulouse and Pau. Also, the leaflets available on the website of the Technological College in Huesca and many of the content of
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FIGURE 4.4 Institution page
FIGURE 4.5 Sample
screenshot of “course description”
this website are in English and French.The website of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities in Teruel also embeds promotional videos with English and French subtitles. Portuguese appears in a logo on the page informing of the programme “Science without Borders” (Figure 4.6), an international mobility programme funded by the Brazilian Government. Despite the presence of these languages on the university website no teaching is conducted in Portuguese, Chinese, or French (outside the French Department).
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FIGURE 4.6 Science
without Borders logo
This is a Spanish-medium page even if its target readers are Portuguese students. It includes links to promotional documents in Spanish and English (e.g. University of Zaragoza’s main indicators, Who are we?, Where are we?, What do we do?, Important data). Another example of linguistic diversity can be found on the website of the Faculty of Business and Public Management in Huesca, which provides a Chinese version of most of its documents and contains two promotional videos: one with subtitles in English, in which Erasmus students from different nationalities talk (in Spanish) about their experiences, and another one in which Chinese students talk (in Chinese) about their experiences on campus. In the past few months English has increased its presence on the websites of the UZ faculties. The faculty with the highest use of English is the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities in Teruel, which exhibits many of the contents both in Spanish and English. Some other faculties offer a page with detailed information in English for International students (e.g. the Faculty of Science, the Faculty of Engineering, the Faculty of Social Sciences, all of them in Zaragoza; or the Technological College in Huesca), while in others very little information is given in English (e.g. the Faculty of Health Sciences), or its page contains links in English that lead to documents or pages in Spanish. Still, a few faculties do not offer any information in English for international students (e.g. Faculty of Arts). Only the Faculty of Science has a bilingual website (Figure 4.7). This homepage uses English to attract international students. As can be seen in Figure 4.7, internationalisation is equated with Englishisation, as all the flags appearing on this page belong to English-speaking countries. The most prominent language on the homepage is English, with the invitation “Study at the Faculty of Science”. The use of English has a clear promotional purpose and somehow suggests that English speakers could cope even with little knowledge of Spanish. The homepage uses audience design strategies (Seargeant & Tagg, 2014) insofar as language choice is determined by the target audience. Thus, while Spanish is used for information intended for local students, English is used for information intended for international students. By clicking on the English flag on the “international” tag at the bottom, readers can access the “International” page, exclusively intended for incoming students. Most of the links on this page lead to pages with information in English about all the courses imparted at the faculty. Surprisingly, in the only faculty on campus with a bilingual undergraduate degree, the Faculty of Business and Economics, only Spanish is used. Its homepage does not have different
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FIGURE 4.7 Faculty
of Science homepage
links for information for Spanish students or for international students. The information on the “incoming students” page is in Spanish, which suggests that Spanish is the language for internationalisation. If we look at the information provided about EMI programmes, both the university website and the promotional texts explicitly refer to “internationalisation”. In these documents the adjective “international” qualifying the UZ recurs and is often associated with “mobility” (“It has been one of the first universities to adapt to the European Higher Education Area and is at the forefront of international mobility.”) The focus on languages and, more specifically, on English is part of the strategies to promote internationalisation (“As part of its support for the internationalisation process, the University offers an increasing number of courses in English, a language support programme for teaching and research staff, and for administrative and service staff.”) The Internationalisation page states that strengthening the international scope of the activities of the university involves, among other courses of action, enhancing the international scope of the curriculum, with a new approach to the subject content, supporting the international character of staff ’s activity, so that members of the university community can move in (and to) other geographical, academic, and work environments, and adapt to them and communicate in the new lingua franca: English. However, although the role of English for campus internationalisation is highlighted, EMI courses are not a reality. This is even explicitly stated in the FAQs for international students: What can I study at the University of Zaragoza? Almost everything you are interested in… as long as you speak Spanish. The offer of subjects taught in English is not very wide at the moment.
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Only two websites offer information on EMI. First, the website of the Faculty of Science provides information on the use of English in undergraduate programmes (“English-friendly modules”) and two Master’s programmes fully taught in English to attract students from abroad. The undergraduate programmes offer English language friendly subjects, conceived of to support foreign students with poor competence in Spanish. Additionally, these subjects aim at giving the local students the opportunity to practise and improve their level of English. English language friendly (ELF) modules Two of our MScs are taught in English, while the rest of MScs and all the BScs are taught in Spanish. In the courses taught in Spanish, most of the modules are English language friendly. This means that, in those modules, foreign students will have, upon request: Program and material of the module in English. Office hours in English. Assessment (exams, homework…) in English. The second website where EMI is mentioned is that of the Faculty of Business and Economics. All its degrees are taught in Spanish, exception for the Degree in Business Administration and Management, taught in Spanish and a group in English. All the information is in Spanish, including that for the group taught in English. The leaflet available online for international incoming students specifies that the language of instruction is Spanish and that lecturers expect that all students have good command of Spanish to follow the classes. It might be inferred that the goal of EMI in this faculty is to empower Spanish students linguistically to compete in the global market. Although EMI is only mentioned in relation to the positive effects on the students’ future careers, this is not problematised and there is no reference to the problems that Spanish students may face when studying in an L2 (see also Jenkins, 2014): This group in English responds to new training demands in a global context, improving job prospects with respect to other graduates in Business Administration, with the particular advantage of supporting employment in those careers in which international component is key. (our own translation) As for what kinds of English are used and presented as acceptable on international university websites, Jenkins’s (2014) analysis of 60 universities from different macro- regions reports that internationalisation is viewed as “going hand- in- hand not only with English/EMI but with native English” (p. 120). On the UZ website, the descriptions of programmes and courses taught in English inform that the language of instruction is English, as in: “The course is completely taught in English by highly qualified members of research and academic staff within the INA, ICMA, and the Faculty of Science of Zaragoza University as well as by other national and international departments and industrial representatives” (from the online information
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for the Master’s in Nanostructured Materials for Nanotechnology Applications) or that English may be used for some classes, as in: “As a general rule, the master will be taught in Spanish, but some specialised electives may be offered in English, or taught in this language if there are exchange students who cannot speak Spanish” (from the online information for the Master’s in Biomedical Engineering). Again, there is no reference to the fact that the use of English may be a problem for some Spanish students, but it is evident that English is regarded as the shared language for communication. English is used if participants cannot speak Spanish, but it is not specified whether English means native English or English as a lingua franca. In fact, there is no indication (or, apparently, even implication) that English equals native speakers. Finally, as for language requirements the university website does include various references to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) levels and to the fact that all undergraduate students must have a certified English B1 level as a requirement for graduation. The website also specifies language requirements for those students who want to study degrees in English. For example, in the Degree of Business Administration group taught in English, the entry language level is a CEFR English B1. The pages giving information on the English-medium Master’s in nanostructured materials also explicitly refer to the English language entry requirements and descriptors of CEFR levels to be taken as recommendations to attend this course: As the whole course is taught in English, students need to have an upper- intermediate level in the language: minimum level B1 in the European Common Framework Language Reference, but preferably level B2. Level B1 is reached when the student is able to understand (…). B2 is achieved when the student is able (…) to communicate with native speakers with the degree of fluency and ease such that the communication takes place without effort on either side. When it comes to course assessment the “course descriptions” of EMI bachelor courses of business administration do not provide information on evaluation of linguistic skills. We can then assume that, although the language of instruction is English, only content and not language competence is assessed. As for the evaluation of the Master’s courses taught in English, the “course descriptions” do not provide much information on whether English will be evaluated and if so, according to which criteria. In the few cases where it is stated that “scientific communication skills” will be evaluated, the evaluation criteria are presented vaguely (i.e. “clarity”, “fluent and correct English”), but, again, there is no indication that the students’ English will be evaluated against native speaker norms.
4.2 Analysis of EMI lectures In the UZ context, the practice of teaching an academic subject through English to students whose first language is, for the majority of the student population, Spanish
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is not widespread. In this subsection we focus on the small-scale corpus of digital recordings of lectures treated as raw data for the observation and interpretation of EMI practices. All academic events recorded were initially expected to involve unplanned speech production. However, lecture classes tended to show careful planning, with little room for improvisation (Wozniak, 2013). They contained the typical academic monologic speech reported by the literature, for example, the use of textual metadiscourse resources, personal pronouns (we, you), anaphoric/cataphoric nouns, repetitions, and new episode flags (Simpson & Swales, 2001). The observations further showed the dominance of lecture format, with very limited interactivity (Costa & Coleman, 2012), even if the lecturers showed good language command and discourse skills. The analysis of recordings also revealed the tendency to draw on communication strategies that are emphatically explicit (Dewey, 2013; Mauranen, 2006, 2010), suggesting that the lecturer sought to maximise intelligibility in the speech act. For example, negotiation of meanings was observed when the lecturers elicited a word concept and when the student did not know the term in the L2 uses the Spanish term. At other times, the lecturers tended to repeat discipline-specific concepts and/or rephrase or paraphrase using different words, possibly with a view to facilitating the students’ lecture comprehension and making the lecture more comprehensible. Ongoing cooperation between the lecturer and the students was also manifest in the use of what Björkman (2010) defines as accommodative pragmatic strategies in ELF interactions. For example, the lecturers generally used a simple syntax, typical of conversational speech, as well as comprehension checks and, above all, repetitions of key words in English, followed by clarifications or definitions of the key concepts. As Velilla and Vázquez (2016) explain, the use of these strategies serves to sustain interpersonal interaction. Other discourse strategies such as comprehension checks, reformulations, and clarification, described by the literature as recurring features of academic lecture talk also played a major role in the recorded interactions. They served to enhance clarity, explicitness, and overall communicative effectiveness in ELF settings. Non- verbal strategies such as the use of gestures and visual aids (writing on the blackboard) were used to assist comprehension. Instances of these resources have also been found in other spoken corpora such as MICASE and ELFA (Mauranen, 2006, 2010; Simpson & Swales, 2001). Language switch inserting a word from their first language into an utterance was used for communicative effectiveness purposes, for example, when the lecturer used a literal translation of a discipline-specific concept. Literal translation was sometimes followed by clarification of the concept. At other times, the lecturers used the same word in English and in Spanish. In Example 1, repetition of the word coal/carbon followed by a question tag illustrates the speaker’s interest in ensuring comprehension:
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Example 1 Then eeh the city was often covered with smog. Do you remember that we mentioned yesterday the smog? Is this mixture of smoke and fog (.) which came from fabrics and houses that used coal for heating (.) coal “carbón” (.) ok? Overall, the lectures exhibited few grammatical deviations from standard English, yet it was found that both languages, English and, occasionally, Spanish were actually used. Apart from English, which was the main medium of communication, and the students/lecturers’ native language, Spanish, no other languages were used. ELF creativity at the lexical level was evident when they coined new words: creating new words or phrases for words that they did not know. Coinage of new words reflected the creativity inherent in ELF use that the literature reports (Mauranen, 2010) (e.g. strañous/extraño, meaning “strange”), or use of false friends (e.g. qualifications/ calificaciones, meaning “marks”) (Velilla & Vázquez, 2016). Code-switching, defined as a functionally motivated feature of ELF interaction (Klimpfinger, 2009, p. 367), proved to be a common and an acceptable practice in/for classroom interaction. In fact, no noticeable reaction from the interlocutors was observed. At the level of lexicogrammar, the use of inserts in both Spanish and English (bueno/[well]) recurred when lecturing in English indicated simultaneous bilingual processing (example 2). Concurrent use of both languages provoked no reaction from the students, who appeared to understand it as marking ongoing discourse and continuity to the flow of speech. Example 2 OK, so we have one experimental group, with eeh, I mean it’s randomly selected and assigned and bueno, we do we have the first, we have the treatment first. In sum, the observations of EMI lectures illustrated that linguistic norms are mainly regulated by interactional exigencies. The participants constructed “a viable modus operandi to achieve [their] communicative goal” (Seidlhofer, 2011, p. 18). In the follow-up interviews, academic lecturing was seen as a worthwhile challenge by the lecturers, supporting Dearden (2014). In this analysis we did not analyse the rhetoric of prosodic and paralinguistic devices to further assess their role in the social engagement between the speaker and the audience. Aspects of prosody were not analysed from a cognitive standpoint, in particular, the use of intonation to provide cohesive links between sentences that lead to disambiguation of textual meaning (cf. Gimson & Cruttenden, 1994; Wichmann, 2000). We believe these are aspects that are worth further investigating as they can provide a better understanding of ELF use. They will thus be addressed in future research.
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The sample of recordings collected for this study are quite compatible with earlier research on this matter, which could seem to imply that the ways of coping are similar in other comparable contexts of ELF use. The data therefore appears to support the view that users of English as a lingua franca ought to be seen as successful communicators within their disciplinary domains rather than as “deficient native speakers”. This supports the post-normative approach to ELF (Dewey, 2012), which contends that research in ELF has reached the point where established principles and sanctioned good practice in ELT (English Language Teaching) require substantial reassessment. Empirical work and theoretical discussions thus pose profound questions to the ELT profession, with major implications for common beliefs and assumptions about all concerns, especially the language syllabus, teaching materials, and language assessment.The preliminary observations above seem to make it necessary to incorporate an ELF perspective when instructing EMI lecturers at the university level.
4.3 Staff’s attitudes and perceptions Staff ’s attitudes and perceptions towards ELF were not dissimilar to those reported regarding other cohorts of UZ scholars interviewed earlier (Ferguson et al., 2011; Pérez-Llantada, Plo, & Ferguson, 2011). Broadly, the data from the scholars’ interviews captured rather similar language dynamics to those found in the other datasets collected for the present study. Disciplinary ethoi and discipline-specific communication practices accounted for the slightly different linguistic choices found across the three “academic tribes” surveyed. Spanish was reported to be the dominant language for teaching-oriented activities. The only exceptions included an EMI bilingual undergraduate degree conferred at the Faculty of Economics and two postgraduate Master’s programmes at the Faculty of Science fully taught in English. They stressed the instrumental value of the ESP courses offered in some of their undergraduate degrees and considered this linguistic support useful as fundamental disciplinary knowledge is disseminated and published in English.The geologists further referred to the recent implementation of “English language friendly subjects” (see also section 4.1), involving the use of English for exams and during office hours.They explained that this initiative was aimed at supporting international Erasmus students with limited Spanish language competence. A major concern deriving from the scholars’ views on EMI practices was the B1 graduation requirement for undergraduate students which, in their view, was too low. They believed that foreign language competence in general, and, above all, English language competence, was a crucial skill to empower students for their future professional life and civic engagement. Many criticised foreign language education in Spain at a pre-university level. They pointed out that the excessive focus on grammar learning and limited practice of the spoken skills the students received in high school had detrimental effects on the overall language competence in English among the student population. Some of the scholars remarked that their first-year undergraduates were often reluctant to read course readings in English.
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The scholars also proved rather pessimistic as to linguistic diversity on campus. Staff ’s teaching mobility (e.g. through Erasmus + programmes) was reported to vary considerably. In some faculties it was relatively high (in the case of the Faculty of Economics’ staff), whereas in others it was almost non-existent (in the case of the humanities and science scholars). The reasons staff provided included lack of language preparation, lack of time, and lack of institutional incentives that may redress, as the interviewees stated, the “additional efforts” made in preparing English- taught contents to be imparted during the mobility stay. In addition to limited staff mobility, the scholars commented structural factors (the difficulties involved in recruiting staff from abroad) and the fact that Spanish was a major world language and a prestige language (e.g. highly valued by the incoming Erasmus students). Turning to research activities, the interview data showed that language choice was clearly determined by disciplinary traditions. While the geologists readily acknowledged that English has always been “the” language of research in their disciplinary field, the scholars in the business field explained that they shift from Spanish to English for research publication purposes because the national research evaluation system gives greater merit to publications in JCR journals, the vast majority of them English- medium, than to publications in Spanish- medium journals. The humanities scholars referred to a French tradition in geography and German in philosophy.The geologists further explained that the physical object (the exact geographic location) being researched determined language choice in spoken interactions. As for perceived language needs, interviewees from the three communities surveyed regretted the lack of English language support or language provision services (e.g. language translation services and language revision services) when drafting manuscripts or research project proposals or when applying for competitive research grants. The absence of firm language planning and language management strategies at an institutional level was most deeply felt among the geologists. “Internationalisation” was associated to prestige, recognition, and competitiveness as well as with mobility, plurilingualism, and cultural values attached to languages. UZ’s internationalisation was viewed as an impending need to respond to the language needs and society’s demands for global education. The institution was viewed as actively participating in international network alliances and international cooperation programmes and use of English was perceived as beneficial in order to disseminate research in high impact factor (English-medium) journals and reach the international scientific community. It was further noted that a successful internationalising process of the UZ (“a truly international campus”, as some respondents put it) would require substantial funding to be viable, greater mobility, an international staff, language provision services, intensive teacher training in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and EMI skills, and, lastly, higher English language competence among the student population. Mixed feelings regarding language use were observed in the respondents’ shared perception. The scholars in the humanities viewed implementation of EMI unfeasible, at least in the short term. The scholars from the Faculty of Economics recognised the value of having bilingual degrees and showed willingness to offer
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them in the future. And the scholars in the Sciences regarded the implementation of EMI as a feasible way to enhance educational experiences at the UZ. More broadly, the scholars showed awareness of today’s fast-changing higher education environment and of society’s demands for global education provision. Their views were thus not ideologically neutral. The value ascribed to the use of English was associated with its prevailing role as the main means to offer “global education” and achieve worldwide recognition, excellence, and prestige in an increasingly competitive HE arena. Some interviewees further emphasised that the inherent value of internationalisation in HE lies in educating plurilingual and multiculturally sensitive citizens. In other words, diversity of languages was seen as beneficial and a resource for internationalising the university. Finally, whereas adoption of Anglophone English was, in the scholars’ view,“generally imposed” in research communication and a source of concern for getting published in English-medium journals, English language use in the spoken domain elicited different attitudes and perceptions. For example, accounts of intercultural encounters provided examples of the way the scholars managed and sought intelligibility. There were also references to different kinds of English being used and accepted (“Spanglish”, “French English”, “German English”, etc.).The scholars also perceived that their interlocutors used different degrees of grammatical complexity and that there was language simplification and paralinguistic support through the use of gestures. From their accounts, it appears that the scholars exhibited intercultural competence and a high degree of cross-cultural sensitivity, recalling Holliday, Hyde, and Kullman’s (2010) non-essentialist conceptualisations of language and culture. Staff accounts of intercultural encounters illustrated the “plurilinguistic composition” and “hybrid nature” of ELF (Jenkins, 2007, p. 1) and lent credence to the claim that “linguacultural norms are ad hoc and negotiated” (Seidlhofer, 2011, p. 89).
5. Final considerations If we follow Foskett’s (2010, 44–45) taxonomy of universities’ degree of internationalisation (see also Chapter 1, this volume), it appears that the UZ stands as an internationally engaged university, starting to drive an internationalisation agenda through, e.g. an increasing EMI offer and incipient “internationalisation at home” initiatives. If, as Jenkins (2014, p. 78) notes, “truly international” means “being multilingual”, then, the co-existence of two languages with distinct statuses and functions makes the UZ a truly international campus.Yet, data has shown that actual realities (i.e. the linguistic practices people are engaged in) do not always match the internationalisation aspirations of the institution. In this sense, explicit language policy development would be desirable to fully support and guide internationalisation processes. The preliminary data from the UZ reflects both top–down and bottom–up awareness of languages use and multilingual practices on campus. Since the digital medium enables universities to communicate information to a wide and diverse audience and to provide a mediated self-representation of the institution, the UZ
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website should become an important tool for the university’ self-promotion. The same applies to departmental units, research groups, and research institutions at the institution.The use of English is perceived as supportive of institutional marketing/ marketisation so as to attract prospective international students and project an international image. As discussed in the website analysis, internationalisation is associated with English and key indicators of internationalisation (e.g. a bilingual degree offer, English language friendly courses and Master’s degrees in English) aim at attracting incoming students and “talent” and strengthening mobility programmes and European project collaborations. The remaining datasets analysed in this chapter showed typical features of what Mauranen (2010) conceptualises as ELF interactions at the micro-level. As for de facto language use, findings from the datasets further attest to the need to “move beyond the native speaker” as the reference/target language model (Cook, 1999). Norms appear to be regulated by interactional exigencies and code-switching, that is, alternation between two languages (English and Spanish), constructs a sense of sharedness among ELF users. Both accommodation and intelligibility appear to be central concerns for the lecturers in order to maximise efficiency and relevance in communication. Both EMI seminars/lectures and the scholars’ narratives of intercultural encounters captured the view of ELF users as “competent intercultural communicators” (Mauranen, 1993). It can therefore be surmised that even if the English used is not fully native-like, translanguaging episodes take place, and idiosyncratic ELF features recur on the micro-social level of ELF interactions communication among the speakers is not hampered. Rubin (1977, p. 284) proposes four language planning steps for university internationalisation. These are: (1) fact-finding; (2) establishing goals, strategies, and outcomes; (3) implementation; and, finally, (4) feedback. Ensuing from the above considerations, we would argue that investigating linguistic diversity requires in- depth enquiry into the specific disciplinary practices on campus. This seems a sensible undertaking to inform policy makers as to how to set up effective institutional language planning as well as appropriate language support and language teaching/ learning intervention.
Acknowledgements This chapter is a contribution to project FFI2015-68638 MINECO/FEDER, EU. We would like to thank the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and the European Social Fund for their support.
Notes 1 Real Academia de la Lengua Española. 2 Promotional activities include the study of Spanish through study abroad programmes (official portal http://studyinspain.info/es/index.html), Spanish language education, and certification of Spanish language competence levels.
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3 www.unizar.es/institucion/conoce-la-universidad/datos-basicos 4 www.unizar.es/sites/default/files/institucion/g ic/folleto_informativo_ingles_imp.pdf 5 www.shanghairanking.com/es/index.html 6 www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings 7 http://nturanking.lis.ntu.edu.tw/ 8 Except Great Britain and Ireland, but including the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Poland. 9 http:// m arcaespana.es/ e n/ n ews/ we- a re/ s pain- a mong- worlds- t op- 1 0- c ountries- scientific-production 10 Geology, Geography, Chemistry, Physics, Information Technology, Business Management, Marketing, Economics, History, and Linguistics. 11 www.unizar.es/institucion/rector/saludo-del-rector
References Acosta, C., Cuvi, N., & Roque, X. (2003). Ciencia entre España e Hispanoamérica: Ecos del siglo XX. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC). Alcón, E. (2014). De la movilidad académica a la formación internacional. In F. Michavila Pitarch, J.M. Martinez, A. Ladrón Ramos, & R.M. Auar (Eds.), Internacionalización de las universidades de Madrid (pp. 117–126). Madrid: Cátedra UNESCO de Gestión y Política Universitaria. Becher, T., & Trowler, P. (2001). Academic tribes and territories: Intellectual enquiry and the culture of disciplines. Buckingham: The Society of Research into Higher Education and Open University Press. Björkman, B. (2010). Pragmatic strategies in English as an academic lingua franca: Ways of achieving communicative effectiveness? Journal of Pragmatics, 43, 950–964. Cervantes Institute [Instituto Cervantes]. (2016). El español: Una lengua viva. Informe 2016. Retrieved from www.cervantes.es/imagenes/File/prensa/EspanolLenguaViva16.pdf Cook,V. (1999). Going beyond the native speaking in language teaching. TESOL Quarterly, 33(2), 185–209. Costa, F., & Coleman, J.A. (2012). A survey of English-medium instruction in Italian higher education. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 16(1), 3–19. Cots, J.M., Llurda, E., & Garrettt, P. (2014). Language policies and practices in the internationalization of higher education on the European margins: An introduction. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 35(4), 311–317. Dearden, J. (2014). English as a medium of instruction –a growing global phenomenon. British Council. Retrieved from www.britishcouncil.es/sites/default/files/british_ council_english_as_a_medium_of_instruction.pdf Dewey, M. (2012).Towards a post-normative approach: Learning the pedagogy of ELF. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca, 1(1), 141–170. Dewey, M. (2013). The distinctiveness of English as a lingua franca. ELT Journal, 67(3), 346–349. Dimova, S., Hultgren, A.K., & Jensen, C. (Eds.). (2015). English-medium instruction in European higher education. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Dörnyei, Z. (2007). Research methods in applied linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Duff, P. (2008). Case study research in applied linguistics. London: Routledge. ElMalik, A.T., & Nesi, H. (2008). Publishing research in a second language: The case of Sudanese contributors to international medical journals. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 7, 87–96.
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Ferguson, G.R., Pérez-Llantada, C., & Plo, R. (2011). English as an international language of scientific publication: A study of attitudes. World Englishes, 29(3), 41–59. Foskett, N. (2010). Global markets, national challenges, local strategies: The strategic challenges of internationalization. In N. Foskett & F. Maringe (Eds.), Globalization and internationalization in higher education: Theoretical, strategic and management perspectives (pp. 35–50). London: Continuum. Garrett, P., Cots, J.M., Lasagabaster, D., & Llurda, E. (2012). Internationalization and the place of minority languages in universities in three European bilingual contexts: A comparison of student perspectives in the Basque Country, Catalonia and Wales. In A. Yiakoumetti (Ed.), Harnessing linguistic diversity to improve education (pp. 139–166). Oxford: Peter Lang. Gentil, G., & Séror, J. (2014). Canada has two official languages –or does it? Case studies of Canadian scholars’ language choices and practices in disseminating knowledge. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 13, 17–30. Gimson, A.C., & Cruttenden, A. (1994). Teaching the pronunciation of English. London: Arnold. Holliday, A., Hyde, M., & Kullman, J. (2010). Intercultural communication. London & New York, NY: Routledge. Jenkins, J. (2007). English as a lingua franca:Attitude and identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jenkins, J. (2014). English as a lingua franca in the international university: The politics of academic English language policy. London: Routledge. Klimpfinger, T. (2009). “She’s mixing the two languages together”: Forms and functions of code-switching in English as a lingua franca. In A. Mauranen & E. Ranta (Eds.), English as lingua franca: Studies and findings (pp. 348–371). Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Kuteeva, M. (2015). Academic English as “nobody’s land”: The research and publication practices of Swedish academics. In R. Plo & C. Pérez-Llantada (Eds.), English as a scientific and research language (pp. 261–280). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Lillis, T., & Curry, M.J. (2010). Academic writing in a global context: The politics and practices of publishing in English. London & New York, NY: Routledge. Mauranen, A. (1993). Cultural differences in academic discourse: Problems of a linguistic and cultural minority. In L. Löfman, L. Kurki-Suonio, S. Pellinen, & J. Lehtonen (Eds.), The competent intercultural communicator. AFinLa Yearbook. Publications de l’association finlandaise de linguistique appliquée 51, pp. 157–174. Mauranen, A. (2006). Signaling and preventing misunderstanding in English as lingua franca communication. International Journal of Sociology of Language, 177, 123–150. Mauranen, A. (2010). Features of English as a lingua franca in academia. Helsinki English Studies, 6, 6–28. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura, y Deporte. (2016). Datos y cifras del sistema universitario español. Curso 2015–2016. Madrid: SECRETARÍA GENERAL TÉCNICA Subdirección General de Documentación y Publicaciones. Muresan, L.-M., & Nicolae, M. (2015). Addressing the challenge of publishing internationally in a non-Anglophone academic context: Romania –a case in point. In R. Plo & C. Pérez-Llantada (Eds.), English as a scientific and research language (pp. 281–310). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Pauwels, L. (2012). A multimodal framework for analyzing websites as cultural expressions. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 17(3), 247–265. Pérez-Llantada, C. (2012). Scientific discourse and the rhetoric of globalization: The impact of language and culture. London: Continuum. Pérez-Llantada, C., Plo, R., & Ferguson, G.R. (2011). “You don’t say what you know, only what you can”: The perceptions and practices of senior Spanish academics regarding research dissemination in English. English for Specific Purposes, 30(1), 18–30.
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Rubin, J. (1977). Bilingual education and language planning. In B. Spolsky & R.L. Cooper (Eds.), Frontiers of bilingual education (pp. 282– 294). Rowley, MA: Newbury House Publishers. Schluer, J. (2015). English as a lingua franca in linguistics? A case study of German linguists’ language use in publications. In R. Plo & C. Pérez-Llantada (Eds.), English as a scientific and research language (pp. 233–260). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Schreier, M. (2012). Qualitative content analysis in practice. London: SAGE. Seargeant, P., & Tagg, C. (Eds.). (2014). The language of social media: Identity and community on the internet. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Seidlhofer, B. (2011). Understanding English as a lingua franca. Oxford: Oxford University Press. SEPIE. (2014). Datos y cifras del programa ERASMUS en España: Curso 2012–2013. Madrid: Servicio Español para la Internacionalización de la Educación. Simpson, R., & Swales, J.M. (2001). Corpus linguistics in North America. Ann Arbor, MI: Michigan University Press. Spanish Ministry of Education. (2014). Strategy for the internationalisation of Spanish universities 2015–2020. Retrieved from www.mecd.gob.es/educacion-mecd/dms/mecd/ educacion-mecd/areas-educacion/universidades/politica-internacional/estrategia- internacionalizacion/EstrategiaInternacionalizaci-n-Final.pdf Swales, J.M. (1998). Other floors, other voices: A textography of a small university building. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Velilla, M.Á., & Vázquez, I. (2016, June). The policies and practices of English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) in Spanish universities: A case study. Conference presentation at the 9th International Conference of English as a Lingua Franca, Lleida, Spain. Wächter, B., & Maiworm, F. (2014). English-taught programmes in European higher education:The state of play in 2014. Bonn: Lemmens, ACA. van der Wende, M.C. (2000).The Bologna Declaration: Enhancing the transparency and competitiveness of European higher education. Higher Education in Europe, 25(3), 305–310. Wichmann, A. (2000). Intonation in text and discourse: Beginnings, middles, ends. Harlow, Essex: Pearsons Education Ltd. Wozniak, M. (2013). CLIL in Pharmacy: A case of collaboration between content and language lecturers. Language Value, 5(1), 107–128.
5 THE SCOPE OF LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY IN THE LANGUAGE POLICIES, PRACTICES, AND LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPE OF A TURKISH EMI UNIVERSITY1 Ali Karakaş and Yasemin Bayyurt
1. English-medium instruction in Turkish higher education The origins of EMI in Turkey date back to the late nineteenth century, at a time when the Ottoman Empire was still extant, and foreign-medium courses were offered mostly by missionary schools. Since this chapter throws its focus primarily on higher education, the history of EMI at other levels of education will not be described at length. Overall, the history of EMI in Turkey has gone through two distinct phases, which span the periods before and after the turn of the twenty-first century. For the purposes of clarity, in this chapter, the institutes in the first phase are called “first- generation” and those in the second phase as “new-generation” EMI universities. To start with the first-generation EMI institutions, Robert College, an American missionary school founded in 1863 in Istanbul, can be averred as the first EMI institution in Turkey. It opened as Yüksek Okul College (or School) of Higher Education, offering a pre-bachelor’s degree (usually for two years), with the purpose of enabling Turkish citizens and citizens of neighbouring countries to carry out their studies in English medium (Daniel, 1970). It continued to serve as an American enterprise until 1971, when it was turned over to the Turkish government, was renamed Boğaziçi University, and became the country’s second state- funded EMI university.The first, however, was the Middle East Technical University (METU) founded in 1956 in Ankara, the capital of Turkey. As König (1990) notes, METU was originally planned to be a higher education centre of the Middle East, welcoming both Turkish students and students from neighbouring Middle Eastern countries. The private sector undertook similar EMI initiatives and started establishing universities with EMI programmes. Of these, Bilkent University, founded in Ankara in 1984, was Turkey’s first private EMI institution. The ensuing years have shown that the private sector has continued to pioneer initiatives offering EMI courses. This is largely because “[i]n Turkey, as in much of
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East and Central Europe, private sector HE has stepped into the gap between supply and demand left by under-funded and slow-reacting state institutions” (Coleman, 2006, p. 8). The main purpose was then “[t]o enable students who are registered at an English medium department to access scientific and technological information published in English in their related disciplines” (Official Gazette, 1984, as quoted in Kırkgöz, 2005, p. 102). Namely, the EMI programmes aimed at raising qualified human resources to contribute to the country’s further development and modernisation. Nevertheless, these EMI universities were not international in the current sense of the term; rather, on account of limited student mobility in those days, they predominantly served Turkish students. In addition, they all adopted a full version of EMI in teaching. As for the second-generation EMI universities, the major boom was observed when their number went up to 193 in 2014, and more recently to over 200 (Bayyurt, 2015; Gülle, Özata, & Bayyurt, 2015; Karakaş, 2016; Selvi, 2014). Remarkably, nearly a quarter of the newly founded universities have adopted different versions of EMI. Although the exact number of EMI programmes in Turkey is not known, a recent report on EMI universities details that about 20% of all undergraduate degree courses are offered through various versions of EMI (Arik & Arik, 2014). This figure is, however, based on conservative estimates and does not include postgraduate degree courses. One distinctive feature of the second-generation EMI universities is that they were primarily founded as a response to the internationalisation of higher education, in an attempt to render an advantage for the country to be competitive in the international market (Collins, 2010). Another feature is that the newly established EMI universities attempt to meet not only domestic but also international students’ need to gain access to English-speaking higher education. Against this background, we explore the case of a long-established Turkish EMI university by way of illustrating its language policies and practices, its linguistic landscape, and the perspectives of its Turkish students and teaching staff.
2. Theoretical framework 2.1 Language policy The theoretical framework of this study builds upon the widely acknowledged theorisation of language policy established by Spolsky (2004, 2012) and further extended by Shohamy (2006). Spolsky (2004) proposes a multi- componential model consisting of “three interrelated but independent” components, i.e. language practices, language beliefs (ideology), and language management (p. 5). As discussed in fuller detail in the Introduction to this volume, the language practices component deals with exploration of actual practices in order to judge the impacts of the other components on practices. The language beliefs component, however, denotes people’s ideas and value judgements about how language and its particular forms should be used. The language management component represents any particular
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but mostly veiled attempts and efforts made through various means (e.g. rules, laws, interventions) to influence individuals’ language acts and beliefs. Ball (2006) names this component “policy as text”, arguing that “some policies may be deployed in the context of practice to displace or marginalise others” (p. 47, emphasis in original). However, it should be noted that “there are comparatively few cases where language management has produced its intended results” due to the bottom–up resistance to top–down policies (Spolsky, 2004, p. 223). Building on Spolsky (2004), Shohamy (2006) contends that “the real policy is executed through a variety of mechanisms that determine the de facto practices”, and there is, thus, a “need to examine the use of mechanisms and study their consequences and effects on de facto LP [language policy]” (p. 54). These mechanisms are “rules and regulations, language educational policies, language tests, language in public space as well as ideologies, myths, propaganda and coercion” (Shohamy, 2006, p. 56; again, see the Introduction to this volume for more detail). We are particularly interested in the first four mechanisms. Rules and regulations and language educational policies are concerned with “carrying out LP decisions in the specific contexts of schools and universities” (p. 76). Language tests, however, seem to be a more implicit mechanism than the others and are seen as “a powerful device that is imposed by groups in power to affect language priorities, language practices and criteria for correctness often leading to inclusion and exclusion and perpetuate ideologies” (p. 93). The fourth mechanism, language in the public space, is about how language is exhibited in the public space by means of various objects.
2.2 Linguistic landscape Landry and Bourhis (1997) define the term linguistic landscape (LL) as “the visibility and salience of languages on public and commercial signs in a given territory or region” (p. 23, emphasis in original). In LL research, attention falls upon the display of linguistic items in their written mode in the public space (Gorter, 2006; Pavlenko, 2010). LL can also act as a major policy mechanism and determine “not only the ideological message, but also the choice of languages” on signs in the public arena (Shohamy, 2006, p. 123). The distinctions between signs is also vital in LL research to unearth the ideologies behind them. One fundamental distinction made by LL researchers concerns the use of various languages on bi/multilingual signs, with many, ourselves included, using Reh’s (2004) four-category model (see also this volume, Chapter 1).The four categories are: (1) complementary signs where various parts of the text are written in different languages; (2) duplicating signs where the present languages are the exact translation of one another; (3) fragmentary signs where the entire information is given in one language only with partial translation of some parts into another language; and finally (4) overlapping signs where much of the information on signs is mainly in one language and only some part of the information is translated into another language. Since fragmentary and overlapping signs are difficult to be distinguished from one another, we treat them as one type in our analysis.
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3. Methodology The context of the study is a major EMI institution in Turkey, Boğaziçi University, one of the first EMI institutions in Turkey, as mentioned earlier. At the time of data collection (i.e. March 2014–December 2016), it had four faculties, two schools, and six institutes and offered 32 undergraduate, 59 graduate (Master’s), and 33 PhD programmes. There were 16,517 students at Boğaziçi University during the data collection period. According to the Council of Higher Education’s (2017) report on student numbers by nationality, 387 of these students were full-time international students from 64 countries. Added to these numbers, it hosted, in the 2015–2016 academic year, 828 international exchange students from 95 countries. Its faculty staff consisted of 445 full-time members, including 89 international lecturers from different nationalities. Owing to its EMI nature and strong ties with the outside world, the university hosts various academic events, such as international fairs, conferences, workshops, and similar. It also ranks highly in several global and national university league tables (e.g. University Ranking by Academic Performance; Times Higher Education).2
3.1 Document analysis Our document analysis has “a policy focus, examining [language policy] materials relevant to a particular set of decisions” about English, its use and teaching (Blaxter, Hughes, & Tight, 2010, p. 186). With this, we aimed to reveal the extent to which linguistic diversity in actual practices is given space in the printed or electronic materials of the institution and, second, to uncover the preferred linguistic practices and the covert ideologies behind those practices. Hence, we systematically examined the official documents of policy makers on various sections of the university website and in publicly available policy data. The primary tool we used to analyse the data was qualitative content analysis (QCA). Our analytic procedure consisted of “finding, selecting, appraising (making sense of), and synthesising data contained in documents” (Bowen, 2009, p. 28).Within this procedure, the focal attention fell on “the deep structural meaning conveyed by the message” embedded in the content of the policy data (Berg, 2001, p. 242, emphasis in original).The secondary tool was Pauwel’s (2012) negative analysis that deals with “meaningfully absent” elements in the policy data (p. 253). Such an analysis is particularly vital given that real language policies are rarely stated in the declared policy statements, yet it is still likely to infer the de facto policies by studying the policy mechanisms and their effects on the practices. We thus attempt to consider not only what the content of the data says, but also what is purposefully left unsaid.
3.2 Linguistic landscape analysis Data collection in linguistic scape studies is done through taking photographs (Gorter, 2006). In our research, we selected a restricted environment, a university space. Our
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main motive was to document the extent to which linguistic diversity is reflected on its campus and within its buildings considering that the university is home to many international students and teaching staff.Additionally, we strived to determine whether a language policy exists regarding the visibility of languages on campus and within its premises. To that end, 238 photographs were taken by visiting different areas of the campus, e.g. noticeboards, library entrance, areas around the library, faculty, and administration buildings, building entrances, and direction signs. Special effort was put into taking pictures of every token on campus and within buildings. To analyse the data, a simple taxonomy was followed in which linguistic landscape items were analysed according to two criteria: the languages used and the significant features in the use of these languages (Ben-Rafael, 2009). Thus, percentages and exact frequencies of the visible languages in the signs were calculated and the pattern of the distribution of languages in signs was meticulously inspected. While doing so, our pivotal concentration was on “any piece of written text within a spatially definable frame”, i.e. the signs photographed (Backhaus, 2007, p. 66). However, the analysis was not multimodal, as we worked with the text on each sign during analysis.
3.3 Interviews The interview participants in our study were three Turkish lecturers (one female, two male) from three different faculties (Engineering, Economics, and Business Studies) and 11 students (six female, five male) majoring in several disciplines including International Relations, Mathematics, and Mechanical Engineering. Of the students, ten had been obliged to study in the preparatory school (which offers a one-year intensive English course to those who have failed the entry requirements; see also section 4.2.2), while only one was exempt. Half of the students reported having been abroad for some time for various reasons (mostly as exchange students). Similarly, almost all the lecturers had spent some time in an ENL (English as a native language) country, primarily the USA and Canada, to pursue postgraduate degrees. The participants were sampled purposively to reach a targeted group that could provide the required information on the research topic (Dörnyei, 2007). In this way, it was possible to include both lecturers’ and students’ voices in the study to explore the issue of linguistic diversity from the perspectives of policy implementers (lecturers) and those affected by the policy (students). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with lecturers and students. They were asked similar questions about the language policies of the university, the use of languages other than English, the diverse ways of using English, and expectations of their own/others’ language practices.The interviews with lecturers were conducted in their offices and with students in various places, including the university library, cafeterias, and study rooms. Interviews lasted around 45 minutes and were in Turkish. Transcriptions and data analysis were undertaken in Turkish, yet the key parts were translated into English to be discussed in the presentation of the results. The analytical procedure of data analysis was primarily built on QCA (Schreier, 2012), with a special focus on the latent content of the participants’ utterances. The major purpose was to “uncover the hidden meaning in a systematic step-by-step
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process” (Dörnyei, 2007, p. 44). For the analysis, we followed Dörnyei’s (2007) four-step approach to qualitative content data: (1) transcribing the data; (2) pre- coding and coding; (3) growing ideas; and (4) interpreting the data and drawing conclusions. Taking these steps, we managed to reduce the large bulk of data into a manageable size by sampling extracts and quotations, which we later arranged into themes and case examples.
4. Results and discussion 4.1 Website data While analysing the website, we looked particularly at three issues: whether there was a clear-cut and consistent policy in language use on the webpages, whether there was any use of other languages apart from English, and whether there was any orientation to a specific kind of English. On the first issue, we observed that there is a consistent policy in the use of languages because it is only through Turkish and English that one can read the website content (see Figure 5.1). Nevertheless, we should note that the institution appears to embrace an ideology of linguistic homogeneity whereby Turkish and English are separately presented to visitors as official languages of the website. Hence, visitors can work in a “one- language-at-a-time” fashion, in either English or Turkish. Visitors cannot, therefore, see any co-existence of Turkish and English on the webpages or any instances of code-switching. Based on this policy, we concluded that diversity is limited to English and Turkish on the website, and is constructed as clicking on the language hyperlink to read the webpages in one or other of the languages.3 Although English is the official instructional language, the use of Turkish on the website can be explained by the fact that the institution aspires to make its website accessible to its existing Turkish students/staff, and more particularly to future Turkish applicants whose English is not sufficient to read the website in English. In addition, because Turkish is the official language of the country by constitution, it is used as the primary language of the website. As regards the second issue, we found that there is no use of other languages (e.g. German, Spanish, and Chinese) apart from Turkish. The absence of other languages may be attributed to the assumption that since Boğaziçi University is an EMI institution, any student can check out the website easily through English regardless of whether their first language is neither English nor Turkish. To find out the institution’s orientation towards a particular variety of English, we investigated various pages of the English website, focusing our attention on spelling and vocabulary. Our analysis revealed the consistent use of US-based English. For instance, we observed the use of the American spellings, “center” and “program” in various sections of the website (e.g. Facts and Figures). Further evidence of the institution’s orientation to American English came from the web address4 of the English website in which US English (en-US) vocabulary is explicitly used in the URL. Examples from this section and elsewhere include the
FIGURE 5.1 English
and Turkish versions of Boğaziçi University main website
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words “apartment” (British English “flat”), “dormitories” (British English “halls of residence”), and “parking garage” (British English “multistorey carpark”). A likely explanation for Boğaziçi’s (unstated) orientation to US English is that it was a former American college.
4.2 Policy documents We aimed through our analysis of its policy documents to determine how the institution orients to English, and what type(s) of English is/are specifically referred to in the policy documents. To achieve this, we scrutinised policy documents from various resources regarding English language requirements, language support, and assessment.
4.2.1 English language requirement Whose/which English Our analysis of the relevant documents on the university website and elsewhere (e.g. 2014– 2015 University Registration Information Booklet) indicated that English language requirements are quite transparent and easily accessible. These documents show that the university administers its own in-house language test5 besides recognising international proficiency tests (e.g. TOEFL and IELTS). As for the kind of English preferred in language requirements, there is no overt statement citing any particular kind of English in those documents. However, requiring students to prove their English in international tests such as TOEFL and IELTS, “all of which test their proficiency in native British or American English” (Jenkins, 2014, p. 12), evidently indicates that the institution favours a particular (standard native) English over other kinds of English. Likewise, the in-house proficiency test seems to support a standard native kind of English. As an illustration of this, the Online Student Handbook6 states in its section on writing that “[d]uring the evaluation process, what is predicated on is a grammatically and semantically competent English, and expression of ideas in a coherent manner” (Sınav İçeriği [Exam content] section, para. 3). Although it is not explicitly declared whose English is considered “grammatically and semantically competent”, what is meant is a standard version of English is implicitly that of an ENL variety and from the evidence we showed earlier, this is likely to be American English. Exemptions from entry requirements Another issue in student recruitment is whether any particular group of students is exempt from the language requirements. On this issue, the policy seems to be unclear. The reason is that one can find contradictory information in the documents and relevant webpages. For instance, no information is given about exemptions from the entry test in the “Admission to Undergraduate Degree Programs from Abroad”7 page.
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However, the University Registration Booklet firmly states that the language requirement is all-encompassing, i.e. irrespective of the students’ nationalities, all international students need to certify their English to get admission to a programme. Regarding the admission of exchange students, it is stated in some pages that “[n]on-native speakers of English must provide proof of English proficiency in the English language by means of [recognised international tests]” (Application page,8 para. 4), and that “exchange students whose native language is English do not need to provide any documentation” (Frequently Asked Questions page,9 para. 9). The implication of the language requirements and exemptions is that non-native English students’ English is being judged against a standard native English benchmark because of an ideology that considers standard (native) English as the appropriate kind of academic English.
4.2.2 Language support The kind of English desired The university provides language support to students in its two units: one being responsible for pre-faculty students unable to meet the entry requirements and the other being responsible for students already studying in their programmes. Both units aim to improve students’ academic English to a level that will enable them to follow their courses easily. In the pre-faculty division (preparatory school), there are over 110 instructors,10 of whom 20 are non-Turkish (17 native English speakers, one Iranian, one Russian, and one Armenian). In the Advanced English Unit, courses are given by 11 instructors (ten Turkish and one American). The language support in the preparatory school lasts one year, with a continuous assessment over the year. However, there is no information available about the content, assessment, and type of the exams, materials, and teaching approaches. Despite this, one can find some useful information in the student booklet about the objectives of the division regarding major language skills. For instance, it is stated in the booklet concerning writing skills that “the need arises for students to be able to use English correctly in their writing as well, given that examinations at the university are written” (section C, para. 1; our translation). The use of the word “correctly” is evidently an implicit reference to “correct” standard native English, yet there is no overt indication of whose standard English is meant. Unlike the webpage of the preparatory school, the webpage of the Advanced English Unit provides more information about the aim of the unit and its mission. The aim of the unit is, for instance, described as follows: “to offer students with a variety of electives that will contribute to their cultural formation and confidence in written and oral expression in English” (About Us11 section, para. 1). However, the aim statement does not offer any information regarding in which kind of English students need to be able to write and speak confidently. Upon checking the Undergraduate Catalogue,12 one can get more information about courses offered and their descriptions. For example, a course called Advanced English aims “to enhance the spoken/written performances of the non-native student” (para. 1). Similarly, a speaking course13 aims to develop students’ “skills in voice production
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and breathing techniques, intonation, emphasis, and articulation required in public speaking” (para. 6). Again, we cannot see any explicit mention of whose/which English such skills should be developed in. What we do see, however, is non-native students depicted as needing language support, and hence, implicitly that it is native English that they need. As is evident so far, the kind of English students are expected to develop through preparatory and faculty English courses is assumed to be standard native English, most likely that of American English considering the institution’s orientation to US English on its website. The message covertly conveyed to students is that they can only have “confidence in written and oral expression in English” (About Us, para. 1) and use English effectively if they can follow the conventions of standard (most likely American) English. Additionally, based on the staff profile largely consisting of Turkish and native English speaker (henceforth NES) instructors, we can conclude that students will not engage with diverse ways of English use, but the English of Turkish instructors, NES instructors, and thus with very few other non-native English accents.
4.3 Linguistic landscape 4.3.1 Diversity of languages and predominant ideology We initially examined the number and variety of visible languages in the linguistic landscape of Boğaziçi University. The examination indicated that there were nine languages displayed in different frequencies and ratios in the signs (see Figure 5.2). One can also clearly see the dominance of English (the official instructional language) and Turkish (the official language of Turkey by Constitution) in monolingual, bilingual, and trilingual signs.When all types of signs are combined, English appears in 56% and Turkish in 87% of the signs. The visibility of other languages was quite
ChineseSpanish-TurkishTurkish English 1% 0% Turkish-ArabicTurkish-Italian German-Kurdish 0% 0% Chinese 0%
TurkishJapanese 1%
Chinese-English 3% English 10%
Turkish-English 42%
Turkish 41%
TurkishEnglishChinese 2%
Chinese Turkish-Italian Spanish-Turkish-English Turkish-Arabic-GermanKurdish Chinese-Turkish Turkish-Japanese Turkish-English-Chinese Chinese-English
FIGURE 5.2 Number
linguistic landscape
and variety of languages displayed in Boğaziçi University’s
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confined as they were portrayed in certain areas only. For instance, Chinese was largely displayed in the areas around the Confucius Institute at Boğaziçi University. Additionally, the analysis showed that of the 238 signs shown, 121 were monolingual, 111 bilingual, five trilingual, and one quadrilingual. Upon examining the status of English and Turkish in multilingual signs drawing on Reh’s (2004) classification (see section 2.2 and Chapter 1), we found that English appeared in 134 signs and the majority (84) of these signs were duplicating (i.e. used in equal amounts with other languages) and fragmentary (32), i.e. the information in the signs was solely or mostly written in English. However, there were only 18 complementary signs where English had a subordinate role to other languages in the signs (see Figure 5.3).
FIGURE 5.3 English
signs in different types of writing
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FIGURE 5.3
(Cont.)
As regards the question of whether there is a clear-cut policy monitoring the use of languages on signs, there seems to be a lack of a deliberate and coherent policy. For instance, a closer examination of official signs, including building and directional signs, demonstrates the discrepancy in the use of languages.While some signs were bilingual, some were monolingual.Turkish seemed to be particularly preferred over English in signs displayed in the areas around administration offices and in the warning notices. Moreover, some building names were bilingual whereas others were monolingual, as seen in Figure 5.4. We can conclude from the above findings that the dominance of Turkish and English in the signs conveys a number of messages to their audience. First, by using English in monolingual, bilingual, and trilingual signs, the institution seems to be addressing its international students, presumably to create a welcoming atmosphere to them. Second, the institution appears to attach particular connotations to English, and most likely aims to project internationality, competitiveness, and Western-orientation. As for the use of Turkish in signs, the target group is obviously
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FIGURE 5.3
(Cont.)
Turkish students/staff and those who can comprehend Turkish. This suggests that the institution is seeking to create understanding among the host population (i.e. students, academic, and administrative staff), conveying notions of locality and language loyalty. Finally, despite the use of nine different languages in the signs, only the power of English and Turkish is reflected at Boğaziçi since the total visibility of the seven only other languages does not even amount to 7% of the entire signs. Such limited representation of languages other than English and Turkish in the signage contradicts the notion of linguistic diversity of the university and its claim to be international, at least from a linguistic point of view. This situation unearths the ideology of the authorities who assume that what makes the university international is mainly the use of English in teaching.Thus, they seem to put aside other indicators of truly international universities, such as becoming “a clear brand with international recognition; comprehensive excellence in teaching, research, staff, facilities, leadership and governance; innovative research with global partners that address global problems; global distribution of teaching and learning” (Bothwell, 2017). Of course, English can play a facilitating role in the realisation of the above- mentioned activities; however, it is by no means the only indicator of being international since there are several universities widely recognised as international that
FIGURE 5.4 Examples
of inconsistent language use in signs
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FIGURE 5.4
(Cont.)
do not use English at all in teaching. Take, for example, the case of those Turkish universities that use Turkish as their medium of instruction (e.g. Ankara University and Istanbul University), which have a higher place than some EMI universities in the university ranking lists (Karakaş, 2014).
4.4 Interviews In the interviews, we examined lecturers’ and students’ orientations to English and their perspectives about language policies of the university to identify language ideologies behind their orientations and perspectives.
4.4.1 Policies and practices concerning lecturers Entry requirements for teaching staff and the kind of English required The interviews with lecturers provided information about the entry requirements for teaching staff, which were not stated in any of the policy documents. It emerged
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from lecturers’ accounts that the staff recruitment policy is based on documenting: (1) evidence of English proficiency;14 (2) work/research experience abroad; and (3) international publications (= publications in [standard] English). However, it should be noted that the lecturers were from non-English-major departments. Therefore, the same recruitment policy may not be applicable to English-major lecturers. Regarding the above requirements, intriguing is the participants’ account that these requirements apply to non-native English speaker (NNES) applicants only, conveying the message that the NES applicants already have the required kind of academic English. Language assessment policy is imposed on all Turkish universities by law in 2547 Higher Education Council laws. However, policy decision-making and implementation process can be determined to some extent by the university authorities adhering to the relevant basic laws. Therefore, a NES can be part of a jury in the assessment of a candidate lecturer, as can be seen below (see Appendix 1 for interviewee profiles and Appendix 2 for transcription conventions). L1: the language commission consists of two members from the department and one member from the school of English (.) there was a native speaker [name] you saw earlier s/he was in the jury they check the translations of the texts What is remarkable in L1’s accounts is that the authorities preferred to include a NES in the jury that assesses the candidate’s linguistic fit for the position although they could include someone else. However, such departmental decisions demonstrate that the stakeholders expect their teaching staff to use a standard version of English in their oral and written performances. This finding echoes the university’s implicit orientation to standard English as was earlier discussed in the presentation of the website results, yet a note of caution is needed here because such decisions cannot be generalised to the whole university but is true for the relevant department under discussion. Views on entry requirements Our conversations with teaching staff brought up three kinds of arguments. First, they considered the requirements to be inadequate in terms of assessing lecturers’ English. Second, they complained about the tests being grammar- based. Finally, they argued that the practices for measuring lecturers’ English are not discipline-specific. Some of these arguments can be seen in the following extract. Extract 1. Negative views on the proficiency test 1. A: you mentioned before you have taken this YDS15 test 2. L1: it’s VERY misleading (.) have you seen that test? /…/a very misleading test I mean now 3. look its reading comprehension part is very important why it’s at least academic what’s the aim
112 Karakaş & Bayyurt 4. 5. 6. 7. 9. 10. 11. 12.
there because one will apply for promotion to associate professor er::m A: to follow up publications in the field L1: whether they can follow up the publications in their field /…/BUT the important thing is to be able to follow research literature in the field A: right L1: but I mean whether I should use “OFF” or “ON” there I find it hard now well so what it’s completely er:m a thing in English which has no specific rules …
The above extract reveals that L1 finds the assessment of lecturers’ academic skills (e.g. lecturing and reviewing literature) more essential than the assessment of their linguistic, especially grammatical competence. Perhaps, it is because of that he only considered the “reading comprehension part” of the test valuable. There is also evidence that he does not consider the grammar-based tests imposing particular norms on speakers appropriate for assessing lecturers’ English. This might be because he perceives English as a vehicle for delivering content courses. Therefore, he suggests that such tests are more suited to assess those based in English-major disciplines.
4.4.2 Expectations about language use and students’ English Orientations to bi/multilingual practices The interview data shows that two lecturers favoured implementing a monolingual language policy in their classes, with judicious amounts of Turkish use to support students’ learning. The other lecturer argued for Turkish-medium instruction at the undergraduate level, especially when there is no presence of international students in classes. Those supporting the use of English contended that since Boğaziçi is an EMI institution, students are obliged to use English. However, they acknowledged showing tolerance towards students even when they encountered some Turkish in students’ writing and speaking. In this regard, L3 noted “sometimes students write a few lines in Turkish in the exams particularly when they have difficulty expressing themselves”. This result was striking because tolerance to code- switching in the written mode is rarely shown while it is more often tolerated in the spoken mode. As they later explained, lecturers actually do not favour students using Turkish, yet when it occurs they do not reduce students’ marks, accepting the difficulty of studying intellectually demanding courses through English. As for the lecturer suggesting the use of Turkish in classes, he remarked the oddity that while he shares the same first language with the students, they try to conduct tasks and communicate through English. He also noted “the fact that Turkish lecturers teaching Turkish students in English has detrimental effects on students’ learning outcomes”. Therefore, he suggested, “undergraduate courses should be entirely or mainly given in Turkish. Nevertheless, all postgraduate degrees should be given in English.” We understand from this statement that L2 makes a distinction between undergraduate
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and graduate courses in respect to the choice of instructional language. He possibly takes it for granted that graduate students are more competent in academic language use than undergraduates. Non-normative expectations Turning to the lecturers’ expectations about students’ English use, they did not expect students to entirely conform to standard (native) English conventions in their written and spoken practices. Relevant to this issue, for instance, L2 noted that although he observes departures from the standard forms in the written exams, he believes “what matters is whether students can satisfactorily answer the questions independently from language concerns”. Similarly, L3 remarked that “we avoid marking students down owing to the mistakes in their practices. It is because what’s more important is to be able to discern the content, namely whether what they say or write is clear and comprehensible to us.” The lecturers’ accounts give evidence that they avoid acting like language teachers by intervening in students’ language practices to direct them towards using English in particular manners. They seemed to acknowledge students’ non-standard language use as long as the variations do not hinder the communication and intelligibility of the content.The emergence of such a flexible approach among the staff can be attributed to the fact that English is perceived to be a means that can be used varyingly to get things done rather than an end in itself.
4.4.3 Students’ orientations to university’s policies and practices Views on entry requirements Our conversations with students demonstrated that students were highly critical of their institution’s language test that needs to be taken by students as part of entry requirements. The key argument was that the institutional language test is only useful for measuring grammatical knowledge, writing skills, and reading comprehension that have no bearing on their actual practices in courses where they are required to listen, speak, and write academically.The following extracts nicely illustrate students’ point: S1: students who have no background knowledge of grammar are unable to pass the test Male, Mechanical Engineering S5: we learn English when we start our programmes everybody can somehow pass the test Female, History
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The above extracts suggest that students can pass the exam eventually by investing extra time and effort and through some exam tactics, but what seems prominent is the claim that students start learning discipline-specific English upon starting their degree programmes. This case goes against the impetus behind EMI because the initial aim of EMI is not the mastery of language skills but the use of English in teaching. Expecting to improve language skills through English-taught courses recalls CLIL (content and language integrated learning) practices in which language learning aims and individuals’ language proficiency are central. However, students’ views regarding the international tests (e.g. TOEFL and IELTS) were fairly positive despite their acknowledgement that those tests are native English-oriented in the sense that they are designed in ENL countries and administered all around the world by their branch offices. Students unanimously agreed that even if such tests assess students’ English in certain native Englishes, their institution must recognise them for three reasons, which are cited in the following conversation exchanges. Extracts 2 and 3. Views on international tests 1. 2. 3. 4.
A: so why only TOEFL or IELTS for example what might be the reason behind accepting these exams S6: because these exams have already wide recognition you see these exams have been adopted by the world (.) people think such systems can assess people’s true English proficiency S6: Male, Mechanical Engineering
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
A: what does the university actually imply by accepting the international proficiency tests S3: er::m they agree with that since they are worldwide examinations they have no doubt about their adequacy of measuring English proficiency (.) for that reason they have to recognise because other universities accept them too it’s like keeping pace with S3: Male, International Relations
It is evident that S6 and S3 promote the international tests over the institutional one as they believe that the international tests have more worldwide recognition and are considered to be better indicators of being international and of language proficiency compared to the local tests. However, no student found any fault with these tests being grounded in particular native Englishes, dismissing the varied uses of English. This can be partly explained by students’ previous educational experiences in schools where NESs were most probably depicted as the target model and their norms as the appropriate standards to be followed in language use.
The kind of English taught in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) programmes and student views on language support Turning to the student participants’ views on the pre-faculty and faculty EAP support, it emerged that overall, they agreed that the kind of English students are
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trained in is standard (native) English. It was also the students’ view that assessment of their linguistic skills was based on standard English norms. Some elaborated on their answers, expounding that they are exposed to standard English norms through teaching materials (e.g. dictionaries, textbooks, grammar books) imported from ENL countries. However, most students seemed to be positive about the use of standard English-oriented materials and, above all, the recruitment of NES teachers to teach language courses. In relation to these points, a student perceived that “imported materials are of high quality” (S4). Similarly, some praised the listening materials produced by publishing houses, such as Oxford and Cambridge for the reason that these “materials expose them to native English accents, namely the authentic and real English” (S11). Relevant to this, another student stated his perception of NES teachers, uttering “NES teachers are more highly qualified in respect of teaching authentic English compared to Turkish teachers” (S9). Additionally, six students expressed a positive feeling towards teachers’ form- focused feedback, emphasising that “[w]e find their feedback very useful. [t]hanks to such feedback we learn the real I mean correct English” (S7). It is clear from students’ accounts that they are driven by the ideology of authenticity (Woolard, 2005), in which authenticity is correlated with the notions of correctness and realness and attached to NESs. However, not all students were satisfied with correctness- based feedback that averts students from using English in their own style. On this matter, S2 made the following comments: Extract 4. Teacher’s accuracy-focused feedback 1. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
A: are teachers stricter about writing for example how do they provide feedback S2: it is usually done using red pen teachers have become obsessed with this erm last term when I was taking /…/we would tell the teacher not to do so she would circle the mistakes in a speech bubble write down comments next to them such as “oh really” put question marks cross out them and so on we asked her not to do so erm we said we’re afraid of such comments it’s turned into an obsession we’ve developed a phobia (.) thanks God she understood us and stopped doing those things /…/this is all about. their obsession I mean they become too much obsessed with it. Female, International Relations
The above exchange provides sufficient evidence that language teachers employ the coercion mechanism (Shohamy, 2006) to lead students to use English in particular ways. It seems that teachers were not aware of the adverse impacts of their normative expectations about students’ language use until they were informed about the impacts of these expectations on the students’ psychology. Based on the evidence of such normative practices, we can conclude that the language teachers’ practices accord with the language policies of the university, which covertly suggests a particular standard English is to be used and taught on campus. What is surprising is the large number of students and lecturers who do not see anything wrong with such standard English-oriented policies and practices, despite the linguistically and culturally rich environment surrounding them.
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Students’ expectations about lecturers’ language use While discussing teachers’ expectations about students’ languages use, a few students noted that they, too, had expectations of their teachers’ English. Overall, students expressed their satisfaction with teachers’ English. One student, however, was not pleased with Turkish-accented teachers since she found their English difficult to understand. On the other hand, more than half thought that it is not the Turkish teachers but the NES teachers who were difficult to follow in classes.Thus, it seems that irrespective of their teachers’ first language backgrounds, they expected their teachers’ accents to be comprehensible. For instance, S7 mentioned the following incident in this respect: …being intelligible suffice to deliver academic lectures. On one occasion, we reacted to one of our teachers, saying we do not understand her/his English due to her/his efforts to imitate NESs and in return she/he reprimanded us severely. She said this is how English is spoken and if we fail to understand her, the real problem lies with us. The above extract shows the teacher’s belief that English should be used as NESs do (this is how English is spoken). This belief does not let students deviate from commonly taken-for-g ranted norms in their linguistic behaviours, ignoring their linguistic diversity. Despite the evidence that even NESs’ English use is rather varied, the ideology that mandates the use/teaching of standard English in educational platforms seems to capture the minds of stakeholders, especially language teachers who insist on a model that is attainable neither by themselves nor students. Another remarkable issue raised by S7 above is that the teacher saw communication as a one- way phenomenon, with the onus of understanding being placed on the shoulders of listeners rather than on speakers who imitate native English. However, it is evident that the use of standard native English does not necessarily promise mutual intelligibility and effective communication, and it is the responsibility of both speakers and listeners to sustain a successful interaction, regardless of the varieties they speak. It is for this reason that skilled language users apply various communicative strategies (e.g. accommodation, repairs, repetitions), particularly in intercultural encounters to handle communication breakdowns. In other words, what is notable in effective language use is not the use of English in conformity with certain varietal norms, but the intercultural skills needed to navigate English in a range of settings with speakers from different first languages.
5. Conclusions In this chapter, we have seen from different angles the orientation of Boğaziçi University to English in general, and the way English is to be used and taught/ learned in particular.The overall website and policy data discourse seems to support a particular kind of standard native English in terms of both management’s own
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practices and its requirements of students. Thus, English-wise, there seems to be little room for divergent uses of English in the policy documents prescribing the use of English in accordance with the conventions of standard native English varieties, particularly American English. Similarly, we have explored whether there are any instances of using other languages besides English in classes and how the stakeholders perceive such instances. In this respect, there are frequent switches to Turkish among students, while various languages are spoken by international students who share the same or similar languages, both inside and outside the classroom. The use of languages other than English is contemplated as a practice that contradicts the monolingual language policy of the university. Yet lecturers sometimes tolerate these languages, even in writing, as they appreciate the difficulty of studying in a foreign language. Such diverse language practices therefore occur as a reality of the institution, despite going against the institution’s declared principles. The visibility of diversity in the linguistic landscape of the university indicates the dominance of Turkish and English in the signage, whereas the other seven languages displayed (see section 4.3) had a very limited appearance as a result of being displayed in restricted areas. The institution’s ideology of diversity is mainly structured around the host language (Turkish) and the international language (English), and the discourses around this ideology assume that seeing any information, advertisements, warnings, and other signage in English, Turkish, or in a combination or the two, coupled with one of seven other languages will serve the linguistically diverse student population representing over 60 different languages, of which only nine are visible in the linguistic landscape of the university, and only two to a significant degree. Finally, apparently contradictory ideologies emerged in students’ and lecturers’ accounts during the interviews. Lecturers approached the use of English in their expectations about students’ linguistic behaviours more flexibly, emphasising the role of English as being a tool rather than an end in itself, that had to be mastered by adjusting to certain norms. However, most students submitted themselves to the ideologies of standard English, nativeness, and authenticity, supporting the use of ENL-oriented materials, the recruitment of NES teachers, and the acceptance of native-English-g rounded international tests in the institution’s language requirements. Only a few students mentioned non-normative expectations regarding their lecturers’ language use, and placed their major emphasis on mutual intelligibility in classes and in one-to-one conversations. To summarise, Boğaziçi University seems largely to adopt a one-size-fits-all approach to English and its use and teaching by promoting the use of standard (native) English as the appropriate kind of academic English via various policy mechanism tools (Shohamy, 2006). On the basis of our analyses, the university seems to ignore the reality on the ground, in which bi/multilingual practices and varied English uses are inherent despite the monolingual English-only policy. It is thus vital that the current English language policies of the university be reconceptualised and updated to accord with its socio- demographic characteristics, which are being shaped by linguistically diverse student groups and teaching staff. This may necessitate the inclusion of stakeholders, including lecturers and students, in the
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language decision-making process as they are best placed to observe closely what is happening at ground level, and to find out whether or not the actual practices match the required policy principles. Moreover, university managers should attach particular consideration to students’ actual learning needs in academic literacy in their disciplines. Only then can top–down monolingual, normative language policies and practices be adjusted, with more focus shifting to users’ Englishing, that is, what users can achieve using English and other linguistic resources in their own right (Hall, 2014).
Notes 1 Some of the documentary and interview data presented in this chapter draw on the first author’s doctoral thesis, Turkish lecturers’ and students’ perceptions of English in English- medium universities, for which ethical approval was obtained from the university’s research ethics committee prior to the start of data collection. 2 www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/bogazici-university 3 We have noticed that some departments like the Department of Foreign Language Education (i.e. http://fled.boun.edu.tr) do not have a Turkish version of their webpage. 4 www.boun.edu.tr/en-US/Index 5 Boğaziçi University English Proficiency Test (BUEPT). 6 http://yadyok.boun.edu.tr/birim/ogrenci-el-kitabi.htm 7 http://adaylar.boun.edu.tr/en-EN/Page/ApplicationDocuments/StudentsFromAbroad 8 http://intl.boun.edu.tr/?q=application-0 9 http://ulus-test.boun.edu.tr/?q=node/20#a9 10 http://yadyok.boun.edu.tr/contact/hazirlik-ogrt.asp 11 www.advancedenglish.boun.edu.tr/index.htm 12 www.boun.edu.tr/ e n_ U S/ C ontent/ A cademic/ U ndergraduate_ C atalogue/ T he_ School_of_Foreign_Languages/Advanced_English_Unit 13 English through Public Speaking and Drama II. 14 To prove their English proficiency, lecturers reported that they were asked to certify their English through either a national or an international language test (e.g. TOEFL, IELTS), to deliver a micro-teaching session in front of a jury consisting of content and language teachers, and to have one-to-one interviews with language instructors for the assessment of oral skills. 15 This is a nationwide English proficiency test to be taken for recruitment or promotional purposes.
References Arik, B.T., & Arik, E. (2014). The role and status of English in Turkish higher education. English Today, 30(4), 5–10. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266078414000339 Backhaus, P. (2007). Linguistic landscapes: A comparative study of urban multilingualism in Tokyo. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Ball, S. (2006). Education policy and social class: The selected works of Stephen J. Ball. London: Routledge. Bayyurt,Y. (2015, October). The spread of English in Turkey and its reflections on higher education system. Opening talk at 21st IAWE Conference, Istanbul, Turkey.
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Ben-Rafael, E. (2009). A sociological approach to the study of linguistic landscapes. In E. Shohamy & D. Gorter (Eds.), Linguistic landscape: Exploring the scenery (pp. 40–54). London: Routledge. Berg, B.L. (2001). Qualitative research methods for the social sciences (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon. Blaxter, L., Hughes, C., & Tight, M. (2010). How to research (4th ed.). London: Open University Press. Bothwell, E. (2017).The world’s most international universities 2017. Times Higher Education. Retrieved from www.timeshighereducation.com/features/worlds-most-internationaluniversities-2017#survey-answer Bowen, G.A. (2009). Document analysis as a qualitative research method. Qualitative Research Journal, 9(2), 27–40. Coleman, J.A. (2006). English-medium teaching in European higher education. Language Teaching, 39(1), 1–14. http://doi.org/10.1017/S026144480600320X Collins, A.B. (2010). English-medium higher education: Dilemma and problems. Eurasian Journal of Educational Research, 39, 97–110. Council of Higher Education. (2017). Yüksekögretim bilgi yönetim sistemi. Ögrenci istatistikleri: Uyruga göre ögrenci sayıları (Higher education information management system. Student statistics:The number of students by nationality). Retrieved from https:// istatistik.yok.gov.tr/ Daniel, R.L. (1970). American philanthropy in the Near East, 1820–1960. Athens, GA: Ohio University Press. Dörnyei, Z. (2007). Research methods in applied linguistics: Quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methodologies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gorter, D. (2006). Introduction:The study of linguistic landscape as a new approach to multilingualism. International Journal of Multilingualism, 3(1), 1–6. Gülle, T., Özata, H., & Bayyurt, Y. (2015, October). A case study on attitudes and perceptions towards English-medium instruction and internationalisation of higher education. Paper presented at 21st IAWE Conference, Istanbul, Turkey. Hall, C.J. (2014). Moving beyond accuracy: From tests of English to tests of “Englishing”. ELT Journal, 68(4), 376–385. http://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccu016 Jenkins, J. (2014). English as a lingua franca in the international university: The politics of academic English language policy. London: Routledge. Karakaş, A. (2014). Internationalization as Englishization. Language on the Move. Retrieved from www.languageonthemove.com/languageglobalization/internationalization-asenglishization Karakaş, A. (2016, November). A talk on The (in)visibility of linguistic diversity in Turkish EMI universities’ language policies and practices within the scope of the guest speaker seminars that are organised by Boğaziçi University Sociolinguistics and Foreign Language Education Research Group (BUSFLERG), Boğaziçi University, İstanbul, Turkey. Kırkgöz, Y. (2005). Motivation and student perception of studying in an English medium university. Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies, 1(1), 101–123. König, G. (1990). The place of English in Turkey. In D. Bozer (Ed.), The birth and growth of a department: Department of English language and literature: 25th anniversary (pp. 157–67). Ankara: Hacettepe University Publications. Landry, R., & Bourhis, R. (1997). Linguistic landscape and ethnolinguistic vitality: An empirical study. Journal of language and Social Psychology, 16(1), 23–49. http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1177/ Pauwels, L. (2012). A multimodal framework for analyzing websites as cultural expressions. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 17(3), 247–265.
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Pavlenko, A. (2010). Linguistic landscape of Kyiv, Ukraine: A diachronic study. In E. Shohamy, M. Barni, & E. Ben-Rafael (Eds.), Linguistic landscape in the city (pp. 133–150). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Reh, M. (2004). Multilingual writing: A reader-oriented typology –with examples from Lira Municipality (Uganda). International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 170, 1–41. Schreier, M. (2012). Qualitative content analysis in practice. London: SAGE. Selvi, A. (2014). The medium-of-instruction debate in Turkey: Oscillating between national ideas and bilingual ideals. Current Issues in Language Planning, 15(2), 133–152. Shohamy, E. (2006). Language policy: Hidden agendas and new approaches. London: Routledge. Spolsky, B. (2004). Language policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Spolsky, B. (2012). What is language policy? In B. Spolsky (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of language policy (pp. 3–15). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Woolard, K. (2005, February). Language and identity choice in Catalonia: The interplay of contrasting ideologies of linguistic authority. Paper presented at the Workshop on Language Ideology and Change in Multilingual Communities, Uc San Diego. Retrieved from http://escholarship.org/uc/item/47n938cp
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Appendix 1. Interviewee profiles Participant ID
Gender
Discipline
Lecturer 1 Lecturer 2 Lecturer 3 Student 1 Student 2 Student 3 Student 4 Student 5 Student 6 Student 7 Student 8 Student 9 Student 10 Student 11
Male Male Female Male Female Male Male Female Male Male Female Female Female Female
Philosophy Electrical and Electronics Engineering Psychology Mechanical Engineering International Relations International Relations International Relations Mechanical Engineering Mechanical Engineering Mechanical Engineering Mathematics Education Mathematics Education Mathematics Education Mathematics Education
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Appendix 2. Transcription conventions Symbols
Explanations
(.) A L1, L2, L3 S1, S2, S3 /…/
I
Pause of about one second or less Ali (the researcher) EMI lecturers EMI students speech not included in the example as material is irrelevant my additional information to make meaning clear italics are used to highlight issues under discussion in the extracts
PART II
East and Southeast Asia
6 LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY ON A CHINESE UNIVERSITY CAMPUS Myths of language policy and means of practice Fan (Gabriel) Fang and Xiaowen (Serina) Xie
1. Contextualising the research: English in China The case study (Duff, 2008) reported in this chapter explores the language policies and choice and requirements for language use within and outside classrooms at a university in southeast China. It specifically examines whether the stated language policies match actual practices and to understand and evaluate the adoption of English as a medium of instruction (EMI) at this university (Botha, 2014; Hu, Li, & Lei, 2014). The contribution of the study is to propose a multilingual language pedagogy that recognises the status quo situation of English and promotes an ELF-informed pedagogy of both language choice and assessment (see, for example, Dewey, 2012).
1.1 Brief introduction This chapter focuses on English language teaching (henceforth ELT) in Chinese higher education, which provides a key thread in this volume to investigate linguistic diversity on university campuses. China has the world’s largest population of English learners or, from an ELF perspective, English users, with an estimated number of 400 million (Wei & Su, 2012). It is noted that, in recent years, “the role and status of English in China is higher than ever in history as evidenced by its position as a key subject in the curriculum” (Adamson, 2004, p. 195). In this context, the Chinese Government seems to value the use of English for its national modernisation programme and the country’s international stature (Bolton, 2003; Lam, 2002). However, it should also be noted that English is not a postcolonial language in China, and the number of Chinese who have opportunities to put their English skills to use remains relatively low; it has also been claimed that many high school
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and college graduates “do not reach a level where they are able to communicate effectively in English” (Yang, 2006, p. 7). Although this argument was made more than ten years ago, we should still acknowledge that daily use of English among the Chinese is rather limited (see also Wei & Su, 2012). This point raises the question of the relation of English to identity in Chinese society. A controversy has centred on the role and status of English in China; as Adamson (2004, p. 195) points out, English is “an alien language with negative historical connotations, but viewed by the state as necessary for future prosperity”. Niu and Wolff (2003, p. 10) also voice their concern about a westernised China transformed into Chingland: “a country that is neither purely Chinese nor purely Western” and advocate for the importance of preserving Chinese national identity. Thus, we see that traditional Chinese culture, especially the Confucian ideology, strongly influences Chinese perceptions of the English language (Deng, 2011, 2014). This influence is also evident in the recent Gaokao (the Chinese National Matriculation Examination) reforms, as some municipal and provincial education departments (including Beijing, Shandong, and Jiangsu) reduced the weighting of English from 150 to 100 and increased the weighting of Chinese from 150 to 180 by 2016 (Tang, 2015; Yan, 2014; Zhao, 2013). It is argued that this “may be a signal that the importance of English has shifted and that the local identity of using English in China is not advocated by the authorities” (Fang, 2017, p. 23), but it is only one side of the coin, and the language policy has yet to be implemented fully. From another perspective, the recent promotion of EMI in Chinese higher education seems to be gaining in momentum.
1.2 English language teaching in Chinese higher education Exploring ELT in China is of great importance as it is strongly linked to the Chinese socio-political climate (Adamson, 2004; Xu, Li, & Curtis, 2015). However, medium-of-instruction policies in China have received little attention (see, for instance, Gao & Wang, 2017; Lei & Hu, 2014). Tollefson and Tsui’s edited volume (2004) reviews medium-of-instruction policies in many settings in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Oceania, while Hamid, Nguyen and Baldauf (2013, p. 1) investigate medium of instruction in many Asian settings from a language policy and planning and an education perspective “to explicate the context, motivation, goals, actors, implementation process and outcomes of MOI [medium of instruction]”. However, neither of these two reviews considers medium-of-instruction policies in China, which should be a key focus in investigations of language policies within the ELF framework. Among the ELT documents in Chinese higher education, College English Curriculum Requirements (henceforth CECR) (2007) is a major language-policy publication from the Chinese Ministry of Education (henceforth MOE).This handbook on college English teaching includes sections on “character and objectives of college English”, “teaching requirements”, “course design”, “teaching model”, “evaluation”, and “teaching administration”. CECR sets out three levels of language
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requirements (basic, intermediate, and advanced) and stipulates that students’ ability to use English and their general cultural awareness should be cultivated “to meet the needs of China’s social development and international exchanges” (p. 5). CECR also has appendices on “computer and classroom-based college English teaching models”,“self-assessment/peer assessment forms for students’ English”, and “college English vocabulary”. Interestingly, CECR does not specify a language of instruction, namely, whether English should be used as the exclusive, de facto medium of instruction. Rather, CECR emphasises changes in the teaching model by asserting the importance of “a student-centred pattern, in which the ability to use the language and the ability to learn independently are cultivated in addition to language knowledge and skills” (p. 23). This requires that teachers achieve high levels of English skills to prepare for the possible adoption of EMI in classroom instruction. However, the English level of teachers who conduct EMI courses has been insufficiently researched. The MOE has pushed the adoption of EMI as a reform to promote the internationalisation of higher education in China, including the key reason that university rankings have driven the adoption of EMI (Hu et al., 2014; Jenkins, 2014; Piller & Cho, 2013). Lei and Hu (2014) summarise various issues connected with EMI in China, including courses taught by young faculty members, the use of textbooks published by Anglo-American universities, different English proficiency levels of teachers and students, and concerns about students’ English proficiency. Hu and Alsagoff (2010) discuss other challenges in implementing EMI in China, including shortages of qualified teachers and instructional materials and the absence of a sociolinguistic environment conducive to EMI in mainland China. To a large extent, the current ELT situation in China remains very much exam-oriented (Cheng, 2008; Rao, 2013;Wu, 2001), and the effectiveness of implementing EMI in China is questionable, while actual practices are under-investigated. In sum, when investigating medium-of-instruction language policies, we shall recognise that “the tension between retaining the culture and values associated with the mother tongue and the adoption of a national identity symbolized by a foreign language is not easy to reconcile” (Tsui & Tollefson, 2004, p. 7). For example, the proposal of reforms to the Chinese university entry examination, Gaokao, decreasing the percentage devoted to testing English language abilities (although dissenting voices mean that the proposal may not be implemented) alongside the promotion of EMI in Chinese higher education seems contradictory. In this chapter, we analyse relevant foreign language policies and practices at a university in southeast China as a case study in order to reflect on the linguistic diversity on its campuses. Like the other studies presented in this volume, our case study focused on two main research questions: 1. What are the academic English language policies and actual practices adopted at a university in China, especially in EMI courses? • Are there any specific language requirements for students to take these courses?
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• What kinds of English are used/accepted, if any? 2. What are students’ and faculty members’ ideologies and expectations regarding the language used in classroom instruction? We discuss implications for ELT in China based on our research findings. From an ELF perspective, the chapter points out both the challenges and the opportunities for Chinese ELT against the backdrop of multilingualism. In respect of higher education specifically, it uncovers the need for language policy that recognises linguistic diversity and is thus able to support a truly international community on Chinese university campuses.
2. Methodology 2.1 Research context This case study research was conducted at a university in southeast China.According to the university’s official website, it has more than 1,500 staff members and 10,000 students in nine schools and colleges, and more than 40% of faculty members have overseas education backgrounds and/or work experience. Amid the growing trend for classes to be conducted in English at Chinese universities, this university likewise is promoting EMI by offering courses conducted in English. In the province where the university is located, three major dialects are spoken: Cantonese, Teochew, and Hakka.1 Mandarin is the lingua franca of Greater China (Feng, 2011), so the university uses it as the main medium of instruction. As mentioned, however, the university also participates in the current trend of offering a growing number of classes with instruction in English. The faculty members’ overseas experiences make it possible to offer courses in English. As well, government pressure for universities to internationalise requires offering more EMI courses and becoming more competitive among top universities globally (Fenton- Smith, Humphreys, & Walkinshaw, 2017; Tollefson & Tsui, 2004; Wong, 2010).
2.2 Participants As mentioned, the participants include 12 students and two faculty members from the university. The students majored in different disciplines, were studying college English as a compulsory course, and were taking EMI courses as their major subject courses. For teacher participants, one teacher was from China and taught business, while the second was from the USA and taught law. Table 6.1 shows the profile of the student participants.
2.3 Data collection and analysis In this study, the qualitative instruments of document analysis and face-to-face and email interviews were employed. We also analysed the university’s website and the related linguistic landscaping data on campus. For data collection, we first
A Chinese university 129 TABLE 6.1 Profiles of student participants
Student participants
Gender
College
S1 S2 S3 S4 S5 S6 S7 S8 S9 S10 S11 S12
F M M F F F F M M F F F
Business Business Business Law Business Law Business Business Business Law Journalism Law
collected EMI courses syllabi from the Business School, School of Journalism, and Law School, and conducted document analysis in order to understand the overt language policies used in the school documents. Regarding linguistic landscaping data, we took pictures from English and bilingual signs, posters on campus with a focus on canteens, classrooms, the English Language Centre (ELC) office, and the Centre for Independent Language Learning (CILL). We took a total number of 16 pictures, but decided to focus on the linguistic landscaping data we had from CILL for the purposes of this chapter, because these pictures present examples of language ideology that are relevant to the overall aims of the LDIC project (see Chapter 1). We then invited students for face-to-face interviews to gain a more detailed understanding of the means of language practice inside and outside class. The participants were recruited through snowball sampling (Schutt, 2014). The first author initially contacted a former student and explained the purpose of the research.The student agreed to be interviewed and afterwards, was asked to recommend other students to participate. In this way, we recruited 12 student participants. All the interviews were semi-structured and conducted in Mandarin Chinese, as it was anticipated that participants would be more willing to express themselves in detail in that language. The interviews ranged from 40 minutes to an hour. We also contacted two faculty members teaching EMI courses and interviewed them through email exchanges. After data collection, student assistants transcribed the data. We then conducted qualitative content analysis (Schreier, 2012) to “explore the deeper meanings so as to add interpretive depth and breadth to the analysis” (Jenkins, 2014, p. 128). We also performed discourse analysis to add further depth and bring a critical perspective to the data analysis. In the next section, we report the analysis of university websites, followed by analysis of the collected EMI syllabi documents. We then present our findings from the student and teacher interviews, and finally, we turn
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to our linguistic landscape data and report our analysis of signage in the Centre for Independent Language Learning.
3. Findings 3.1 Analysis of university websites We selected Pauwel’s framework (2012) to analyse the university’s website, looking at what was missing from the website and the interplay between the local and the global on it (see also Jenkins, 2014). In particular, we focused on the language choice and use on the university’s website. For example, Jenkins’s analysis of nine Chinese universities’ websites found few references “to any kind of English language support for international students” (Jenkins, 2014, p. 89). Therefore, we also analysed the website of the English Language Centre (henceforth ELC), a department that provides language courses and support for university students in the designated university. In phase 1 of Pauwels’ framework (“preservation of first impressions and reactions”), we reviewed the English version of the university’s website, which is quite easy to find. The English homepage contains pictures of the university library and sport arena, and a hyperlink that leads to a page introducing facts about the university. Moving to Pauwels’ phase 2 (“inventory of salient features and topics”) of website analysis, we see that the homepage includes links to pages entitled “About”, “Organisations” (teaching and administration departments), “Introduction to undergraduate and postgraduate education”, and “Research and international exchange”. Meanwhile, the English version of the homepage provides a simplified introduction to facts, activities, and recent news about the university. Turning to the in-depth discourse analysis of content (phase 3), we found that, although some university departments have Chinese and English versions of their websites, the English versions are simpler than the Chinese ones. Some hyperlinks are only accessible through the Chinese versions, and some news is only posted in the Chinese versions. This pattern reflects the internationalisation and globalisation emphasised by many Chinese institutions (Jenkins, 2014). On one hand, “[t]heir juxtaposition of discourses of both Anglicization and Sinicization indicate a view of it as involving not only the introduction of Anglophone academic mores into China” (Jenkins, 2014, p. 90). On the other hand, the emphasis on Chinese in the websites of the university and many departments suggests that “they do not conceive globalization to be as exclusively bound up with English” (Jenkins, 2014, p. 90). The ELC’s website is the only exception to this language choice: English is the only language used, and no Chinese version for the ELC can be found. Therefore, we next analyse the embedded points and what has been taken for granted (phase 4) in the language use and underlying language practices of the ELC’s website. At first glance, the ELC’s homepage seems to be no different from the other university websites. However, the discourse of the website on the “About” page indicates
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an emphasis on international teachers as a means of promoting internationalisation. The page stresses that “the ELC has recruited half of its faculty from abroad”. Although the ELC’s faculty webpage does not indicate a clear preference for English “nativeness”, this can be found in its curriculum design and course content in the online staff profiles, showing that a majority of the international teachers are from the USA. Jenkins (2014) argues that the “native-normative focus of any English language teaching on offer” in an institution provides “evidence that native English is taken for granted as the acceptable norm” (p. 91). This is likely to be so in the current setting, although whether the use of English-only and focus on native English staff is, at least in part, presented for recruitment purposes requires further investigation.
3.2 Syllabi analysis To further analyse language policy and practices, we collected 16 sample syllabi from the Business School and Law School courses,2 including Microeconomics, Principles of Marketing, Macroeconomics, Introduction to Management, Depute Resolution: Theory and Practice, International Law, and Law and Government in Hong Kong. The second author manually coded the syllabi. First, she carefully read all the syllabi and performed an initial coding. The primary aim of this stage was to identify the common features of the EMI syllabi in several majors. Several further stages of coding following, leading to the final coding process in which the sub-themes that had emerged were combined into main themes. Here, we focus on two aspects related to the syllabus analysis: language choice and stated language use, and course materials for the EMI courses. Table 6.2 lists the courses whose syllabi were analysed. TABLE 6.2 A list of syllabi collected
Syllabus 1 Syllabus 2 Syllabus 3 Syllabus 4 Syllabus 5 Syllabus 6 Syllabus 7 Syllabus 8 Syllabus 9 Syllabus 10 Syllabus 11 Syllabus 12 Syllabus 13 Syllabus 14 Syllabus 15 Syllabus 16
Microeconomics Communication in Business and Administration Econometrics Principles of Marketing Macroeconomics Introduction to Management English for Public Management Depute Resolution: Theory and Practice Procedural Principles and Ethical Standards Emerging Issues in Media and the Internet International Law Contemporary China’s Politics Private International Law Cases Study and Practice of International Law International Commercial Arbitration Moot Law and Government in Hong Kong
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3.2.1 Language choice and stated language use More than half of the syllabi collected (12 out of 16) used English as the main language. Of these, eight were bilingual in Chinese and English (syllabi 2, 3, 4, 7, 12, 13, 14, and 15). The syllabi generally followed the same format and writing guidelines. However, there is no indication of who designed and wrote the syllabi, so it seems to be compulsory for teachers to use English to write syllabi for the international teachers who may be co-teaching the course. English appears to be the university’s “official language” in curriculum design and syllabus writing in these two schools, which relates to the university’s requirement for course development. Although some bilingual syllabi are designed for EMI courses whose students’ mother tongue is Chinese, English is almost always written and presented first, that is, as the main language before Chinese in the syllabus design. Thus, English is given priority in syllabus writing and curriculum design, while Chinese is somewhat marginalised. This reflects the university’s ambition to project an international image, at least in respect of these syllabi. Surprisingly, almost none of the syllabi state in which language the course is taught, although they were, to some extent, designed for EMI courses. Only one (Syllabus 6) mentions that “the teaching of this course employs English and Chinese”. Without the language of instruction clearly stated in the syllabus, the instructor might choose to code-switch between languages, such as Mandarin and English, or even not to use English at all. In addition, none of the syllabi mentions which language will be used in assessment. This empowers instructors in the EMI classroom and gives them the right to design assessment. However, it could lead to problems if different instructors taught the same course. In addition, almost none of the syllabi mentions the desired course outcomes for English language, and very few address language-related issues. It seems that as language is not the principal focus of the curriculum design, many EMI courses have been made without considering the possible benefits (or disadvantages) of the courses.
3.2.2 Course materials All 16 EMI courses prioritised “authentic” English materials, especially in their choice of textbooks. For example, Syllabus 1 emphasised the use of the “English version” of the main textbook, while Syllabi 3 and 4 adopt English textbooks with Chinese translations provided. Syllabi 12 and 13 were the only exceptions that use Chinese textbooks for students. The EMI syllabi consistently suggested supplementary Chinese textbooks and course materials, but many of these were outdated compared to the English ones. The lack of up-to-date Chinese materials meant that the majority of courses did not provide useful materials for students who needed language support. The syllabi thus indicate that EMI course organisers and coordinators need more help with course materials development, particularly so as to provide students with more language and content support.
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Additionally, the syllabi provided no English language learning materials to help students improve their English proficiency, although students taking EMI courses often need language support to help them learn the course content. And only one syllabus (Syllabus 3) recommended that students who needed to practise and improve their English skills should go to the university’s Centre for Independent Language Learning. In addition to this rather vague approach to English language proficiency, most syllabi did not list any prerequisites for English. Some provided general descriptions regarding the language level that students should achieve before taking the course. For example, Syllabus 7 required that students pass the College English Test Band 4 before enrolling in the course. Syllabus 10 stated that students should have “good” English skills before taking the course, though what was meant by “good” was unclear. This lack of criteria or prerequisites for students’ English skills was likely, in turn, to make the implementation of EMI more difficult.
3.3 Student interview findings In addition to document analysis, we also interviewed students who had taken EMI courses at the university. We first listened to 12 interviews after the student assistants had transcribed them. We then manually coded the emerging themes before inputting all the data into NVivo software, which we used to develop more specific codes for the data. In the following section, we focus on three main themes: language prerequisites; language use in and after class; and perceptions of EMI courses.
3.3.1 Language prerequisites The language prerequisites findings closely reflect those of the syllabus analysis. Most student participants mentioned that the teachers did not require a certain level of English proficiency before students could take courses. S11 and S12 stated that they took an EMI course in their first year and found language proficiency to be an obstacle in understanding the course contents. For example, S12 mentioned that she could not understand the English textbook when she started the course: “I read the book several times but still could not understand it.” S12 described EMI courses as teacher-centred and reported that use of English was most often required in reading and writing after class as students simply listened to teachers during class. S1 stated that the EMI course focused more on subject knowledge than English use, so a prerequisite for English proficiency was not important. S7 referred to the syllabus which did not mention any required English proficiency for students to enrol. Similarly, S8 mentioned that his EMI teachers did not set any English-level prerequisites for students.
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Extract 1 1. Researcher (R): 2. S8:
3. R: 4. S8: 5. R: 6. S8: … 7. R: 8. S8:
What about your EMI teachers? Do they have any specific requirement for students’ English level? No, I feel that they require based on their own –I mean, if they feel that you have certain English level –this is the requirement. What is the requirement then? I don’t think the requirement is clear. It’s not obvious. Not obvious. Is it mentioned on the syllabus? No. Does your teacher consider students’ English level before they chose the class? No.
Again, from S8’s comments, it seems that the English proficiency prerequisites for EMI courses were quite vague. There were no available documents concerning the English levels of their teachers or students teaching and learning using EMI, nor were students’ English levels tested in any way, such as interviews, before enrolment. As such, it appears that teachers simply assumed that prospective students had achieved adequate English proficiency and felt that the students were qualified to enrol in the course. S1 stated that the teacher “did not mention any prerequisite English level at the first class because it was a compulsory course that we had to take”. S11 explained that some courses had prerequisites, such as passing ELC course Level 2, but teachers did not test students’ English proficiency to determine whether they were qualified to enrol in the course. However, in practice, proficiency in English was essential for students to be able to understand EMI courses, a point that was reported by several of our student participants (S3, S6, S9, S11, and S12). In this respect, Lei and Hu (2014) argue that “prior English proficiency appeared to mediate the effectiveness of EMI in enhancing English proficiency and positive affect in English learning and use” (p. 122). Thus, it seems that English proficiency prerequisites should be a key aspect of enrolment onto EMI courses.
3.3.2 Language use in and after class Interestingly, according to many comments from the student participants, the EMI courses were not actually conducted in English. Many interviewees reported that their teachers generally did not use English-only during class. For example, S2 mentioned that in the College of Engineering, English was used in PowerPoint slides, but teachers and students spoke Mandarin in class, and teachers selected Chinese textbooks. S2 observed: “I’m not used to it. […] We don’t get much
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exposure to English while we are told to learn the subject course in English. It is more complicated for us to understand the course.” Likewise, the students stated that they felt more comfortable and confident when switching to their first language (L1) in class discussions. For instance, S7 described her experience in English language courses as follows: Extract 2 1. S7: 2. R: 3. S7: 4. R: 5. S7: 6. R: 7. S7:
8. R: 9. S7: 10. R: 11. S7:
In English language courses, teachers require the students to not use Chinese at all, but this requirement might not be easy to achieve. Can students stick to this requirement? No. No, why? Because when Chinese students stay together, they prefer to use Chinese. Why do they prefer to use Chinese? Sometimes, it is hard to express what you want to in English. It is difficult to translate and get the exact meaning. So people tried hard to stick to the requirement, but people would use Chinese during class breaks. Did your teacher require you to use English even during class breaks? My previous teacher said so. Previous teacher? It may not be a requirement now [with the current teacher] as it is hard to stick to for a long time.
S7 talked about the “English-only policy” as a self-evident requirement in EMI courses. Although students may be expected to use English to engage in more oral practice in English courses, the extract indicates that, to a large extent, the dominant language ideology regarded the students’ L1 as so inferior. S7 mentioned that students’ L1 could not be used, even during class breaks, as English seems to have been the de facto language used (although teachers sometimes lectured in their L1 as reported). However, it is also interesting to note that students negotiated their identities and resisted this policy, so some teachers had to give up this requirement and recognise students’ L1 as a resource (see also Canagarajah, 1999; Jenkins, 2014). From another perspective, the instructors of these EMI courses seemed to be quite lenient towards students’ use of English. When asked whether teachers corrected students’ use of English in class presentations, discussions, and assignments, many student participants gave negative answers. S3 stated that “teachers seldom correct students’ English grammar and vocabulary; at least, I haven’t come across any”. While S4 and S5 also answered negatively, S6 reported that the teacher gave written feedback on grammar and vocabulary and oral feedback on students’ presentations, such as the recommendation to avoid long pauses. S12 described
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her EMI teacher’s grading of papers: “content is the priority, while language is perceived as secondary”. This result is interesting as many EMI teachers themselves were non-native English speakers, and we are not sure whether such EMI teachers tended to pay more attention to content than language. The student participants also expressed concern about their EMI teachers’ English accents. S3, S4, S8, and S9 stated that their teachers’ accents (Singaporean, Dutch, Hong Kong, French, and Malaysian) made it more difficult to understand the class contents.They reported that the teachers’ language accents and proficiency affected students’ motivation and interest in the course. For example, S8 stated that his teacher’s English accent demotivated him from learning in the course. S4 mentioned that she did not understand or get the point of her British teacher’s jokes (see also Jenkins, 2014). S11 wished that her EMI teacher had a more “standard” accent and spoke at a more reasonable speed when lecturing. Similarly, S3 pointed out that EMI teachers should not have strong accents. These comments show that students had certain expectations for EMI teachers’ English accents and language use and that it was important that students get more exposure to various English accents.
3.3.3 Perceptions of EMI courses Lei and Hu’s (2014) study revealed a number of negative consequences from the implementation of EMI courses in China. One such consequence was that the EMI programme “was not effective in improving students’ English proficiency and English learning and use affect” (Lei & Hu, 2014, p. 118). Some of the student participants in the present study expressed quite similar views to those of Lei and Hu, and showed that they did not see the necessity for, or benefits of, implementing EMI. A key reason why students resisted the EMI practice, as mentioned earlier, was that they saw their L1 as a useful resource in their learning process. For example, S1 reported that English was, to some extent, imposed in her subject courses: “it is not necessary that every subject course adopt EMI”. S2 stated that EMI might not help students better understand the course itself. Extract 3 1. R: 2. S2: 3. R: 4. S2:
Do you think that EMI can be promoted in universities in China? Apart from English courses I don’t see the necessity. Why? Because it is difficult for Chinese students to understand the course if English is used as a medium of instruction.
These views again raise the question of English proficiency prerequisites and students’ need to improve their English skills if EMI is implemented. For instance, S4 commented that imposing the use of EMI had adverse effects for students whose
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English proficiency was not high enough: “students will gradually lose their motivation of learning and will suffer from this means of teaching”. Some students, though, asserted the importance of EMI in Chinese universities. For example, S7 mentioned the necessity of EMI. Extract 4 It is, to some extent, necessary. It is beneficial to those who want to study abroad, communicate with others, and pursue higher education because EMI can help you improve […] and have more contact with English. But to those who just want to stay in China, it is not important. Similarly, S5, S6, and S8 argued that EMI courses helped students improve their English proficiency. S9 reported EMI increased not only students’ English proficiency but also their academic achievement as many journal articles are published in English. In addition, S4 and S6 reflected that EMI was helpful but cannot be imposed blindly without due thought. For example, they both mentioned that EMI was unnecessary in some courses, such as civil law and criminal law. S8 stated that EMI should be offered as an option but not imposed, which devalued students’ L1 and made English the de facto language of instruction (see Botha, 2014; Hu et al., 2014; Jenkins, 2014; Lei & Hu, 2014). The results of the current study support Lei and Hu’s (2014) findings that students’ English proficiency and attitudes towards English learning greatly affect their perceptions of the necessity of and satisfaction with EMI. Teacher interview findings The two teacher interviews were conducted through email.The first author contacted an American teacher teaching Global Law (a language support course), and a Chinese teacher working in the Business School. We asked questions about the language requirements for taking EMI courses, expected course outcomes for students’ English skills, language use during class, and the necessity of EMI in content courses. Regarding language requirements, the American teacher stated: “I did not have language requirements for students entering these courses, but … [t]hey were generally high-level English learners.” Both teachers acknowledged that their syllabi did not stipulate language-level prerequisites before students could enrol, as the American teacher mentioned: “no, the syllabus did not mention. I expected that students’ vocabulary and fluency would generally improve, but had no definite expectations of a certain level.” She also noted: “I did focus on language use as well as critical thinking and logical organization. Their language level generally met my expectations.” The Chinese teacher, however, believed that “it is necessary to set a language requirement before choosing the EMI courses”. Turning to language use, the American teacher used English and “required that [students] speak English to [her] and to each other. We did not seem to have any
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communication problems.” The Chinese teacher, however, did not directly state what language was used during class. He did mention communication problems when using only English: “sometimes there is communication barrier. Because of their limited vocabulary level with different terminology, students sometimes could not express themselves well. Students will sometimes switch to Chinese because of their own habits.”These difficulties might have arisen as the teacher shared the same L1, and the students might have felt more comfortable using their L1 and resisted using English throughout the course. Both teachers answered affirmatively when asked about the necessity of EMI courses. The Chinese teacher stated that “the university put a lot of emphasis on internationalisation. Many students apply for international exchange programme. It is necessary to use English in students’ subject courses. It is necessary to give students more pressure before pursuing further study abroad.” The American teacher gave a similar answer: Extract 5 I think EMI courses are necessary to some university students, particularly those who intend to study abroad and to those who intend to pursue academic careers, even if their field is not English. […] I think that, provided students are given appropriate scaffolding and support for their EMI courses, they can be tremendously beneficial –their language use, especially related to their career field, can improve dramatically from EMI courses. The American teacher, though, acknowledged the importance of language support when implementing EMI: “If Chinese universities are going to promote EMI courses, they must provide linguistic learning support for the students if the universities want the students to benefit from the courses.” Again, students with different language levels, including those who struggle to listen to and speak in English, could enrol in EMI courses. Therefore, it might be necessary to set prerequisites for students’ language level before they take EMI courses. Both teachers reported that EMI was necessary, but language support was also an important service for students.
3.4 Linguistic landscape We next move to our analysis of the linguistic landscape on campus. In general, we found that the university used either monolingual Chinese-only, or bilingual Chinese- English signs and posters. On the one hand, this may lie in the fact that this is a public university in China that wishes to maintain its Chineseness, and as a result, monolingual Chinese-only signs and posters were used. On the other hand, many Chinese universities would claim themselves as international universities and wish to include English in their signage as a demonstration of this. In addition, with international staff members and exchange students on campus, the university needs to include English
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in its linguistic landscapes, for example, for the purpose of promoting events.The only exception was the Centre for Independent Language Learning (CILL), a self-study language learning centre of the university, where English was the only language used. The posters in the CILL demonstrated that in line with its purpose of enabling students to practise their English, it adopts an official policy of not allowing the use of their first language (see Figure 6.1). The hidden ideology of this foreign-language- only policy creates an invisible hierarchy of languages –an immersive foreign
FIGURE 6.1 Linguistic
landscapes at CILL at a glance
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FIGURE 6.1
(Cont.)
language environment in which L1 is “erased”. The rights of both teachers and students to use their first language are explicitly limited by this policy at the CILL. However, a positive result is that the CILL also promotes other foreign languages than English, including having a Japanese room and offering Spanish classes that provide resources to both university teachers and students. Against this backdrop of multilingualism, we believe that the CILL recognises the reality of linguistic diversity to some extent, even though it devalues use of the first language. We asked five student assistants at the CILL about the foreign-language-only policy, and they all perceived it positively, saying that it created a good English
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FIGURE 6.2 A
Multilingual restaurant signboard on campus
environment and encouraged students who might otherwise switch to using their L1, which could be used anywhere on campus, to practise English. In sum, the more reserved attitudes towards the foreign-language-only policy in the context of the importance of multilingualism indicate a need for further research investigating attitudes towards this language policy. Interestingly, we also found a multilingual banner in a Muslim restaurant offering halal food, that made use of traditional Chinese characters, pinyin (note that the pinyin does not match the Chinese characters), and Arabic (see Figure 6.2). Another picture was taken in a classroom, where the English used in the sign had been corrected (Figure 6.3). We have no idea who corrected the language, but it is quite obvious that the original version of English used in this sign was not appreciated because of its non-nativeness, and perhaps not realising that the sign’s author may have been writing in note form for the sake of conciseness and immediacy. For example, “Have questions, please call” is faster to process than the correction to “If you have any questions, please call.” In general, then, the university is a multilingual place with some of its diverse linguistic landscapes represented in its signage, while the CILL is designed as a foreign-language-only place within the university.
4. Discussion and implications The analysis of the syllabi of the EMI courses investigated in this study points to several tendencies. First, while most of the syllabi were composed in English, no specifications were made regarding the medium of instruction and the type of
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FIGURE 6.3 A
note in a classroom
language used in assessment. These findings are somewhat different from the EMI programme implemented in the major university in south-western China reported in Lei and Hu (2014), in which both lectures and exams adopted English. Certainly, the lack of those specifications in syllabi does not necessarily preclude possible use of English in lectures and exams in our focal university. This equivocation may function to provide course instructors with flexibilities when practising EMI. Such flexibilities would be particularly important when adequate English proficiency of the course instructors cannot be guaranteed, which is a problem that is often observed with EMI (Jensen & Thøgersen, 2011; Lei & Hu, 2014; Wilkinson, 2013). Another characteristic of the EMI syllabi is the use of English version textbooks, with Chinese version textbooks prescribed as supplementary materials. This implies that authentic English textbooks are seen to constitute the cornerstone of the EMI courses in this university. However, it was found that only a small amount of course materials and information about English facilitating- learning resources were provided in the syllabi. It seems that more supplementary course materials (even in students’ L1) would be needed to relieve students’ learning stress in EMI courses, in that the common conviction was that learning content subject in an L2 is much more challenging than in one’s L1. With regard to students’ English proficiency level, the findings imply that there is a need to revisit the curriculum design and implement the language support in the classroom. Finally, it was found that no intended outcomes of English language gains
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were specified in the syllabi. This suggests that these EMI courses tended to prioritise content subject learning, with English treated as a vehicular language and given secondary interest. From both the syllabus and interview data, it was clear that no specific language requirements had been established in general for the EMI courses. This finding is in stark contrast with Hu et al.’s (2014) study that found only those students scoring 120 or above out of a total of 150 in Gaokao were eligible to be admitted to the EMI programme in the focal university. Hu et al. (2014, p. 32) criticised that this stipulation manifested the ideology of “reinforcing the status of English as a gatekeeper”, which favours elitism. The lack of specific linguistic thresholds found in the present study, therefore, could provide students with equal access to EMI courses regardless of their English proficiency, or their linguistic capital (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990), whose accruement is largely tied to socio-economic resources (Hu et al., 2014). This inclusive practice could do justice to those socio- economically disadvantaged students, particularly if these students could receive sufficient curricular facilitation such as content-focused and language-focused learning materials. Regrettably, however, such curricular facilitation was found to be far from enough. Consequently, a side effect caused by the absence of explicit linguistic thresholds for enrolling in EMI courses was that prospective students often failed to assess their readiness for the courses language-wise, and when they were in class, they found themselves confronted with many problems and challenges due to their inadequate content knowledge and probably their English proficiency.3 While one purported benefit of EMI has been claimed to be an improvement in students’ English proficiency (Hu et al., 2014), actual language use in the current EMI courses might not be able to reap this benefit. As we reported above in our student interview findings, both teachers and students often opted for their first language in class. This is reminiscent of Lei and Hu’s (2014) finding that both the professors and students employed code-switching to sidestep any linguistic hurdles due to their inadequate English proficiency. The teachers in the present study were reported to be lenient with students’ use of the first language in class and deemed that the content instead of the language in their students’ course papers was more important. This may reflect the teachers’ pragmatic ideology that values students’ ultimate grasp of content subject knowledge, although we could not rule out the possibility that the teachers might also experience linguistic problems when improvising in class. We should also consider the possibility that the use of English among speakers who share another first language is, itself, artificial and inauthentic, and works against current scholarly understandings of multilingualism and translanguaging (see Chapter 1). It is noteworthy that some students in our study reported that their teachers’ accents hindered their listening comprehension and even impinged on their motivation to engage in class. This perception may reflect their subconscious acceptance of so-called standard native English such as the English used in the USA or the UK in the Inner Circle (Kachru, 1985). While such an attitude towards English
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is understandable given that students have been exposed to such “standard native English” starting from their schooling, they need to be guided to a much broader perspective because English is now used as a lingua franca, in particular in many international universities (Jenkins, 2014; Seidlhofer, 2011). As Jenkins (2014, p. 10) argues, “given the vast numbers of international students communicating in lingua franca groups in universities around the world, the idea of such a strong link between ELF and global HE is not at all surprising”. Nevertheless, as the current findings reveal, due to students’ lack of familiarity with different types of pronunciation features and their own inadequate English proficiency, many reported that they felt uncomfortable speaking English in the EMI class and often fell back on their mother tongue to communicate their ideas. This finding also conforms to what has been reported in previous literature (Gao & Wang, 2017; Lei & Hu, 2014; Wong, 2010) with the main reason being a lack of international students and teachers so students did not have enough exposure and had far less opportunity to become familiar with various non-native English accents. The interviewees’ perceptions of the EMI courses found in this study were mixed and multifaceted. Some students reported that they failed in comprehending lectures, which is likely to lead to what Hu et al. (2014, p. 36) called “reduced learning in content subject”. The students also expressed their belief that using their L1 as the medium of instruction could bring out better learning outcomes. This may reflect their resistance to the English-only ideology reflected in much EMI curriculum design (Canagarajah, 1999). However, they did not propose to erase EMI from the picture; instead, they contended that EMI courses should be made optional depending on the particular nature of the courses instead of being imposed on them. Their opinions somewhat coincided with Hu et al.’s (2014) call for consideration of practical feasibility and availability of necessary resources of EMI, among other factors. With that said, it should be noted that many students in the interviews nonetheless showed affirmative attitudes towards EMI, believing in its benefits for improving their English language proficiency or preparing them for further studies. Therefore, it is in fact the task of policy makers, curriculum designers, and teachers to jointly work to live up to students’ expectations, avoiding turning the envisioned benefits of EMI into simply “sign-boards [to attract people]” (Lei & Hu, 2014, p. 115). Small scale though this study was, its findings provide some immediate implications for Chinese university curriculum designers and teachers. First, against the backdrop of escalating globalisation, the role of English is undoubtedly prominent in students’ future employment and career development. This, however, does not mean that EMI would naturally lead to optimal outcomes in terms of content subject learning and enhancement of English language proficiency. For this to happen, curriculum designers would need to conduct a fully fledged appraisal of teachers’ and students’ English proficiency, and of the availability of linguistic facilitation and other resources before implementing EMI. Based on this, they could then stipulate realistic procedures for EMI courses. Second, in the meantime,
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teachers need to constantly monitor classroom teaching and learning and stay alert to issues or problems emerging in the process through classroom observations or focus group interviews with students. Additional assistance can also be arranged for students who encounter difficulties through office hours meeting. Overall, the implementation of EMI needs to be contextualised with meticulous consideration given to each individual university’s particular conditions.
5. Conclusion This chapter has explored linguistic diversity on a Chinese university campus, focusing on the implementation of EMI and taken this specific university as a case study to investigate students’ and teachers’ language practices and perceptions of the adoption of EMI.The results show that English is used as a key language at this university, with the aim of internationalising it and promoting EMI in more content courses, although language policies for implementing EMI are currently lacking, and there are discrepancies between EMI policies and practices. We have unpacked a number of contradictory language ideologies and expectations for the language used in classroom instruction in the university, and uncovered mixed attitudes towards the use of EMI. Both teachers and students perceived EMI as important and did not seem to reject this popular trend in Chinese tertiary education, and it can be argued that EMI provides a competitive edge for students if they want to pursue further study abroad or work in multinational companies. However, from what the participants told us, and from the findings of our other two datasets, we need to emphasise the current lack of language policy in terms of requirements for both student enrolment on EMI courses, and teacher readiness to use EMI in the classroom. Based on the results, we conclude that the use of EMI should be contextualised in Chinese higher education. If EMI is to be implemented more broadly, for example, in more economically developed areas of China, guidance will be needed for faculty members, students, and administrators to better understand the nature of EMI. We assert that language policy makers should reconsider the feasibility and availability of the necessary resources for EMI and understand L1s and local cultures as resources rather than blindly promoting EMI without providing additional language support or teacher training practice. We find that EMI is currently a top–down policy at the university in our study. To some extent, both teachers and students whose English language proficiency does not reach a certain level, face insurmountable barriers to fully participate in EMI courses. Teachers seem to be quite lenient towards students’ English skills, which emphasises that the “E” in EMI should be understood as English as a lingua franca, not as a native speaker variety of English. In this respect, we affirm Kirkpatrick’s (2016) argument for the importance of “a coherent policy developed by all stakeholders … [which sees] EMI within a multilingual framework” (see also Fenton-Smith et al., 2017; Jenkins, in press; Schaller-Schwaner, 2015; Tollefson & Tsui, 2004).
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Acknowledgements We would like to thank all the student and teacher participants of this study. We are also grateful to Professor Jian-E Peng and Dr Handoyo Puji Widodo for her insightful comments and feedback on an earlier version of this chapter. Any errors or omissions remain entirely the authors’ responsibility.
Notes 1 Dialects of Chinese are generally mutually unintelligible. Chinese speakers who do not understand others’ local dialects communicate using Mandarin. 2 As two key schools of social science of the university, they first initiated an EMI scheme. 3 There is not enough data here to make a claim in terms of how much students’ language proficiency level matters to understand EMI courses. However, some students mentioned that they were offered EMI courses in the first year and it was rather difficult for them to absorb the knowledge because there is a gap between high school English learning and EMI at university level.
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7 REALITIES OF EMI PRACTICES AMONG MULTILINGUAL STUDENTS IN A JAPANESE UNIVERSITY Kumiko Murata, Masakazu Iino, and Mayu Konakahara
1. Introduction EMI (English-medium instruction) is increasingly being introduced worldwide, partly because of the spread of English as a lingua franca (ELF) and also because of the language policy of governments and individual institutions to attract both international and domestic students and faculty in order to enhance diversity and capability to cope effectively with the globalising world. This, in turn, is also believed to contribute to obtaining a better international ranking in the league table of world higher education and to promoting their academic institutions (cf. Bolton & Kuteeva, 2012, p. 430; see also Jenkins, 2014; Mauranen, 2012; Murata & Iino, 2018). In this climate, the current chapter investigates first, the realities of an EMI programme (henceforth EMIP) at a university in Tokyo (henceforth UTP), which is one of the most competitive and largest private universities in Japan with a student population of over 50,000.1 The research site is one of the faculties of this university where English is used as a medium of instruction and lingua franca among multilingual students and faculty from diverse linguacultural backgrounds, but where Japanese students occupy two-thirds of the whole student population, and international students are mainly from the Chinese and Korean linguacultural backgrounds. Second, the chapter discusses contributing factors for diversity mainly at two levels: macro-(institutional and faculty policy level) and micro-(classroom interaction level). Of these, however, it focuses more on the latter, and more specifically on linguistic diversity in classroom interaction. This is because the former, or macro-level, directly or indirectly influences the micro, and is thus closely intertwined with classroom interaction, including interaction between professors and students and also among students. Language policy, therefore, will be discussed as an influential factor for classroom level interaction, albeit briefly.
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Our study by definition concerns multilingual students. These include both bilingual students, mostly Japanese, who are in the process of learning another (or more than one other) language in addition to English, and international students, who have at least some Japanese (and are in the process of learning it), as well as their own first language and English. Furthermore, these international students are likely to have other languages, and thus are more multilingual than most of the Japanese students (cf. Moore & Nikula, 2016, p. 214; van der Walt & Kidd, 2013, p. 28).
2. An EMI programme (EMIP) at a university in Tokyo: opening up a possibility? Linguistic diversity in this university in Japan can be discussed, as stated above, in terms of two levels of contributing factors. The first is policy level or macro- level diversity, in which both EMI and one-year study abroad policies are included. Another is interaction level or micro- level diversity, which manifests itself in students’ and teachers’ classroom interaction. We can also further divide this into two: teachers’ deployment of students’ diversity and sharedness on the one hand, and students’ deployment of their own diversity and sharedness on the other. We shall now discuss this macro-and micro-level diversity in a more detailed manner, starting with the former, i.e. policy level diversity. EMI policy is formulated independently by each university in line with the government’s initiatives to promote linguacultural diversity on campus in terms of the make-up of student and faculty backgrounds. In what follows, we shall first introduce the above-mentioned EMI programme, which has been running since 2004 at a university in Tokyo (UTP), in a detailed manner to first explore the diversity at this policy or macro-level. In order to increase the number of students from abroad to compete internationally and domestically, Japanese major universities, including UTP, have started introducing EMI in recent years.The government initiatives, e.g. Global 30 (MEXT, 2011) and Top Global University Project (MEXT, 2014), also promoted EMI with special funding to facilitate international applicants for admission processes without requiring any prior Japanese language proficiency. In addition, UTP has its own long-term language policy to increase the ratio of courses conducted in foreign languages up to 50% of all the courses offered at the university by 2032 (UTP* Vision 150, 2012, p. 2). This, according to the same university policy document, is to “cultivate graduates (alumni) who … will contribute to the public good as global leaders…” (2012, p. 60). The EMI programme (henceforth EMIP) at UTP was one of the first EMI programmes established in Japan in the early 2000s. EMIP has its own curriculum policy, including EMI as well as a Japanese language programme for international students as stated here in the EMIP* Curriculum Policy: “EMIP* (pseudonym) aims to improve the English abilities of its students through conducting almost all lecture courses in English. For students for whom Japanese is not their native tongue, EMIP
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offers a Japanese language program” (EMIP* Curriculum Policy, 2018: Section 4, emphasis added). The above statement explicitly states that one of the reasons for conducting the EMI programme is to improve students’ English ability, while offering an opportunity to learn Japanese for non-Japanese speakers. The phrase “almost all lecture courses in English” accommodates to some courses, particularly, seminars, conducted flexibly in both English and Japanese, or in other languages, such as Chinese or French, depending on the themes and aims of the specific seminars (or lectures, for that matter), which we shall discuss in detail later in the chapter, analysing the data (see also Iino & Murata, 2013, 2016). Furthermore, Japanese students are also required to participate in a one-year study abroad programme as part of EMIP’s curriculum policy as also stated here: “In order to develop more international perspectives, native Japanese- speaking students are required to study abroad for one year” (EMIP* Curriculum Policy, 2018: Section 4, emphasis added). This one-year study abroad policy for Japanese students also encourages them to acquire more languages in addition to English as students can choose their destinations from “among more than 300 universities” all over the world, which of course include non-English-speaking areas as further detailed below: EMIP has a second language program that allows students to study 22 different languages and a study abroad program that offers choices from among more than 300 universities located in countries throughout the world, not just in English-speaking areas. In addition, EMIP offers courses specially designed for students preparing to study abroad in non-English-speaking areas as well as courses that follow up on these study abroad experiences once students have returned to EMIP. EMIP* Curriculum Policy, 2018: Section 4, emphasis added In the EMIP, international students comprised 30% of the whole students’ population (N = 934 out of 3099) at the time of the current research as of April 2015 (EMIP* Prospectus 2016; see also Table 7.1). The important point to be noted here is that the international students are generally classified into two types according to the length of enrolment in the programme: four-year degree programme students and one-year exchange students (see Table 7.1). As seen in Table 7.1, students from the Inner Circle mostly belong to the former, while the majority of the students from Asian countries belong to the latter, the details of which will be discussed later. The international students were from 42 countries/ regions. The language backgrounds of the whole student population were Japanese (70%, totalling 2,165 students), which included jun-Japa (those who were brought up and educated through the Japanese education system), kikoku (returnees), and intaa (those who attended international schools) to use the emic categories widely used by students (see Iino & Murata, 2013, 2016 for more detailed explanation of these terms). In addition, there were Chinese students (34% of the whole international student population, totalling 316), which included Chinese speakers from mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, Korean (31%, totalling 286), and English (USA
152 Murata, Iino, & Konakahara TABLE 7.1 Number and ratio of Japanese and international undergraduate students in
EMIP at UTP and the breakdown of international students by types of the Kachruvian three circles, major countries, and regions
Japanese and non- Japanese- speaking students in the four-year degree programme
N
Japanese students International students Inner Circle United States of America Canada United Kingdom Australia Outer Circle Singapore Malaysia Philippines Hong Kong Others Expanding Circle (excluding Japanese students) China Taiwan Republic of Korea Europe Others Total
2159 675 39 27 6 3 3 46 24 11 2 4 5 590
76 24 6 4 1 0 0 7 4 2 0 1 1 87
6 259 109 80 13 9 7 38 17 5 6 3 7 112
2 98 42 31 5 3 3 15 7 2 2 1 3 43
2165 934 148 107 19 12 10 84 41 16 8 7 12 702
70 30 16 11 2 1 1 9 4 2 1 1 1 75
154 96 282 25 33 2834
23 14 42 4 5 100
51 8 4 31 18 265
20 3 2 12 7 100
205 104 286 56 51 3099
22 11 31 6 5 100
%
Students in the one-year exchange programme and the double degree programme N
%
Total (All types of students)
N
%
Based on EMIP* Prospectus 2016, pp. 12–13.
11%, Singapore 4%, etc.) speakers among the international students (see Table 7.1; also see EMIP* Prospectus 2016). Of the international students, those from the Expanding Circle (see Kachru, 1985, 1992) comprised 75% or 702 students, of which European students consisted of 6% (56 students) with most of the remainder having East Asian backgrounds, as stated above. Students from the Outer Circle comprised only 9% or 84 students in total.They were, for example, from Singapore (4%), Malaysia (2%), and the Philippines and Hong Kong (1% each).Those from the Inner Circle were 16% (148 students) of the whole international student population. These came from the USA (11%), Canada (2%), the UK and Australia (1% each). And as the numbers demonstrate, they were
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mostly one-year exchange students as contrasted with the Asian students, who were more often registered as four-year degree programme students (see Table 7.1). In addition to the above-mentioned diversity in the student population, 30% (22 students) of the EMIP faculty at the time of the current research consisted of international members from more than ten different nationalities. Of these, 50%, or 11 staff members, totalling 15% of the faculty, were from the Inner Circle. The others were from the Expanding and Outer Circles, including China, Korea, Malaysia, France, etc., while 70% of the whole faculty, or 51 staff, were Japanese. This diverse range of backgrounds multiplied by the diversity of the students, gives greater linguacultural diversity to the whole population of the programme, and enhances the need for EMI on campus. The official languages at faculty meetings in this community are both Japanese and English (as a lingua franca, i.e. ELF), as the international staff members are not required to possess Japanese proficiency when recruited. However, despite this diversity among the students and faculty, the official EMI policy itself leads simultaneously to restrictions on diversity. This is because of the official emphasis on English as the major medium of instruction which, in turn, often leads to monolingualism (in English) despite the multilingual resources that both staff and students bring with them (see also Dafouz, Hüttner, & Smit, 2016, p. 137). Limitations also derive from the lack of understanding of the nature of the “E” of EMI among the students from diverse linguacultural backgrounds (based on our many interview and questionnaire surveys, see Iino and Murata, 2013, 2016; Konakahara, Murata, & Iino, 2017; Murata, Iino, & Konakahara, 2017; Murata, Konakahara, Iino, & Toyoshima, 2018). That is to say, the concept of ELF and/or its understanding is still lacking (see also Jenkins, 2014; Kirkpatrick, 2017; Murata, 2016b; Murata & Iino, 2018; Smit, 2010). This is because of the long-standing tradition of ELT (English language teaching), in which English is taught as a foreign language (EFL) and according to which conformity to NS Englishes is taken for granted in educational settings in Japan as well as in many other educational settings the world over (see also Jenkins, 2014; Mauranen, 2012; Seidlhofer, 2011; Widdowson, 2013). Under these circumstances, our current and previous research results (see Iino & Murata, 2013, 2016; Murata et al., 2017, 2018) showed that the students were constrained by their assumption of the “E” as that of native speakers of English (NSEs). Consequently, the students often showed contradictory feelings, particularly, jun-Japa students in the current context, who had chosen to enter the programme mainly because of the EMI policy and study abroad programme required of all the students (based on the students’ questionnaire and interview results, see Iino & Murata, 2016; Murata et al., 2017, 2018). Despite entering the programme because of the EMI policy, students simultaneously often suffered from feelings of inadequacy and an inferiority complex partly due to their misconception of the “E” as that of NSEs (see Iino & Murata, 2013, 2016), and partly due to uncertainty of their degree of understanding in, for example, listening to lectures and/or discussion taking place in class. Others showed
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anxiety and frustration at not being able to participate in and contribute to discussion due to their not being accustomed to this kind of classroom participation style, as well as their perceived insufficient proficiency more generally, particularly in their first year (see Murata et al., 2017, 2018).This, in turn, is also closely connected to their being unconsciously constrained by NSE norms through their long-term association with the EFL context. That is, there is a hidden NSE-based, monolingual curriculum. In relation to this, Dafouz et al. (2016) state that the similar tendency is observed in “less internationally oriented contexts”, where “even the use of the (shared) L1 or any other language than English can be conceptualized as a ‘failure’ on the part of the speakers or indeed the programme itself ” (p. 136), whereas it is not the case “in settings with a longer tradition in multicultural and multilingual programmes” (p. 134). It seems the current situation is located somewhere in between these two settings, where the two different forces are operating simultaneously, i.e. one, towards more multilingual and the other, towards a more monolingual one. In addition to the above-mentioned EMI policy, the current programme is also characterised by the one-year study abroad policy, which is officially incorporated within the four-year undergraduate programme, which we shall now explore.
3. The second contributing factor for linguistic diversity at policy level –the one-year study abroad programme As to the one-year study abroad programme, we start by presenting an excerpt from the EMIP* Curriculum Policy, which clearly states this policy is mainly for Japanese students, although other types of students can also optionally participate in it: “In order to develop more international perspectives, native Japanese-speaking students are required to study abroad for one year” (EMIP* Curriculum Policy, 2018: Section 4, emphasis added). As touched on earlier and also quoted above, thanks to the one-year study abroad policy adopted by EMIP, diversity has been brought about in terms of students’ study abroad destinations and the possibility of their being exposed to additional languages and ELF communication, enhancing their ELF ability as well as acquiring other languages. Students’ destinations during one-year study abroad in the current programme are: (1) English Inner Circle countries; (2) double-degree/exchange programmes with EMI programmes in the Outer and Expanding circles (e.g. China, Taiwan, Korea, Thailand, Singapore, Germany, etc.); and (3) non-EMI programmes in the Expanding Circle, which provide the students with chances to be immersed in and acquire another language(s) (based on EMIP* Prospectus 2016, p. 11). Another contributing factor in relation to these diverse destinations was revealed during the student interviews: depending on the students’ one-year study abroad destinations, their and the faculty’s multilingual resources were often deployed before students left Japan, particularly in seminars. Thus, some seminars were conducted in the target language of students’ destinations, e.g. in Chinese by a Chinese professor, and French by a French professor despite the official EMI policy.
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This demonstrates that some staff are flexible enough to prioritise students’ needs and benefits in the specific context, maximising the use of multilingual resources available, rather than being rigidly constrained by the official EMI policy, and that the students appreciate this flexibility. Thus, despite the official monolingual EMI policy from the top2 at least in principle, at the practical level in seminars and lectures, the flexibility of stakeholders may serve to make the actual linguistic practices more multilingual. Apart from the diversity originating from the study abroad element of UTP’s language policy, there exists diversity at the interaction level, to which we shall now turn.
4. Classroom interaction level or micro-level diversity Classroom interaction level diversity is divided into two types: (1) students’ deployment of their own diversity and sharedness, e.g. code-switching, utilising Japanese as a lingua franca (JLF); and (2) teachers’ deployment of students’ diversity and sharedness, e.g. the role of JLF in this specific case, and the use of partially shared Chinese characters among the majority of the students (Chinese, Korean, and Japanese). In what follows, we shall start exploring both teachers’ and students’ deployment of their own diversity and sharedness (e.g. code-switching, utilising JLF) on the basis of the data we have collected. The effective use of shared resources within the diversity is often observed among them. Before demonstrating our research findings in the following sections, however, a brief introduction of the data and research methods is called for, to which we shall now turn.
4.1 Methods and data Our data is diverse and includes interviews –both individual and group, questionnaires to students, professors, and business people –mostly graduates of EMIP and those of another faculty at the same university, which is not an EMI programme but offers some EMI courses, classroom observation and recording, reflective interviews with a professor on his course. Apart from these, which are the main data sources for our micro-level classroom interaction analyses, we also collected and examined some university policy documents, to which we already referred in the preceding section, entitled UTP* Vision 150 (2012) and the specific EMI programme’s prospectus (EMIP* Prospectus 2016) for recruiting students issued by the Admissions Office of EMIP* as well as information on its curriculum and diploma policies available on its website (EMIP* Curriculum Policy and EMIP* Diploma Policy respectively). These are, however, hereafter only referred to in order to support the analyses of both students’ and teachers’ micro-level classroom interaction and their attitudes towards EMI and English or rather ELF. We started collecting our initial interview data in January 2013, prior to the commencement of the LDIC project, for two projects funded by the Japan Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS Foundation B, No. 23320122, 2011–2014, and
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JSPS Foundation B, No. 26284083, 2014–2018). The data specifically for contribution to the LDIC project was collected from January 2013 to December 2016, and was supplemented by data from the first of our JSPS projects. Our data consists of two different types according to the two levels of linguistic diversity stated at the outset, that is, macro-or policy level diversity and micro-or classroom interaction level diversity. The former includes the following.
4.1.1 Data for the investigation of linguistic diversity at macro-or policy level 1. UTP* policy document entitled UTP* Vision 150 (2012), which is UTP’s long-term policy up to Year 2032, when UPT celebrates its 150th-year anniversary since its foundation in 1882. 2. EMIP* Prospectus 2016 issued by the Admission Office of EMIP* (April 2015). 3. EMIP* Curriculum Policy. 4. EMIP* Diploma Policy. Of these, as to the 62-page document, UTP* Vision 150 (2012), only the part of the document which discusses the university language policy regarding EMI and related matters was analysed in a detailed manner and referred to when explaining the language policy on its EMI programmes, which include EMIP, while the EMIP Curriculum Policy was used to specifically investigate the curriculum policy of EMIP, and EMIP Diploma Policy for the investigation of its plurilingual policy. On the other hand, EMIP* Prospectus 2016 was used for the investigation of the composition of the student and faculty populations in order to explain the degree of diversity directly related to the above-mentioned institutional and programme policy level diversity. The data, however, was mainly investigated to support our analyses of the micro-level classroom interaction data and the questionnaire surveys on the participants’ attitudes towards EMI and the use of ELF. The two types of policy documents, that is, institutional and the specific programme policy documents were analysed partially from a text and discourse analytic perspective (see Widdowson, 2004, 2007). In what follows, we shall discuss the data for another level of investigation, that is, micro-level classroom interaction data, which is our main focus of the analysis in this chapter. For this purpose, the following data was collected and analysed.
4.1.2 Data for the investigation of linguistic diversity at micro-or classroom interaction level This data consisted of: 1. Ethnographic classroom observations and recordings, and reflective interviews with instructors and professors (recorded in 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016).
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2. Interviews with first to fourth year undergraduate students (recorded in January and July 2013, May and July 2014, January to March, July, October and November 2015, February 2016). A total of 46 interviews, each lasting from 20 to 60 minutes, were recorded, transcribed, and qualitatively analysed. 3. Interviews (both group and individual) with business people (December 2016, a total of five participants, in total 2.5 hours). 4. Online questionnaires administered to students and lecturers in the EMI programme (administered in October and November 2015) and to business people (administered in September 2016). We started collecting interview and classroom observation data in January 2013 prior to the start of the LDIC project as part of our JSPS-funded Kakenhi research as already stated but incorporated the earlier data into the LDIC project as the purpose of the JSPS research was largely shared with that of the LDIC project. For the LDIC project we analysed the data collected up to December 2016, although our current JSPS-funded research continues up to the end of March 2019, thus we are still adding new data for this purpose (for details of the JSPS-funded research, see Murata, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016a, 2016c; Murata & Konakahara, 2017). While we conducted 46 interviews with students during this period, we intensively conducted interviews with one professor during the four-year period as reflective interviews after classroom observation as he was one of the two professors who agreed to be observed and recorded during his seminar and lecture sessions and was willing to be interviewed on his practice. The whole of one semester’s lectures by these two professors were recorded in the years 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017. In addition, partially observed and recorded data in 2013 were also included as data. For the purpose of the current research, however, we only included the recorded data from the years 2013 to 2016. Furthermore, we intensively analysed the data from the total of four lectures recorded in July 2015, January 2016, and June 2016, which were observed by two of the authors and on which reflective interviews were conducted after the lectures. Apart from classroom-based observation, recording and interviews, the questionnaire survey was also administered to students and lecturers in EMIP in 2015. The questionnaires contained 13 question items, mainly consisting of open-ended questions. While 39 of the EMIP students responded to the questionnaires respectively in 2015, only a few lecturers responded to them. We therefore mainly focused on the analysis of the results of the students’ questionnaires, although those of the lecturers were also referred to where appropriate. On the other hand, a total of 25 business people also participated in the questionnaire survey in August to September 2016 through an online questionnaire created by using Google Form. The majority of these business participants were graduates of the EMI programme. Follow-up interviews were also conducted in December 2016, inviting five of the business informants in the survey. Both business people and students’ and lectures’ responses were mainly analysed in their contents (Schreier, 2012), using also Excel for the analysis.
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The variety of approaches to the investigation of the EMI programme, thus, has made it possible for us to investigate the realities of EMIP from a more varied and integrative perspective. In what follows, we shall mainly discuss findings from classroom interaction, questionnaire and interview data supported also by our investigation into the policy documents.
5. Findings and discussion In this section, we mainly focus on introducing the findings from the analyses of the classroom interaction-based recorded data supported also by the results of the interviews, the questionnaires, and the analyses of the UTP institutional and the EMIP programme level policy documents. In analysing the classroom interaction from a linguistic diversity perspective, we found it necessary to examine the classroom interaction data from two contributing factors for the diversity: (1) the teachers’ deployment of students’ diversity as well as sharedness; and (2) students’ deployment of their own linguistic diversity in their classroom interaction. Accordingly, in what follows we sub-divided the section as follows: (1) classroom interaction level diversity –teachers’ deployment of students’ diversity and sharedness; and (2) classroom interaction level diversity –students’ deployment of their linguistic diversity. In the third subsection, we go on to consider opportunities for intercultural communication and how diverse linguacultural backgrounds can be fully exploited.
5.1 Classroom interaction level diversity –teachers’ deployment of students’ diversity and sharedness The analysis and discussion on the teachers’ deployment of students’ diversity and sharedness here is mainly based on four three-hour classroom observations by two of the authors and reflective interviews with the professor (hereafter T1) conducted after the observations in June 2016. In addition, the results from the questionnaire survey conducted in October and November 2015 were also referred to in discussing the professor’s deployment of Japanese in EMI classes. In fact, the effective use of the majority of the students’ shared linguistic resources, that is, in this specific case mostly Japanese, was often observed in our classroom observation data, and it represented good examples of teachers’ deployment of students’ diversity and sharedness in the EMI programme. Our questionnaire survey results also revealed that Japanese was often used as both the teachers’ and the students’ second lingua franca, when: 1 . 2. 3. 4. 5.
Giving important instruction. Introducing culture specific terminology. Listing some Japanese examples. Checking understanding. Assisting understanding. (Based on the results of the questionnaire survey conducted in October and November 2015; see also Murata et al., 2017.)
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The above characteristics were pointed out both by the students and teachers in the current research. The similar characteristics were also pointed out by some European EMI scholars (see, for example, Dafouz et al., 2016, pp. 134–135; as to Nos. 4 & 5 above, Bolton & Kuteeva, 2012, p. 444). The following is an example of a professor (T1)’s effective and tactful use of Japanese (shared linguistic resources) found in the classroom recorded data:
Example 1: the use of Chinese characters in Japanese by T1 To introduce the concept of “orthography”, the corresponding Japanese term 正書法 (seishoho) was also written on the white board in Chinese characters. Based on classroom observed and recorded data Being interviewed regarding the use of the Japanese terminology in Chinese characters after the class, the professor answered as follows:“Since all the international students are required to learn Japanese, using Kanji (Chinese characters) is effective not only for Japanese students but also for international students” (T1’s comment, based on class observation and an interview with the professor, T1, after the class). Another example is also shown in the following (example 2), where the same professor, T1, encouraged students from different linguacultural backgrounds to write different versions of Chinese characters –the majority of students’ partially shared linguistic resources –to explain the same meaning but with different written varieties and to raise the students’ awareness of the diversity within the sharedness. Example 2: The use of different varieties of the same Chinese characters A student each from Taiwan, Japan, and China in this order was asked to write their versions of Chinese characters (kanji) in this case, –廣、広、广 –on the whiteboard to show the development of modern varieties of Kanji. Based on classroom observed and recorded data The above example illustrates diversity within the sharedness and effective exploitation of these rich cultural resources. The professor reflected on his introduction of the Chinese characters and stated: “Since there are real users of different languages, I encouraged the students to demonstrate their linguistic resources, thereby empowering each student to actively participate in class” (T1’s comment, based on class observation and an interview with the professor after the class). These are some of the examples of the professor’s deployment of students’ linguistic resources and awareness of diversity. It, however, also has to be borne in mind that the degree of the deployment of other languages or linguistic resources in general has to be carefully planned as demonstrated in the above example, since otherwise those who do not have relevant or satisfactory linguistic resources to
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understand the content in the specific context might not be able to receive full benefit (see also Bolton & Kuteeva, 2012; Murata et al., 2017). Having discussed classroom interaction level diversity brought about by lecturers’ deployment of multilingual resources, we shall now turn to students’ interaction, which also brings about diversity.
5.2 Classroom interaction level diversity –students’ deployment of their linguistic diversity As stated above, students also deployed their linguistic diversity and shared resources as also evidenced in Hynninen (2016) and Mauranen (2014). In the first half of this section, we analyse a series of classroom observations and recorded data, in which the students were presenting their assignment in an EMI sociolinguistics class, while in the latter half of the section, we introduce the results of our questionnaire survey conducted in 2015, in which the respondents stated their appreciation for linguistic diversity. The questionnaire and interview results also include those obtained from business people, who are mostly graduates of the EMI programme. To start with the analyses of the students’ presentation data, we often found the strategic use of Japanese as a lingua franca (JLF) among the students in the current context in the form of, for example, code-switching and translanguaging (see Cogo, 2016; Li, 2016, 2018; Moore & Nikula, 2016) during presentations. Code- switching was mostly displayed for the sake of solidarity and identity formation within this specific learning community (see also Cogo, 2009, 2012; Klimpfinger, 2009; Mauranen, 2014; Smit, 2010). In addition, we also found some examples of the latter, translanguaging, or at least such a case, which could be located in between both in that although, for example, the following example (example 3) explicitly includes a “Japanese” word on the surface, it was difficult to judge whether the student presenter in this example was intentionally deploying the “Japanese” word. Instead, he might have used the term culturally shared among the youth, particularly in Asia, and in fact “owned” by them, across national and regional borders, not being constrained by a specific language or national border. Accordingly, the case is more appropriately explained by “translanguaging”, which “is a transformative, resemiotization process, whereby language users display the best of their creativity and criticality …, which conventional code-based approaches cannot address”, to borrow Li’s (2018, p. 22) definition.The following is a good example of “translanguaging”, where one of the international students strategically inserted a seemingly “Japanese” word in his ELF presentation in this EMI community. Example 3 A Hong Kong student, while explaining how a Korean idol group utilise English to promote themselves, inserted a “Japanese” word in his description as follows: er the audience his fan treated it as very
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cute huh a cute … kawaii moment (other students laugh) From a student’s presentation in an EMI sociolinguistics class
Here the presenter –a student from Hong Kong –used a “Japanese” adjective kawaii as a modifier in combination with an English noun “moment”, producing the expression, a “kawaii moment”, which invited the audience’s laughter. The term kawaii is often used as it is in Asian settings these days, particularly among those who are fans of Japanese cosu-pure (cosplay –costume play) or Japanese anime (animations –animated cartoons) (Toyoshima, 2011, 2015), thus, it is possible that the student used “kawaii” here not necessarily considering it as a “Japanese” word, but rather, as a term which they shared in this ELF context and in this community of practice, sharing the same youth culture, enhancing solidarity among the informed audience. Accordingly, as seen in the above example, it can easily be incorporated in their ELF utterance, being combined with an English noun (Cogo, 2016; Mauranen, 2014). On the other hand, explicit code-switching was also frequently observed when students asked professors technical matters in handling PCs installed in the classroom during their presentations. This frequently took place between Japanese students and professors in the current data, using their shared first language, Japanese, as a kind of students’ aside addressed only to the professor, but they naturally returned to ELF as soon as the impeding matter was solved (see also Mauranen, 2014) as can be seen in the following example, where the presenter, S09 (see the explanation below for the symbol) was presenting her experience in teaching Korean pupils English. In the following examples, S stands for student and the number indicates the number of the specific student presenter in these presentation sessions of the sociolinguistics class. Thus, S09 means that this is the ninth student presenter in this session. When all the students (or at least many) simultaneously reacted to the presentation and uttered something, the symbol “a” is used instead of numbers. On the other hand, T stands for professors followed by the number which indicates the order of appearance but in the following examples, this specific sociolinguistics class was taught by the same professor, T1, as already explained earlier.
Example 4 07 S09:- - -and I was really interested in their 08 language background. 09 S a: hm[mm 10 S09: [and I will (1.6) ((Looking at the professor)) 11 doyatte tsugi ikun desuka? (How can I proceed from here?) 12 T 1: >um um< mausu desu. ([You could use] the mouse)
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13 S09: a hhh (1.0) uh I have I want to find out about methods >used --- (student S09’s presentation in the sociolinguistic class)
Here, in line 10, S09, looking at the professor, who is Japanese, suddenly code- switched into Japanese, asking how to proceed to the next slide on the PC, saying “doyatte tsugi ikun desuka?” (“How can I proceed from here?”), handling the computer monitor. By asking the professor the technical matter in Japanese, which she shared with the professor as their first language, S09 clearly differentiated this utterance from the main presentation.That is, she located it as a kind of aside which did not affect the content of the presentation and thus, not necessarily to be understood by other members of the audience, directly addressing the professor, specifying the addressee (Klimpfinger, 2009, p. 359; see also Cogo, 2012). In response to S09’s question in Japanese on the technical matter, in line 12 the professor also immediately responded to S09 in Japanese, instructing how to proceed using the mouse (mausu desu). Upon solving this technical matter, in line 13, S09 uttered ahhh and then after a 1.0 pause, obviously handling the mouse and upon successfully proceeding to the next slide, S09 uttered a brief uh in line 13 and naturally code-switched from Japanese to ELF. This code-switched part in Japanese is simultaneously a clear example of an insertion/side sequence (Schegloff, 1972; Jefferson, 1972 respectively; see also Levinson, 1983; Murata, 1994), which was specifically addressed to the Japanese professor (see above). A similar example was also observed in another class the following week with the same professor, where this time the presenter, S46, was presenting TV commercials which deployed code-switching, and while doing so faced the similar technical problem as seen in the following example. Example 5 01 S46: and first of all, (1.3) I want ohhh (3.0)((The hyperlink 02 on a slide not working)) I want you to watch this 03 commercial, wait. ko[rette 04 T 1: [°hm° 05 S46: webu tsukae masu ka. (Can we use the internet here?) (A confirms 06 popup appearing on the screen)) 07 T 1: webbu tsukaeru kedo-oh (Yes, you should be able to have access to the internet) 08 S46: hai (Yes). 09 T 1: chotto okkei shite mi. (What about clicking on the OK button?) ((S46 clicking on the OK button)) 10 damedana (It didn’t work). (1.3) um rogu- on shinaito
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ikena [i ne-eh (You need to log on) 11 S46: [ahhh (1.3) or 12 like @ £that£ @ (Freed) commercial about uh of Honda, uhhh 13 the car. and like … (student S46’s presentation in a sociolinguistic class)
Here, upon noticing that the hyperlink was not working, S46 code-switched to Japanese, directly addressing the professor, asking whether the web was accessible on the slide “ko[rette webu tsukae masu ka” (“Can we use the internet here?”) (lines 3 and 5). In response to S46’s question, the professor also responded in Japanese, “webbu tsukaeru kedo-oh” (“Yes, you should be able to have access to the internet”) in line 7. Then in line 9, the professor gave S46 instruction on how to be connected to the internet in Japanese, “chotto okkei shite mi” (“What about clicking on the OK button?”). When it did not work even when S46 clicked on the OK button, in line 10 the professor continued in Japanese “damedana” (“It didn’t work”). He then further gave his instruction to S46 upon noticing that she hadn’t logged in, by saying “um rogu-on shinaito ikena[i ne-eh” (“You need to log on”). Following this instruction, overlapping with the professor’s Japanese final particle “ne-eh”, which reminded the presenter, who had forgotten to log on to the internet system despite her knowing how to do so, of the information both of them shared (see, for example, Kita & Ide, 2007; Maynard, 1986, for the role of the Japanese sentence final particle “ne”), S46 uttered ahhh, showing her noticing of the trouble source. Then after a 1.3 pause –obviously trying to log on to the site –and upon successfully being connected to the hyperlink, S46 switched back to ELF and resumed her explanation as if nothing had happened in between her preceding presentation and the resumed one (see Jefferson, 1972; Murata, 1994). Thus, as it is evident from the above two examples (examples 4 and 5), students often code-switched to Japanese when they encountered technical problems during their presentations, specifically addressing the Japanese professor. This formed a clear pattern of insertion sequences, the inserted part specifically being addressed to the professor, who shared the first language with the presenters. Therefore here as well, both the students and the professor coped with the immediate trouble sources flexibly, resorting to their own shared first language and deprioritising the official EMI policy where appropriate. On the other hand, students’ appreciation of diversity was also found in the results of the questionnaire survey conducted in 2015, where they appreciated both the diversity of perspectives and that of different Englishes as seen in the following. In the following excerpts, the informant numbers are used to preserve anonymity. These numbers consist of the following information in this order: (1) school the informant belongs to (i.e. EMIP in this case); (2) the number of the specific informant; (3) her/his year (i.e. U1–U4 for undergraduate students); (4) her/ his nationality (using country codes); (5) her/his first language (using the first three letters; but using “jpn” for Japanese); (6) whether s/he has experienced stay abroad
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(i.e. Y for yes and N for no); (7) where s/he stayed (using country codes); and (8) how long s/he stayed there: By learning in English, we can obtain not only ideas based on Japanese perspectives, but also those based on foreign perspectives from international members. Q2: EMIP18-U3-JP(jpn)-Y_SE1 They have a command of diverse English. Q6-CE: EMIP1-U1-JP(jpn)-N Although their English is diverse depending on their backgrounds, it is a good opportunity to be exposed to diverse English. Q6-CE: EMIP18-U3-JP(jpn)-Y_SE1 The questionnaire to business people administered in 2016 also revealed the same result. In response to the question “What communication ability in English do you think you need to cultivate in the future?” (Q9), one of the respondents who frequently communicates with clients who come from different linguacultural backgrounds answered as follows: “[I need to] improve [my] ability to listen to not only American English but also varieties of English. […]” (Q9: BP8-20-U-JP(jpn)-C(F)- BT(N-N/A)-BS(N-N/A)-SA(Y-SE1y). (Just as the symbols used for the students’ questionnaire results, informant numbers of business people are used to keep the anonymity, which consist of the following information in this order: (1) an acronym, BP, for business people; (2) the number of the specific informant; (3) her/his age; (4) her/his final academic background (i.e. U for undergraduate, M for Master’s and D for doctoral degree holders); (5) her/his nationality (using country codes); (6) her/his first language (using the first three letters; but using “jpn” for Japanese); (7) whether and how often s/he experienced business trips (i.e.Y for yes and N for no): (8) where and how long s/he had worked overseas (using country codes for places); and (9) whether and where s/he studied abroad (i.e.Y for yes and N for no).) Thus, s/he clearly emphasised the importance of being immersed in different varieties of Englishes not just in standard American English, which is widely taught as a standard model in educational settings in Japan. Similarly, in response to another question, which invited the respondents to give their “final comments, if any” (Q10), another business person also reiterated the importance of being able to communicate in ELF with Asian people with their own variety of Englishes as follows: “It is also necessary to train [myself] to communicate in English with Asian people” (Q10:BP6-50-D-JP(jpn)- Uni(J)-BT(Y-Once_a_month_various_places)-BS(Y-US9y,TH2y)-SA(Y-US). Accordingly, these business people, through their experiences in interacting with their Asian counterparts, were aware of the importance of being familiar with varieties of Englishes and the reality of ELF use.The awareness of diversity also led the respondents to the awareness of the importance of intercultural communication, to which we now turn.
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5.3 Opportunities for intercultural communication –towards full exploitation of diverse linguacultural backgrounds? The investigation of classroom interaction has also revealed that opportunities for intercultural communication, using ELF, are currently not fully exploited despite students’ diverse linguacultural backgrounds. There are some issues to be considered in this situation. First, there is an issue of linguistic diversity or rather lack of diversity in group discussion in the current context. For example, regarding students’ group formation, groups were often voluntarily formed based on their linguacultural backgrounds. Accordingly, group discussion was often conducted in different languages, for example, in Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and English, which reduced the exposure to diversity and valuable opportunities to exchange opinions with students from different linguacultural backgrounds (see also Bolton & Kuteeva, 2012, p. 443; Doubleday, 2016; cf. Wilkinson, 2013, p. 20). We discuss the issue here on the basis of the fieldnotes from our classroom observation in 2016, interviews conducted with students in 2015, and the results of the questionnaire administered to students in 2015. On the issue of group formation, one of the Japanese students commented as follows in an interview conducted in 2015: Well as for group-seating formation, this has been true since (we are) first- year students, international students sit at the front of a classroom … This is really so in almost any classes, I think –in the current class, it seems that Asian students sit at the back of a room a bit. So-called European (students) sit at the front of a classroom, well Asian people are also there though, a few international students sometimes sit at the back of a room. A similar case was also pointed out by other students. The interview results therefore revealed that there were certain patterns in students’ group formation in class, quite often resulting in the formation of several monolingual groups, enabling them to communicate in their own languages (see also Doubleday, 2016). The following students’ responses to the question, “Is (or are) a language(s) other than Japanese and English used in your EMI classes? If ‘yes’, what language(s) and on what occasions do you or your lecturers use it (or them)?” (Q9a & b, questionnaire survey conducted in 2015) also revealed the reality of group discussion among different language groups as seen in the following: Chinese is also commonly used as there are many students from mainland China or Taiwan, and this is especially the case when majority of the members in a group during group discussions are so. EMIP34-U1-SG(eng)-Y_MY2,SG16 中国語 (“Chinese” answered by a Chinese student –answered in the questionnaire in Japanese (Chinese) characters). EMIP30-M2-CN(chi)-Y_JP2
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Mostly, Chinese and Korean. EMIP35-U1-JP(jpn,tha)-Y_ZA7,TW2,TH6 The use of own languages in EMI classes in this way could be a challenge to diversity in that it reduces students’ chances of communicating with those from other linguacultural backgrounds, thus decreasing valuable chances for intercultural communication. On the other hand, it could also contribute to enhancing students’ understanding and effective communication through their familiar languages. We shall further expand our discussion on this issue in the following concluding section, reflecting on the results of the research and considering its implications for language pedagogy in general.
6. Conclusions and implications In this chapter, we have discussed two levels of contributing factors for linguistic diversity: (1) macro-or policy level; and (2) micro-or classroom interaction level. The focus of the analysis, however, was placed more on the latter, while the former was mainly discussed in relation to the latter. That is, how the macro-policy directly and indirectly influenced micro-level classroom interaction, in which linguistic diversity was considered from the perspectives of both teachers and students’ deployment of multilingual resources. It has become evident from our analyses that the EMI policy at both institutional and programme levels simultaneously has brought about both possibilities and limitations to the micro-level classroom interaction. That is, the policy has made it possible for international students to attend the programme without having any Japanese at the entry level to the university, although they are encouraged to achieve a certain level of Japanese proficiency at the time of their graduation or the programme completion as EMIP* Diploma Policy clearly states below: …, EMIP* confers bachelor’s degrees … on individuals who have …[various requirements are listed here, in addition, the following is also stated] …: acquired a second language; acquired the ability to read, understand, write and converse smoothly in Japanese (for students whose mother tongue is not Japanese). EMIP* Diploma Policy, 2018: Section 4 This policy also contributes to broadening international students’ perspective in that they are given an opportunity to learn another (or more) language(s) and culture. On the other hand, Japanese home students also benefit from the EMI policy by it enabling them to study content matters through “English” with international students, thus, simultaneously enabling them to benefit from opportunities for intercultural communication with international students, learning not only the content matters but also how to better communicate with their peers and faculty from different linguacultural backgrounds in ELF (see Murata et al., 2017). The
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one-year study abroad policy for Japanese students also enhances students’ experience in intercultural communication by having made them immersed in ELF communication or by giving them a valuable opportunity to learn another language in the target linguacultural context, consequently strengthening their multilingual ability and sensitiveness (see Iino & Murata, 2013, 2016). On the other hand, some limitations are also detected in relation to the EMI policy, where English is in principle used as the sole means of communication, although some flexible exceptions were also reported in the current research. For example, some seminars were reported to be flexibly conducted in Chinese, French, or/and the combination of Japanese and English depending on their themes and objectives and also on the students’ needs and interests. The limitation is particularly detected in the students not understanding the nature of the “E” in EMI, thereby suffering from the feeling of linguistic inadequacy strongly constrained by native speaker norms, which they think they should follow in participating in the EMI programme, where in fact ELF is used as a means of communication among students and faculty from diverse linguacultural backgrounds. By having noticed and understood the nature of ELF communication, their attitudes changed drastically (see also Iino & Murata, 2013, 2016; Murata et al., 2017, 2018). Furthermore, it was also revealed that students were robust enough to deploy various strategies in enhancing their understanding or dealing with practical technical matters simultaneously strengthening solidarity with their community members as well as tactfully demonstrating their identity as observed in students’ presentations in the form of, for example, code-switching and translanguaging. On the other hand, a certain tendency of not utilising valuable opportunities for intercultural communication by preferring to formulate groups with students from the same linguacultural backgrounds, thereby conducting discussion in their own first languages such as Chinese, Korean, or Japanese within the EMI context was also detected. Although the deployment of the students’ first languages even in an EMI context enabled them to more efficiently, and effectively, for that matter, conduct discussion and understand the content, the formation simultaneously jeopardised their valuable opportunities for intercultural communication, devaluing and limiting the possibility of EMI programmes. The occasional use of students’ own languages, however, could work as an effective strategy to deepen their understanding, not as a challenge to diversity, and thus, should be encouraged or at least not be discouraged. It is, therefore vital to consider the issue of first language use when discussing classroom dynamics in EMI contexts. A further issue to be considered here is whether this tendency is a characteristic of EMI programmes in East Asian contexts, or rather in Japan, or more specifically in this specific context. This needs to be further investigated. However, similar concerns were also raised in European contexts including the UK (e.g. Doubleday, 2016; and see Chapter 10 of this volume). Accordingly, whether placing more importance on and preference for effective understanding or the philosophy behind the programme, that is, the use of “English” as the sole (or at least major)
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medium of communication in class, needs to be carefully considered. Balancing the two is essential and inevitable. Finally, the results of the interviews, questionnaires, and classroom discourse analysis indicated that more deployment of multilingual resources of students and faculty in EMI settings should be encouraged. By effectively utilising diverse linguistic and cultural resources available in the specific context, students’ appreciation of diversity could be further enhanced. In addition, heightening awareness of the nature of the “E”, i.e. ELF, in the EMI programme is also essential.This, as discussed above, works as another contributing factor for the increase of linguistic diversity, making students as lingua franca users aware that they do not have to be constrained by a unified native speaker model but could use English as a lingua franca as their own means of communication, sometimes also deploying their own multilingual resources (Jenkins, 2015; Mauranen, 2012, 2014; Seidlhofer, 2011; Widdowson, 1994, 2013). Furthermore, students’ comments on the study abroad policy revealed that English programmes in ELF contexts or in non-EMI contexts, where they have potentially more chances to be exposed to ELF communication and to acquire additional languages, should also be more encouraged for them to understand and benefit from linguistic diversity, including the role of ELF in the globalised world and the reality of the multilingual world, in which they are most likely to reside in their future.
Acknowledgements This research was supported by JSPS Grants- in- Aid for Scientific Research, Foundation B, No. 26284083, 2014–2018 (Principal Investigator –K. Murata), and also partially by the Institute for Advanced Studies in Education,Waseda University (2015, 2016).
Notes 1 52,078 as of 1 May 2015. Retrieved from www.waseda.jp/top/about/disclosure/students 2 Currently, the tendency seems to be changing slightly towards more multilingual and multicultural policy, more tolerant to linguistic diversity than clinging to strict monolingual policy (based on one of the faculty members’ comments).
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8 GOING GLOBAL EMI policies and practices at a Malaysian public university Jagdish Kaur and Siti Zaidah Zainuddin
1. Introduction The higher education system in Malaysia has been undergoing major transformation in recent years. The latest policy document to be released is the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2015–2025 (Higher Education) (henceforth MEB (HE)) which sets out the policies, strategies, and initiatives to be adopted by both the Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE) and the country’s higher education institutions (henceforth HEIs) to ensure continued academic and research excellence. The document outlines ten shifts essential to propel higher education in Malaysia to world class status; one such shift involves “going global” (MEB (HE), 2015, A–XVIII). In efforts to keep up with global trends and achieve its aspirations of becoming an education hub of excellence, Malaysia has been rigorous in internationalising its higher education (Ali, 2013). Once a country that sent its students abroad to further studies, Malaysia today receives students from the region and beyond in numbers that are unprecedented (Tham, 2013). According to UNESCO statistics (cited in the Guardian, 2014), in 2014, Malaysia was ranked twelfth amongst countries that received the highest number of international students, surpassing countries like Austria, the Netherlands, and Singapore. The number of international students enrolled in Malaysian universities shows a marked increase “from 45,000 in 2007 to nearly 100,000 in 2014, an increase of more than a hundred percent” (MEB (HE), 2015, 8-1). This trend is expected to continue as MoHE targets an “enrolment of 200,000 international students by 2020 and 250,000 by 2025” (MEB (HE), 2015, 8-4). Similarly, the number of international staff has increased significantly “from 2,300 in 2007 to 9,000 in 2014” (MEB (HE), 2015, 8-3). Chapman and Chien (2014) identify language of instruction as one factor that contributes to Malaysia’s popularity as a destination for higher education. As they explain, “Most instruction is offered in English, which is viewed as offering better access to international employment opportunities” (p. 45).
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As a result of its colonial past, English has assumed the position of the second most important language after Malay, the national language of the country. While Malay is regarded as a symbol of unity and integration of multiethnic, multicultural Malaysia, English is seen as the language of knowledge, science and technology, business, advancement, and progress. According to Ali (2013), in the first decade following independence in 1957, English continued to be used as the main medium of instruction in schools. However, following ethnic riots in 1969, the switch to Malay as the medium of instruction was made in a staggered fashion from primary to tertiary levels, a process that was completed in 1983. Since the early 1990s, Malaysia has been on a path to transform the country into developed nation status, thus, creating a need for a workforce not only equipped with scientific and technological know-how but also proficient in English, the global lingua franca. The commonly held view is that English not only allows greater access to relevant knowledge and skills (Hashim & Leitner, 2014) but “with English, Malaysia will be more competitive” (Tan, 2005, p. 57) globally. This paved the way for the reinstatement of English-medium instruction (EMI) for science and technology at tertiary level in 2005 through the means of a substantive policy (Ali, 2013; Gill, 2006). The goal to internationalise higher education has provided further impetus for the adoption of EMI in Malaysian universities. International students in Malaysia are “typically non-native speakers of English” (Hashim & Leitner, 2014, p. 19) from a host of countries particularly those from the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) community and the Middle East. Given the diverse language backgrounds of its international students and staff, English has been adopted as the “default or sanctioned language” (Hashim & Leitner, 2014, p. 25) of instruction. English, however, is not the sole language of instruction “as a number of universities and disciplines use Bahasa Malaysia [Malay], but it is universally the sole medium of instruction in science, medicine and in all programmes in private higher institutions” (Hashim & Leitner, 2014, p. 19). MoHE in its Education Blueprint asserts that the presence of international students and staff will push HEIs “to infuse ‘global, international and intercultural’ dimensions into their teaching, learning and research functions” (MEB (HE), 2015, 8-3). To what extent such dimensions apply in the choice and use of language for teaching and communication is unclear. Further, not unlike previous policy documents on higher education and internationalisation, the MEB (HE) refrains from making the use of EMI in HEIs explicit (Ali, 2013). This leaves room for different interpretations by individual HEIs which may result in different implications for staff and students. The chapter reports on a study that investigates the EMI policies and practices at Malaysia’s oldest public university, the University of Malaya, and examines the extent to which both students and academic staff feel they meet the language expectations of the university.
2. University of Malaya: going global The University of Malaya (UM), Malaysia’s highest ranked university, was initially established as an English-medium university in Singapore in 1949. Later in 1959,
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an autonomous division was set up in Kuala Lumpur which went on to become Malaysia’s first national university in 1962. UM, which has been conferred research university status, is a comprehensive university with a student population of 17,580 and an academic staff population of 2,807 (UM website, 2016). UM in its quest to enhance its international standing as a world class university has embarked on a major transformation plan since 2006. UM’s global aspirations are reflected in its revised Vision Statement: To be an internationally renowned institution of higher learning in research, innovation, publication, and teaching. UM’s commitment to internationalisation is also expressed in its Client Charter where the seventh commitment (out of seven) reads as follows: We are committed to become a world class university through internationalisation. In seeking to globalise the university, UM has set itself several goals which include improved global rankings, enhanced students’ international outlook, and multicultural awareness, and increased faculty and student diversity. In efforts to realise these goals, the university has further outlined several strategies such as increasing linkages and joint research collaborations with world- renowned institutions, attracting greater numbers of international staff and students, as well as promoting student and staff mobility through various programmes (Transformation Plan, UM website). Policies which have been put in place to internationalise students and academic staff members have led to visible increase in both groups on campus. According to Mukherjee and Wong (2011), “[i]n 2008, international students made up 12.3 per cent of the total UM student body, composing 5 percent of undergraduate and 26 per cent of graduate students” (p. 148). Eight years on, the percentage of international students enrolled in UM has almost doubled. Statistics provided on the UM website indicate that in 2016, international students made up 21.1% (or 3,712) of the total student population, comprising 8.45% (or 701) undergraduate students and 32.45% (n = 3,011) postgraduates. In the same year, there were 772 (27.5%) international academic staff employed by the university. UM’s efforts at rebranding and adopting aggressive marketing strategies have led to a progressive increase in international student numbers in recent years. While a large number of the international students come from Iran, Indonesia, and China, amongst others, “most foreign staff members … are from South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East” (Mukherjee & Wong, 2011, p. 152). The Vice-Chancellor, in his Welcome Message emphasises the fact that UM’s “international student population comes from more than 80 different countries” (UM website), a point similarly highlighted on the homepage of the Institute of Graduate Studies (IGS) and the International Student Centre (ISC). The increasing diversity of the students and academic staff that make up UM has inevitably had an impact on the language policies and practices of the university.
2.1 Policy on the medium of instruction While UM, as a public university, is bound by the National Education Policy which specifies that Malay is to be used as medium of instruction (Gill, 2006), there is
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some flexibility in the implementation of the policy. With Senate approval, selected academic programmes may be offered in English.The following, extracted from the UM International Student Centre (ISC) homepage and intended for prospective international students, reflects the current state with regard to the question of medium of instruction: “The medium of instruction is in English (for all Science based courses). Some programmes in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Academy of Malay Studies, and Academy of Islamic Studies however may use the Malay language or Arabic” (International Student Centre, UM website). While English is used both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels in the Sciences, in the Humanities and Social Sciences, Malay continues to be used at undergraduate level and English or Malay at postgraduate level, depending on the programme and the availability of English-speaking staff. Arabic, meanwhile, is only used as medium of instruction on courses related to Islamic Studies.The use of EMI at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels in the Sciences is explicitly stated in the faculty/department academic programme handbooks. In a few exceptional cases, both Malay and English are listed as medium of instruction, the former used when courses lack teaching staff proficient in English. In the case of the Humanities and Social Sciences, adherence to the National Education Policy may be observed in theory but not always in practice, as illustrated by the following extract from the Faculty of Education handbook (2016): Although the official medium of instruction for the Masters and PhD programmes is Malay, most of the courses are taught in English. This is to enable foreign students who are not proficient in the Malay language to pursue their postgraduate studies at the Faculty. In effect all staff members are bilingual, that is, they are proficient in the Malay language as well as in English. For students from overseas who do not master the Malay language, the Faculty provides, as far as possible, special education procedures, so that they can continue their course of study in English. The above illustrates the tension between the push for internationalisation and the need to attract international students, on the one hand, and the need to adhere to national policies and express support for Malay, on the other. Documents such as those from which the above are extracted make explicit the languages to be used in teaching and learning at the university and “legitimise[s]the use of EMI despite Bahasa Malaysia [Malay] being accorded the symbolic status of the medium of instruction” (Ali, 2013, p. 83) in Malaysian public universities. The extract from the Faculty of Education handbook further illustrates a campus-wide unwritten policy that when international students are present in the classroom, English is used for instruction. As Ali (2013) asserts in the context of another Malaysian public university but equally applicable in the case of UM, “the presence of international students in the classroom overrides other policies” (p. 85). The extent to which language practices in UM conform to the stated EMI policies, and the extent to which students and academic staff feel they meet the language expectations of the university are explored in this chapter.
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3. Methodology A qualitative method was adopted to investigate the correspondence between the EMI policies and practices of UM, and to examine the extent to which academic staff and students feel they meet the university’s language expectations. Specifically, semi-structured interviews, averaging 45 minutes per participant, were conducted with a total of 24 participants representing in equal numbers the following four groups (six participants per group): 1 . 2. 3. 4.
Local academic staff. International academic staff. Local students. International students.
The participants also represented the Natural Sciences, the Social Sciences, and the Humanities in equal numbers (eight from each group). The Natural Sciences were represented by participants from Geology, Physics, and Engineering while the participants from the Social Sciences came from the following faculties/departments: Education; Economics and Public Administration; Business and Accountancy; and Southeast Asian Studies. Meanwhile the Humanities were represented by participants from Law and the Cultural Centre. There were 11 male and 13 female participants. Of the 12 student participants, 10 were postgraduate students (a mix of doctoral and Master’s students) and two were undergraduate students. The international participants, both lecturers and students, came from seven different countries: Bangladesh; India; Iran; Japan; Nigeria; Saudi Arabia; and Thailand. The details of the participants are summarised in the Table 8.1. The local and international lecturers were identified through a search of the various faculty and department homepages on the UM website. As academic staff curriculum vitae are made available on the website, it was possible to identify lecturers who teach on the postgraduate programmes and thus are likely to be teaching in English.The lecturers, once identified, were contacted by telephone and informed of the project and invited to participate as interviewees. Once consent was given, appointments were set up for the interview to be conducted at the offices of the lecturers. The student participants on the other hand were recruited mainly through the lecturers who were interviewed.The lecturers concerned provided the researcher with the contact details of their students after first checking with them if they were willing to participate in the project. In a few cases, the students were approached either in the library or the student cafeteria and appointments were then set up for interviews to take place at a later date. The interviews were preceded by a brief explanation of the project and assurance of anonymity. This was followed by a few preliminary questions to elicit some background details of the participants. As the interview was semi-structured in nature, the interviewer was guided by several trigger questions that were meant to structure the interview. The interviews however were conducted in a manner
A Malaysian public university 177 TABLE 8.1 Interviewee details
Natural Sciences
Social Sciences
Humanities
Total
Local lecturer (LL)
International lecturer (IL)
Local student (LS)
LL_ Geo (M)
IL_Geo (M) (Japan)
LS_Geo (M) LS_Phy (F)
LL_Phy (M)
IL_Phy (M) (Bangladesh)
LL_Edu (M) LL_Econs (F)
IL_Edu (F) (Iran) IL_Business (F) (Iran) LL_ IL_Cultural Culural (F) (F) (India) LL_Law (F) IL_Law (F) (Iran) 6
6
International students (IS)
IS_Geo (M) (Saudi Arabia) IS_ Engin (M) (Nigeria) LS_Edu (F) IS_Edu (M) LS_SEAStudies (Nigeria) (F) IS_SEAStudies (F) (Thailand) LS_Cul (F) IS_Cultural (M) LS_Law (M) (Iran) IS_Law (F) (Iran) 6 6
Total
8
8
8
24
that was very informal in order to put the participants at ease and to encourage openness.The lecturers, particularly, were very willing to talk at length on the issues raised, providing anecdotes and stories to substantiate what they said. All interviews were audio-recorded and later transcribed verbatim. As the interest was in what the participants had to say on a matter rather than how they said it, the inclusion of details of the latter in the transcript (e.g. laughter, overlapping talk, and pauses) was not felt to be necessary. Further, the transcription was normalised to some extent with the inclusion of capitalisation and punctuation in order to ease reading and understanding of the data.
4. Data analysis The data, comprising 24 audio-recorded interviews and their transcriptions, was analysed using qualitative content analysis (see Schreier, 2012) to answer the following research questions: 1. To what extent do language practices correspond to EMI policies at UM? Specifically, (i) to what extent are languages other than English used/accepted? (ii) what kinds of English are used/accepted? (iii) what evidence is there of intercultural communicative competence?
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2. How far do students and staff feel that they meet the language expectations of the university? The transcripts of the interviews were first examined thoroughly, after which those parts found to be relevant to the research questions were marked for further analysis.Those sections of the data considered relevant were then re-examined in order to form a coding frame which comprised several main categories pertinent to each research question. Where applicable, subcategories were formed. The discussion below addresses each research question and is structured according to the categories identified from the data. Extracts from the interviews presented in the sections below are preceded by a code that provides some details of the interviewee, as follows: 1 . 2. 3. 4.
First letter (L or I) –local or international. Second letter (L or S) –lecturer or student. Third segment (e.g. Edu, Law, Geo, etc.) –department/faculty. Fourth letter ((M) or (F)) –gender.
Thus, IL_Edu (F) is a female international lecturer from the Education faculty while LS_Geo (M) is a male local student from the Geology department.
4.1 The use of Malay in addition to English In order to determine the extent to which language practices in UM adhere to its EMI policies, it was necessary to first ascertain if other languages are used in the classroom and if so, under what circumstances and to what extent. Based on the interview data, it was clear that the other language used with some frequency is Malay. Malay is used by some lecturers to facilitate understanding when non- understanding is apparent, and to deliver parts of their lecture. Students use Malay (or another language) in small group discussions, lab work, and practical sessions, to ask and respond to questions, and to answer examination questions. Many lecturers and students cited non-understanding as the main motivation for a lecturer’s switch to Malay. Lecturers when confronted with students’ difficulty in understanding the lecture in English use Malay to clarify meaning when attempts to do so in English fail to bring about understanding, as illustrated in the extracts below:
(1) LL_Geo (M) But I try to explain the meaning in English. If I find that they still can’t understand then I proceed with Malay.
(2) LL_Edu (M) Sometimes if the situation is that bad I have to you know translate in Malay to them.
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(3) LL_Law (F) The only time I may change to explain in Malay is if after explaining three times in English and they still can’t seem to get the concept then I will switch to Malay
Given that UM has an EMI policy which applies to the Sciences and elsewhere when international students are present, the lecturers were keen to stress that switching to Malay is a move adopted only when all efforts to clarify meaning in English fail. What is interesting, however, is that even the international lecturers resort to Malay to address non-understanding, as revealed by the following two international staff:
(4) IL_Edu (F) …but if the student really cannot sometimes get the word and if I know the word in Malay if I will use
(5) IL_Geo (M) I like I sometimes I mix up with my Bahasa Malaysia [Malay]. Because sometimes my students they don’t get some particular words in English then I give some explanation if appropriate, I give explanation in Bahasa Malaysia.
Both lecturers, the first Iranian and the second, Japanese, have spent a number of years in Malaysia and have picked up some Malay which they use to facilitate understanding in the classroom. The use of Malay in such situations however is likely to only benefit the local students. While all international students are required to enrol for a basic Malay language course, they are unlikely to have acquired sufficient competence in the language to enable them to understand academic content in Malay. These students, almost all of whom are second or foreign language speakers of English, thus have only English to rely on in understanding their lectures unlike their local counterparts. While all the 12 lecturers interviewed stressed that they lecture in English, except when addressing obvious non-understandings, several reported that there are others who use Malay to teach.
(6) IL_Cul (F) …the local the Malaysian teachers I think speak in both English and Malay in their language of instruction. …I think teachers who can speak both languages often use both languages
(7) IL_Geo (M) …some of my colleagues they, for example first fifteen minutes they teach in English and they switch to Bahasa Malaysia [Malay] because most of the students are Malaysians.
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Two international students also commented on the use of Malay to lecture.
(8) IS_Cul (M) …she speak with Malay that’s in front of all of us, that’s in the four months discussion
(9) IS_Geo (M) What really goes on is that the fact that they mix in Malay which is very understandable and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. But what makes it wrong or not how it should be and it makes life difficult is the fact that they will sometimes miss out the portion in English and just explain it in Malay
The two international students expressed some dissatisfaction with this situation as understandably they are unable to follow those parts of the lecture in Malay which leaves them frustrated. However, the delivery of lectures in a mix of English and Malay it appears is confined to courses where there are very few international students enrolled –one or two, at most. The use of Malay in the classroom by local students appears to be a more common phenomenon, particularly amongst those who display lower levels of proficiency in English. The EMI policy, while explicit about the language in which instruction is to take place, is silent on the language of interaction in the classroom. As such when small group or one-to-one discussions take place, students may opt to use Malay or some other language depending on the ethnic composition of the group. This is evident from the comments below:
(10) LS_Edu (F) Sometimes when we have group discussion we do speak in BM [Malay] lah because I mean BM is our language, our national language so yeah we do speak in BM sometimes.
(11) LL_Geo (M) Most of the interaction will be in Malay especially in lab work.
(12) LL_Econs (F) Sometimes I do get students discussing in Mandarin or some other Chinese dialects, some would be discussing in Bahasa [Malay]. … If they talk in Mandarin then I wouldn’t be able to help them because the point is that you know I need to listen to the discussion to know whether they are on the right track or not
IL_Phy (M), a Professor of Physics from Bangladesh, feels that students when participating in small group discussions should in fact be allowed to use their mother tongue (extract (13)), given that they are likely to be able to express themselves best in this language rather than in a foreign language. LL_Econs (F) however cautions
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that if discussions take place in a language that she, the lecturer, does not understand, she would not be able to monitor their discussions and provide input where and when needed (extract (12)).
(13) IL_Phy (M) …we should actually give them this chance because they have to communicate with their own language, better actually mother language, there is no alternative of mother language, no alternative…
IL_Law (F), a Law lecturer from Iran explains students’ use of Malay as follows: “some of them are not fluent in English, that’s why they use Malay”. It does not seem that international students use some other language in discussions as their numbers are fewer and in most cases they are unlikely to be in a group with other speakers of their mother tongue. Thus the option to use a language other than English in group discussions is only available to the local students. Local students, again those with lower levels of proficiency, are also inclined to use Malay with the lecturer when asking or responding to questions, as the comments below illustrate:
(14) LL_Cul (F) …they’ll say I’ll just talk to you in BM [Malay] okay? Then I say yeah, yeah, okay. … they will speak to me in BM so I just answer in English which is fine.
(15) IS_Engin (M) …the students sometimes the Malay Malay students they do ask, maybe when he give room to ask the question he can move closer to the student and the Malay student can ask in Malay
(16) IS_Geo (M) Even when they ask a question from the lecturer, the lecturer is strictly English but the question will be in Malay.
It appears that even when lecturers use English to deliver their lecture, some local students may choose to ask or answer questions in Malay. Questions/answers in Malay are invariably directed at local lecturers who know the language. On the part of the lecturers, while some respond in Malay, others choose to deal with these questions in English in order not to exclude the international students from the discussion. Finally, Malay is also used for purposes of assessment.The university requires that all examination papers be bilingual, that is, in English and Malay, when the medium of instruction is English. In the context of another public university which enforces the same requirement, Ali (2013) explains that the ruling is “to ensure that students’ academic performance was not affected due to the choice of language instruction by academic staff ” (p. 83). However, in the case of international academic staff, the
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implementation of this ruling is not a straightforward matter, as the following two comments indicate:
(17) IL_Geo (M) But sometimes if a student asks me, can I answer exam question in Bahasa Malaysia, then I say I’m sorry.
(18) IL_Cul (F) Like when I do the final exam question, everything is always in English but the final exam questions have to be in Malay, so this long question paper like I have to sit with someone and my colleague has to you know give me time to translate. …So I do the English and then I have to get someone else to help me with the Malay.
IL_Geo (M), who is Japanese, disallows his students from answering exams in Malay as he would otherwise not be able to understand their answers while IL_Cul (F) requires the assistance of a local lecturer to translate her exam questions from English into Malay. Some international students find bilingual examination papers confusing as expressed by IS_Geo (M) below:
(19) IS_Geo (M) Like even my Arabic friends, they are like, dude I swear the papers when we open, it’s like so much stuff you know like Malay in between suddenly and stuff, it’s confusing it’s confusing, it’s kind of hard sometimes yeah.
The use of Malay by academic staff and students in the situations examined above reflects some flexibility in the implementation of UM’s EMI policy. Local academic staff and students are likely to fall back on Malay when understanding is at stake and when proficiency levels in English are low. Thus, when the medium becomes an obstacle to the smooth and accurate transmission of messages, the medium, in this case English, is abandoned in favour of another which can get the job done more effectively. This situation is possible for the local participants as Malay constitutes another language they have in common. As English remains the main medium of instruction in the Sciences and elsewhere when international students are present, the question arises as to the kinds of English used or accepted in the classroom, which the following section addresses.
4.2 Using and accepting a range of Englishes The question of the type(s) of English used for instruction is a pertinent one in the context of Malaysia. As an English as a second language (ESL) country, Malaysia has developed its own varieties of English. In addition to Standard Malaysian English, there is also the colloquial variety referred to as Manglish. Given that the country is multiethnic, locals speak Malaysian English in a variety
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of accents. At the university, local lecturers and students also display varying levels of competence in the language. The international lecturers and students at UM are themselves second or foreign language speakers of English, in the main. Meanwhile as a former British colony, there is still some affection for the British variety of English as the comment from LL_Econs (F) reveals: “I think I’m more comfortable with the Queen’s English.” Given the diversity in the linguistic backgrounds of the students and lecturers, both local and international, there appears to be greater use and acceptance of a range of Englishes. Many claim to be using a variety associated with their own country such as Indian English, Malaysian English, and so on, while others admit to using a mixed type of English. In the context of the Malaysian participants, this mixed form, also commonly referred to as Manglish, has elements of the different local languages spoken in Malaysia, while in the case of the international participants, the mixed form may reveal features of native speaker as well as non-native speaker Englishes. The comments below, extracted from the lecturer interviews, illustrate this point:
(20) IL_Phy (M) …this is the Indian English. …I mean now I am used to talk with the Indian English, even if you train me may be too difficult for me to overcome
(21) IL_Business (F) I think our English gonna be mixed because we are not pure using American English, we are not pure using British one, we are mixing with the Malay English and Iranian and American and British, I think it’s gonna be mixture
(22) LL_Edu (M) We can’t avoid that [using Malaysian English] you know even though we try to control that.
Meanwhile, some lecturers commented specifically on their accents, admitting to using a local accent. In Malaysian English, the word “slang” is often used to mean “accent”.
(23) LL_Geo (M) I don’t use any slang, British slang or American slang …it’s typically Malaysian slang.
(24) IL_Geo (M) Accent is Japanese. Some of my colleagues for example, their way of using English is quite Malaysian.
While none of the participants interviewed were from the linguistics discipline, they revealed knowledge of the existence of varieties of English, and the concept of standard language, as shown below.
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(25) IS_Law (F) …the ones [lecturers] that I have encountered they all use standard English, very easy to follow, very understandable like clear.
(26) IS_Edu (M) They [the lecturers] are using standard language.
(27) LL_Edu (F) …actually I am not the type who’s following definite accent like for example UK or US. But I try to have the standard one
(28) LL_Econs (F) …the Malaysian students, they would be using I think standard English, whether there’s some influence of the US or UK
A few position themselves with the native speaker variety.The two Nigerian students interviewed particularly assert that while Nigerian English exists, it is a variety used only amongst Nigerians as they perceive it as being non-intelligible to others. Both claim to use British English as a result of having being colonised by Britain.
(29) IS_Edu (M) …I’ve talked we are being colonised by the British. Automatically it is the British type of English that you use in communication and even in writing.
(30) IS_Engin (M) British English. …If we use Nigerian English I don’t think they can understand because it is only Nigerian to Nigerian can understand that.
A key point raised in the conversations about the types of English used in the classroom is the greater importance placed on understanding rather than the form used. The participants interviewed do not seem particularly concerned about the type of English used as long as understanding is assured. Both the local and international academic staff as well as the students share the view that understanding is paramount, as indicated in the comments below:
(31) LL_Cul (F) I think the most important thing is understanding of the students. If you speak in a certain way and they don’t understand you and just because you change a little bit you know and they seem to understand you better, I would say why not? Because you are not teaching the language, you are teaching say art history
(32) IL_Phy (M) …the main important thing is whether you are getting my point or not, it is clear enough I mean for the communication. If you are understandable I am understandable, it’s fine.
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(33) LL_Geo (M) Oh I think it’s perfectly fine to speak in Manglish because as long as everybody understand what you speak and then the message is conveyed, I think that is important rather than perfectly speaking but the person did not understand what you talking.
The general feeling is that as content lecturers, the emphasis should be on the subject matter that is being transmitted to the students. As LS_Geo (M) points out, a perfectly formed message does not guarantee understanding. The acceptance of less-than-perfect English extends to written work and exams submitted by students to the lecturers. Several of the lecturers interviewed admit to overlooking grammatical errors in favour of meaning, as the extracts below illustrate:
(34) LL_Edu (M) I won’t penalise them just because of their English. …in exam it’s okay as long I get the meaning of it, it’s alright.
(35) LL_Law (F) I don’t penalise them for grammatical errors. I am only focusing on legal issues. …if the meaning gets through then that’s fine, so I will ignore certain incorrect tenses or certain phrase which is a bit off.
(36) IL_Cul (F) So I was informed by the department that when I grade answers, right, I should try to see the main sense of the material and in terms of grammar, I should not grade them down for having wrong grammar in English
It is likely that given the non-native speaker status of both lecturers and students, there is greater tolerance of what according to native English standards are deemed as “errors”. The comment by IL_Cul (F) above suggests that the emphasis on meaning over form is one that is prescribed by departments rather than resulting from individual choice. In ENL countries where local students and staff are generally native speakers of English, the expectation is that international students must endeavour to meet native speaker standards set by the universities (Jenkins, 2014). In the present context, as the local students and academic staff are themselves non- native speakers of English, expectations appear to be more realistic.
4.3 Accommodative behaviour in intercultural communication As previously discussed, one of UM’s stated goals in its efforts to globalise the university is “Enhanced … multi-cultural sensitivity.” In this regard, the university has identified the following as a strategy: “Adapt academic programmes to increase students’ global focus and understanding of different cultures” (Transformation Plan, UM website). To what extent this strategy has been implemented is unclear. However, UM, like other public universities in Malaysia, requires its undergraduate
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students to enrol in two university core courses, namely, Islamic and Asian Civilisation, and Ethnic Relations, which aim to promote greater understanding and acceptance of different communities and cultures. The participants interviewed appear to have acquired some level of intercultural communicative competence as evidenced by their attempts to accommodate to their interlocutors when interacting. This awareness of the need to accommodate to their interlocutors in intercultural communication is expressed by LL_Edu (M) who says, “I think we need to be, you know, accommodate to them, helpful, you know, supportive to them.” This kind of supportive and accommodative behaviour is in fact a hallmark of English as a lingua franca communication. Such behaviour can take various forms as shown below:
(37) LL_Edu (M) Sometime I help them to, as much try to use their variety that type of English.
(38) IS_Engin (M) Ah if you don’t pronounce the way they understand, they will never understand you. So I go a long way you know to make them understand me.
(39) IS_Cul (M) I know from the beginning I should have speak slowly …I have to speak slower than usual yeah. …I know what I shouldn’t text so much, I have to put it short because I live in Malaysia. It’s different.
(40) IS_Geo (M) …my accent has become, I don’t know but it really changes depending on who I talk to …it adapts automatic. These are features of multilingual people I think. Now the local accent comes out when I’m speaking to a local person regardless of how good they are in English. It’s just my brain is like, okay this is a local person, automatically local accent. But I do it unconsciously.
The comments above reveal that the participants are aware of the precarious nature of intercultural communication in ELF and so take steps to enhance the intelligibility of their speech and promote shared understanding. Such measures include adapting their pronunciation, accent, and even the pace of their speech, as explained above. The participants use words like “adapt” rather frequently, suggesting an awareness of what it takes to communicate effectively in an intercultural context. In addition to accommodating their speech to their interlocutors, the participants employ a range of other communicative strategies which include repeating, paraphrasing, and using comprehension checks.They also evidence awareness of the need to be explicit and clear in their communication as expressed by IS_Cul (M) who says, “I have to elaborate everything. I don’t want to put anything vague point, you know. To elaborate, to clarify.” Another participant takes accommodation a step further, simplifying his speech to the point of using “wrong grammar”, as he states below:
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(41) IS_Geo (M) And many times like when we go talk to them [the administrative staff], they have difficulty when they are trying to talk.When you try to explain to them, you actually have to break down your English. We literally break down you know, to like wrong grammar or something. I do that a lot.
Another step taken by several of the international participants which evidences efforts to promote intercultural communication is the move to learn the local language and culture. Given that English is an important second language in Malaysia, it is entirely possible to live in Kuala Lumpur, its capital city, without a knowledge of Malay. However, these international students and staff recognise the value of knowing the local language in that it allows them to get closer to the people and to understand their culture better.
(42) IS_Engin (M) …that’s what tempted me to learn Malay. Because when I see that, when I speak English, hello, how are you? They will not you know they will not respond well. But when you say Apa khabar? Khabar baik. Oh boleh? They will give you attention, then you seek attention from there.
(43) IS_Geo (M) And I chose to learn Malay. And me learning the language is helping me a lot.
(44) IL_Edu (F) I learn Malay and I learn about the culture, so I know how to deal quietly, they they mention in pejabat [the office] I’m here that I’m okay, but so I don’t push even if I need something I know how to get it. Even though they are slow I will try my best.
Many of the international participants emphasise the importance of getting to know the local ways and practices, and even adopting the local norms. This cultural knowledge and awareness is considered necessary to avoid problems in communication. As IS_Edu (M) cautions, “if you don’t [have this knowledge], you always have problems with them”. Lack of cultural knowledge can contribute to misunderstanding and hamper effective intercultural communication as confirmed by several of the international participants. A common lament seems to relate to the difference in the volume of speech of the locals and those from certain other parts of the world. An Iranian lecturer describes the comments from the locals as follows:
(45) IL_Edu (F) XXX [name] they are shouting. I say no shout. They are angry, I say no they are no angry. I say yeah because different culture. It’s the cultures.
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Similarly, a Nigerian student faces the same reactions as he explains below:
(46) IS_Engin (M) When we are talking, I’m talking with a friend, so they will come and say, what? You are fighting. You are fighting. Please don’t fight. And we weren’t fighting. We were just talking.
While the participants interviewed display intercultural communicative competence through the accommodative actions they take to promote more effective interactions, the two comments above underscore the importance of cultural knowledge and awareness in ensuring successful communication between members of different cultural groups on campus.
4.4 Meeting language expectations As previously stated, in UM, English-medium instruction applies to the Sciences and elsewhere when international students are present. For international students, the English language requirement for entry into postgraduate programmes is a minimum IELTS score of band 6 or a minimum TOEFL score (paper-based total) of 550. The requirement is slightly lower for undergraduate programmes, i.e. a band 5 in the IELTS or a score of 500 in the TOEFL. In the case of local students, the English entry requirement for postgraduate programmes is not explicitly stated; meanwhile local students, depending on the programme, have to obtain anything between a band 2 (limited user) and a band 4 (competent user) in the Malaysian University English Test to gain entry into the undergraduate programmes. Some faculties like Law, impose a slightly higher entry requirement for both postgraduate and undergraduate programmes as students are expected to have a better command of English to cope with their studies. In EMI courses, the assumption is that all classroom teaching and learning will take place in English, and that both students and lecturers are suitably equipped to teach and learn in English.The lecturers interviewed seem positive when describing their experiences teaching in English and generally give the impression of meeting the language expectations of the university. One of the main reasons for this positive outlook is the fact that teaching resources and materials referred to are in English.
(47) LL_Phy (M) I work faster in English. Everything, the books are in English.You understand faster. You can write down your notes faster and so on. If in Malay, they [I] have to translate that into a form that I myself understand. So it take more effort for me to teach in Malay rather than English.
(48) LL_Econs (F) I’m comfortable because my references are all in English, case studies English and when I did research, most of the reports will be in English. On staff I think it will make staff life easier
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(49) IL_Geo (M) To teach geology or science for me it’s more comfortable to do it in English.
As the lecturers above explain, teaching in English precludes the need to translate material into the local language and thus, saves time and effort. The students also express their capability to learn in English and consider English the most suitable medium through which to learn, as the comments below reflect:
(50) IS_Engin (M) That [English] is the most comfortable language for me to learn
(51) IS_Edu (M) No problems understanding the lecturers, very comprehensive and very understandable. The language they use, my course mates, easily understood. We communicate, we share ideas. I don’t have problem concerning English at all.
Learning successfully in English, however, is contingent on the student’s competence in the language. Students with adequate competence in English are able to fulfil the demands made of them in the learning context while the reverse is true for students with low levels of competence. The latter “struggle” to perform the many learning tasks and activities set as a result of being “handicapped” in the language, as noted by their lecturers and fellow course mates:
(52) LL_Edu (M) Like language is a tool, if they are handicapped in that tool they have to struggle especially those who are really weak.
(53) LL_Phy (M) …as long as they have the basics, if not they will be struggling.Those students that poor in English, struggling.
(54) LS_Edu (F) I think student who speak good English shouldn’t have a problem. But student who doesn’t know, they don’t speak English or they don’t understand then it would be a problem for them
Nonetheless the majority appear to be meeting the language expectations of the university. As LL_Phy (M) states, “For the last few years, their [the students’] level of English has improved drastically. I think they are coping very well.” However, there remain small numbers of both lecturers and students who do not make the mark. Students with low levels of proficiency in English face difficulties in understanding lectures, reading and understanding course material, writing assignments, and speaking in class, as the following comments indicate:
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(55) LL_Geo (M) …trying to make students understand in English, for some students maybe a bit problem.
(56) IL_Cul (F) But even for the short paragraphs, for them to read, like they would have to look at the dictionary a few times in order to understand those short paragraphs even before we discuss it in class, the English that they understand is more simpler versus the more complex English word used in theory.
(57) IL_Business (F) They cannot communicate, because of that all the time they will keep quiet in the class, force them to talk, they don’t want to talk, so that’s problem for a student also.
(58) IL_Edu (F) And then when it comes to writing, I will go through hell. I am going through hell, you don’t believe sometimes one chapter will go about 10 rounds.
The difficulties described above are not restricted to students alone but are also experienced by some lecturers as the following participants explain:
(59) LL_Geo (M) I find that those young lecturers are having problem, especially those who are have been taught in Malay medium during university level. They have a bit problem to communicate in English
(60) IS_Cul (M) Very weak in English, he couldn’t speak, he couldn’t convey his idea even you know. That’s the main problem. All the students, not only me, even the students in Master degree, they have problems dealing with the lecturer because they couldn’t understand what she said and was very hard
(61) LL_Econs (F) I do get students complain some, when there is only one or two [international students] some lecturers take the option of telling the students that, ah I’m going to teach in Bahasa [Malay]
The above comments reveal that fulfilment of the language expectations of the university depends largely on the capability of students and staff to perform in English. Low levels of proficiency in English invariably stand in the way of students and staff being able to effectively and successfully conduct teaching and learning tasks and
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activities in English. While all undergraduate students are required to enrol for two English language skills-based courses during the duration of their studies, no such requirement is imposed on postgraduate students. The latter therefore have little in the way of language support that could contribute in enhancing their English language proficiency during the course of the programme.
5. Discussion and conclusion Due to the forces of globalisation and internationalisation, UM has been actively putting in place various mechanisms in its efforts to internationalise the university, which include introducing EMI policies that apply to the Science and Technology disciplines, and elsewhere when international students are present. The extent to which these policies are enacted at the departmental level by teaching staff has been subject to a qualitative study. In-depth interviews with local and international academic staff and students reveal the extent to which English is in fact used for teaching and learning. While English is to a large extent used for instruction, local academic staff and even international ones, albeit a minority, do switch to Malay to enhance the understanding of local students when there are obvious indications of non-understanding. Questions posed in Malay by local students lacking confidence in their English are likely to be addressed in Malay, although this is not always the case. Attempts to clarify hard-to-understand content in English which fail to bring about understanding are likely to be followed by explanations in Malay. Malay is used to a greater extent by both local lecturers and students when international presence is small, and vice versa. In an educational context where the stakes are high, understanding of content is crucial and as the analysis above shows, the understanding of the majority local audience at times overrides that of the minority international one. The flexibility with which the EMI policy is enacted extends to the type(s) of English used and accepted in the classroom. As the lecturers and students, both local and international, tend to be second or foreign language speakers of English, there is a great variety of Englishes in use. Academic staff for the most part adopt a standard form of English, e.g. Standard Malaysian English, to deliver their lectures while maintaining an accent influenced to some extent by their mother tongue. Given the non-native status of the vast majority of academic staff and students, there is a tendency to overlook form in favour of meaning. While some emphasise the importance of “good” English, expectations made of lecturers and students seem to be more realistic in keeping with the second/foreign language status of its speakers. As universities like UM strive towards internationalising its staff and student populations, intercultural communication in ELF is increasingly becoming the norm on their campuses. The analysis reveals that most of the participants are cognisant of the need to accommodate their interlocutors in such communications. A range of accommodative behaviour is adopted to promote more effective communication which includes adapting one’s pronunciation and use of English, employing various communicative strategies, and even learning the local language, which
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evidence intercultural communicative competence. In addition, the participants stress the need for adequate cultural knowledge and awareness to avoid miscommunication and misunderstanding. Reports by some of the participants of cases of misunderstanding, for instance between supervisors and their students, resulting from lack of cultural knowledge and awareness suggest that there is still some way to go before students and academic staff develop genuine multicultural sensitivity. While accommodating to the interlocutor in interaction may come naturally when there is a shared communicative goal, understanding and acceptance of other’s ways and practices may take a little longer. In this regard, Jenkin’s (2014) assertion that there is an urgent need for intercultural communication courses is valid. Given Malaysia’s colonial past and the status of English as an important second language, UM’s EMI policy has been generally well accepted by both academic staff and students. Of the 24 participants interviewed, none expressed dissatisfaction or disappointment with having to teach or learn in English. More importantly, the participants appear confident of having met the university’s language expectations thus far.This may to some degree stem from the fact that there is some flexibility in the enactment of UM’s EMI policy as previously discussed. Local staff and students particularly have Malay to fall back on when and if the need arises. Further, tolerance of far-from-perfect English and the focus on meaning over form reflect more realistic expectations which are attainable by most. The fact remains however that an above average command of English is required for teaching and learning to take place successfully in English. Those lacking in their English language skills struggle to accomplish the tasks set before them. This, together with the finding that there is greater use of Malay in classes with few international students, must be addressed by the university as it strives to achieve global prominence.
Acknowledgements We would like to acknowledge the financial support provided by the University of Malaya under the Humanities and Ethics Cluster (HNE) research grant RG472-15HNE.
References Ali, N.L. (2013). A changing paradigm in language planning: English-medium instruction policy at the tertiary level in Malaysia. Current Issues in Language Planning, 14(1), 73–92. Chapman, D., & Chien, C.-L. (2014). Expanding out and up: What are the system-level dynamics? Case study of Malaysia and Thailand. In Higher education in Asia: Expanding out, expanding up (pp. 37–48). Quebec: UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Gill, S.K. (2006). Change in language policy in Malaysia: The reality of implementation in public universities. Current Issues in Language Planning, 7(1), 82–94. Guardian. (2014). Top 20 countries for international students. Retrieved from w w w.t h egu a rd i a n . c o m / h i g h e r - e d u c a t i o n - network/ blog/ 2014/ jul/ 17/ top-20-countries-international-students
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Hashim, A., & Leitner, G. (2014). English as a lingua franca in higher education in Malaysia. The Asian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 1(1), 16–27. Jenkins, J. (2014). English as a lingua franca in the international university: The politics of academic English language policy. London: Routledge. Ministry of Education Malaysia (MEB (HE)). (2015). Malaysia Education Blueprint 2015– 2025 (Higher Education). Retrieved from www.mohe.gov.my/en/download/public/ penerbitan/pppm-2015-2025-pt/5-malaysia-education-blueprint-2015-2025-higher- education/file Mukherjee, H., & Wong, P.K. (2011). The National University of Singapore and the University of Malaya: Common roots and different paths. In P.G. Altback & J. Salmi (Eds.), The road to academic excellence: The making of world class research universities (pp. 129–166). Washington, DC: The World Bank. Schreier, M. (2012). Qualitative content analysis in practice. London: SAGE. Tan, P.K.W. (2005). The medium-of-instruction debate in Malaysia: English as a Malaysian language. Language Problems and Language Planning, 29(1), 47–66. Tham, S.Y. (2013). Internationalizing higher education in Malaysia: Government policies and university’s response. Journal of Studies in International Education, 17(5), 648–662. University of Malaya (UM) website. Retrieved from www.um.edu.my
PART III
The Anglophone world
9 LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY ON AN AUSTRALIAN UNIVERSITY CAMPUS An ethnographic case study Zhichang Xu, Jennifer Leung, Mahnaz Hall, Janin Jafari, and Marzieh Sadegh Pour
1. Introduction This chapter explores issues in relation to linguistic diversity on the campuses of an Australian university (hereafter referred to as the AU) as an ethnographic case study. In English-speaking countries, including Australia, English is taken as a default medium of instruction and communication in universities. Lo Bianco (1987, p. 7) points out that: although English is the de facto national language of Australia its status as such has never been declared explicitly. It is the first and usually the only language of about 83 per cent of the population as well as being the language of the major and powerful institutions of the society. However, it is worth noting that other languages as well as varieties of English and indigenous Aboriginal languages also permeate the linguistic landscape. Lo Bianco (1988, p. 33) acknowledges the “status” of Australian languages by three “recognitions”, namely, 1) recognition of the status of Australian English as the national, convenient and shared language of Australia and its major official institutions; 2) recognition of the rights of use and continued use of community languages other than English, including the languages and language systems of the deaf; 3) recognition of the rights of use, indigenous and unique nature of Aboriginal languages, Torres Strait Islander languages and Australian Creoles. Such “recognitions” at the national language policy level regarding linguistic diversity give rise to an evolving linguistic “mindscape” where people develop and
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adjust their mindsets from monolingual propensity to multilingualism and cultural diversity. The aim of this chapter is to raise awareness of the de facto linguistic diversity in terms of multilingualism and “multivarietalism” of English among university students and staff, and to enhance the development of multilingual and multivarietal mindsets in the Australian society. The significance of the research behind this chapter is that it provides a systematic description of the linguistic landscape and mindscape in an Australian higher education context, and it showcases the internationalisation of universities in Australia.
2. Local and national backgrounds to the study The Australian university (the AU), in which this study has been conducted between 2015 and 2017, is one of the metropolitan universities in Melbourne, Australia. It has five Australian campuses, as well as campuses in Malaysia and South Africa, a Joint Graduate School in China, a learning centre in Prato, Italy, and a research centre in Mumbai, India. It also has a network of university partners across the globe. The research and coursework programmes at the AU are mostly multi- disciplinary and they are currently provided through ten faculties, including Art, Design and Architecture, Arts, Business and Economics, Education, Engineering, Information Technology, Law, Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Science. The statistics of the university (2016) show that there are approximately 70,071 student enrolments, and a total of 7,579 full-time equivalent (FTE) staff members. In total, 69% of the students are undergraduate students, 23% are postgraduate students, 7% are research students, and 1% are non-award students. A total of 63% of the students are domestic students, and 37% are international students, coming from over 100 countries, mostly from China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. Among the domestic students, 72% speak English at home, while 28% speak a language other than English (henceforth LOTE) at home. Among the international students, 14% speak English at home, and 86% speak LOTE at home. According to the President and Vice Chancellor of the AU in one of her Global Mails to all members of the university, “our diversity is among this University’s greatest cultural assets” (Gardner AO, 2017): [AU] aspires to the internationalism that is fundamental to excellence in education and research. Inclusion, openness and respect are fundamental to the University’s values and realisation of our aspirations. From its beginnings in the turbulent sixties, the vibrant [AU] community has been diverse and open to the world. Last year, around 19,000 international students came to our Australian campuses, our staff are drawn from the nations, cultures and religions of the world, and we have campuses and centres in south-east Asia, China, India and Europe. National borders are
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irrelevant to the free exchange of ideas that is vital to the education and research of universities. Australian universities have transformed from single-campus to multiple-campus internationalised universities over the decades with an active presence of local and international students and staff, developing a world class reputation for excellence in teaching, research, and administration. University campuses have become increasingly diverse and multilingual communities serving Australians together with students and staff from all over the world. Students and staff on Australian university campuses themselves embody linguistic diversity, and also are becoming increasingly aware of the co-existence on campus of different kinds of English and of languages other than English or community languages. For example, one of the second-year international undergraduate students at the AU commented on his use of English: Regarding my variety of English, it is rather complicated. I’m from Indonesia and logically I would be speaking in Indonesian English. However, that would be oversimplifying the case. I used to learn English from British, American, and Australian teachers which as a result, I have a mix of those Englishes plus Indonesian English. In addition, I’m developing Singaporean/Malaysian accent ever since I’m in Melbourne due to over exposure to it, since most of my friends are Malaysian and Singaporean, even my housemate. Interview data Regarding the learning and use of LOTE or community languages for Australian university students and staff, one of the staff members at the AU commented: I feel that it is extremely important for Australia and Australians to acquire a language other than English. There are so many benefits to be gained both professionally and personally and for the growth, prosperity and cohesiveness of Australia as a nation. Marriott, 2013, p. 463 The above excerpts from our interviews and the literature show the complexities of the practices, expectations, and needs of English varieties and LOTE for Australian university students and staff. Linguistic diversity, in this sense, does not only translate into the use of different languages, but also practices of different varieties of English in the case of the AU campuses across Australia and overseas. Language policy research at Australia’s national and institutional levels underlies language ideology and practice in the society at large and institutions where multilingualism operates on a daily basis. Language policy research centres around language practices, ideologies and beliefs, management, and planning (Spolsky, 2004). Regarding language policy studies in the Australian context, there has been macro-level research on the national language policy (Lo Bianco, 1987,
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1988) outlining the rationale and implementation strategies for maintaining and developing bilingualism and multiculturalism in all Australians, based on a balance of social equity, cultural enrichment, and economic strategies. The primary purpose of Australia’s languages policy is to “make the nation’s choices about language issues in as rational, comprehensive, just and balanced a way as possible” (Lo Bianco, 1987, p. 2), and the fundamental objective of language planning in Australia is to “ensure that Australia derives maximum benefit from its rich linguistic resources” (Lo Bianco, 1987, p. 3). It is also mandated in Australia’s National Policy on Languages that: action to utilize and develop Australia’s rich linguistic resources in the nation’s best interests must start from a consideration of the linguistic diversity of Australia, the need for national unity, the external, economic and political needs of the nation, and the wishes and needs of Australia’s citizens. Lo Bianco, 1987, p. 3, emphasis added
3. Previous research on the context of the study Studies on the challenges faced by students, particularly international students, in Australian universities have found that language-related issues are a fundamental source of difficulty (Paton, 2007; Robertson, Line, Jones, & Thomas, 2000; Sawir, Marginson, Forbes- Mewett, Nyland, & Ramia, 2012). Difficulties associated with communication on Australian university campuses have been conventionally attributed to the students’ level of English language proficiency. However, in the globalised era and with the ubiquitous emergence of new varieties of English, a major source of communicative challenge lies in the fact that many students speak not only different languages, but also different varieties of English. It has been pointed out in Australia’s National Policy on Languages that “the neglect of Australia’s language resources has, as a consequence, become an issue of major national significance” (Lo Bianco, 1987, p. 2). The use of different languages and the differences between varieties of English that staff and students speak have often become the underlying sources of miscommunication in Australian universities and elsewhere. Bilingual and multilingual speakers of English often associate meanings with words in their own languages or varieties of English that are different from those associated with a few major varieties of English, such as British English, American English, and Australian English. The AU students and staff have a wide range of linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Previous research on language use on the AU Australian campuses, e.g. Clyne, Pauwels, Newbrook, and Neil (1995), Francis et al. (2008), and Marriott (2013), shows that approximately 75% of the students and staff on Australian campuses indicated knowledge and use of LOTE and that approximately 150 LOTE are used on university campuses for a range of functions. Despite the great diversity of languages extensively used on Australian university campuses and the multilingual and multicultural fabric of Australian university students and staff, it is
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yet to discover what the nature of multilingual and multicultural communication in Australian universities is.The paradox that multilingual and multicultural Australian universities appear to be monolingual institutions with English as the exclusive medium of communication remains unaddressed or unresolved. At the Australian national level, the call for a Language Policy was made in 1982, when the Senate made its decision to address a reference to its Standing Committee on Education and the Arts on the “Development and Implementation of a Coordinated Language Policy for Australia”. Such a decision gave rise to “intense activity from professional and community groups advocating the development and implementation of a national policy on language”. In 1984, the Senate Standing Committee’s report recommended that: language policies should be developed and coordinated at the national level on the basis of four guiding principles, namely: 1) competence in English; 2) maintenance and development of languages other than English; 3) provision of services in languages other than English; and 4) opportunities for learning second languages. Lo Bianco, 1987, pp. 2–3 In 1987, the Australian government endorsed the National Policy on Languages. The guiding principles of the Policy reinforce the status of English for social and national cohesion in Australia, “whilst simultaneously recognising the diversity of the society and the inherent benefits of this diversity” (Lo Bianco, 1987, p. 4). Such a diversity encompasses maintenance and development of LOTE, and provision of services in LOTE, as well as opportunities for learning second languages: Australians speak a wide variety of other languages. … Community languages are used daily to fulfil a wide range of social, familial, cultural, economic and educational purposes. These languages are being developed and modified in the Australian context and remain the main vehicles of communication for large numbers of Australians and the first languages of many Australian children. Community languages are recognised and supported in the Australian languages policy. Lo Bianco, 1987, p. 5 It is worth noting that Australia’s National Policy on Languages does not only recognise LOTE or community languages, but also different varieties of English. Specifically, the Policy recognises the presence and functions of “varieties of English”. In terms of the presence, the Policy states that: the English used in Australia has been modified by its speakers/writers to adapt it to the new demands and needs of its environment. These Australian contexts of use for the English language as well as the other language
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backgrounds of the users of English in Australia have led to the evolution of uniquely Australian varieties of English. Lo Bianco, 1987, p. 7, emphasis added In terms of the functions of the “varieties of English”, the Policy states that: It is recognised that there are many stable varieties of English. Some of these serve social and individual functions which are important to their speakers but are not the standardised forms which are valued publicly. It is important to accept this internal diversity of English whilst at the same time promoting standard Australian English for formal and public uses. It is important also to recognise the national character of English as it is used in Australia and its role as a unifying element in the society and a distinguishing feature of Australia among the English-speaking nations. Lo Bianco, 1987, pp. 4–5 Given the introduction and implementation of the National Policy on Languages in the late 1980s, the Australian society has still been in a paradoxical situation, where although Australia is largely perceived and recognised as a multilingual society, its “mindset” as a nation is still “monolingual” (Clyne, 2005), i.e. Australia is a country with a wide diversity of languages, rich in language resources, in a world in which there are more multilinguals than monolinguals, yet it is characterised by monolingual thinking. According to Lo Bianco (1988, p. 37), for the 1990s at least the language elements of multiculturalism are not at the periphery of concerns for only “ethnics” and only for atavistic reasons, but a more complex discourse is underway, locating language issues at the centre and for all, combining culture, economics and equality. For it to bear real fruit will require solid and continuing adherence to all its strands”. At the micro- level, research and implementation of language policies in the Australian tertiary education sector lack explicitness and coherence (Marriott, 2013, p. 465). Such a lack of explicitness and coherence may result in consequences. Lo Bianco (1987, p. 2) argues that: the absence of explicit statements of the principles and choices does not mean that decisions affecting language do not occur. Rather, it results in implicit and undirected actions and usually ad hoc and un-coordinated measures and may distort language development in society and its institutions. At the AU, there have been attempts and efforts to propose language policies for the university, but due to “financial cuts, corporatisation, economic rationalism, and a realignment of power structures” (Clyne, 2001, p. 211), most language policies are minimalist and they are not aligned with the changing “-scapes” (i.e. linguistic
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landscape and mindscape to be elaborated in this chapter) of Australian university campuses: Australian universities are in need of tertiary language, literacy and communication policies to serve the needs of various kinds of students, including secondary graduates, indigenous, mature age, deaf and blind, or overseas students or those from culturally and linguistically different backgrounds. Marriott, 2013, p. 455 As far as the AU is concerned, in 1993, staff members from the Linguistics programme initiated a research project designed to lead to a language policy for the university. This project resulted in a comprehensive 43-page document entitled “Towards a language policy for an international university” (Clyne et al., 1995). However, the document was turned into a one-page statement headed “University Language Policy” adopted by the Academic Board of the AU. This policy contains only “broad generalisations”, for example, it is the responsibility of the university to ensure that adequate facilities are provided to assist students of all backgrounds in improving their communication skills; communication within the university should take into account that [AU] is a multicultural communication in an international multilingual setting; communication within the university should be fair and inclusive of gender, race, ethnicity, age or disability. This “University Language Policy” does not explicitly focus on “language” per se, but on “communication”. The policy continues to stipulate that: [AU] as an institution commits itself to: 1) making explicit communication activities to constitute an integral part of professional training in all disciplines; 2) including in staff induction a component in cross-cultural communication training and encouraging faculties and departments to make use of this training; 3) seeing it as part of its national responsibility to teach some languages with limited enrolments especially those otherwise not available in Victorian universities. In subsequent years, “even this minimalist policy disappeared, with senior administrative personnel of the university claiming that the various principles proposed earlier in relation to communication were now incorporated into other specific policies within the institution” (Marriott, 2013, p. 458). It is apparent that staff from the Department of Linguistics have different views from those of the senior management in terms of a “language policy”. The former “conceived of a language policy as a discrete, independent policy in the traditional sense”, but the latter “sought to produce integrated policies covering numerous educational matters” (Marriott, 2013, p. 458).
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International students have been on the rise in Australian universities for the last two to three decades. Language and culture issues become more salient, and explicit discussions of such issues have gained momentum, particularly in terms of drafting relevant university policy statements. For example, in the statement of the AU “Equal Opportunity Policy” (2011), it stipulates that “AU is committed to providing staff, students, contractors and visitors with an environment free from all forms of unlawful discrimination, harassment, vilification and victimisation.” This can be achieved by a list of effective measures, one of which is “using non-discriminatory, inclusive language and practices”. In addition, a discussion or consultation among students and staff is under way regarding “[AU] English Language Policy” (2016). This new policy recognises the “global” status of English, the university’s local and international profiles, impact, goals, and mission, as well as the development of “strong communication skills” among its local and international students and staff: [AU] is committed to excellence in a world where English is a language of global significance. The University seeks to attract talented local and international students and staff, and to equip them to make an impact as global citizens and creative scholars through achievement of their academic, professional and research goals. Fostering the development of strong communication skills among students and staff is integral to this mission. English Language Policy, 2016 Among the eight “principles” within the policy statement that the AU endorses, two of them confirm the salient role of English in relation to LOTE, and the “approach” the AU adopts to enhance the development of English language proficiency of its students and staff. These include: “English is the standard language of instruction, assessment, supervision and administration except in specific contexts such as LOTE” (principle 1);“The University will employ a systematic, strategic and equitable approach to ELP (English language proficiency) development initiatives, resources, practices and guidelines across the university” (principle 8). It is worth noting that in the policy, English language proficiency is defined as “the ability to make and communicate meaning in spoken and written English to required standards and in specific academic, professional, social and global contexts”.
4. Methodology Language use is often the most immediate identifier of the mobility and dynamics of people and the most sensitive indicator of social change, in terms of changing relationships, interests, and practices. It is therefore important to investigate the linguistic landscape and mindscape in relation to linguistic diversity to map out what actual languages are used, how people perceive linguistic diversity, and how language practices index multilingualism, multiculturalism, and social change in Australian universities.
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The ethnographic case study presented in this chapter adopts an interdisciplinary research approach, involving language policy studies, and linguistic landscape and mindscape studies. For the purposes of this chapter, we refer to “linguistic landscape” as the presence and salience of languages on international university campuses. The languages include both LOTEs and different varieties of English in their broadly categorised written and spoken forms. “Linguistic landscape” is not merely about signage and visible linguistic symbols, but also encompasses people moving through the landscape and their perceptions of its language practices. The bodies and minds of these people are equally visible and readable within such a linguistic landscape. As far as university campuses are concerned, a linguistic landscape represents an important learning environment. By analogy, we also propose a new area of research, namely linguistic mindscape studies (LMS), given that the current internationalised universities operate across a number of “-scapes” (cf. Appadurai, 1996), e.g. ethnoscape (movement of students and staff), mediascape (influence and impact of media), technoscape (advancement in technology), financescape (budget consideration), and ideoscape (exchange of knowledge and ideas). For this chapter, we define “linguistic mindscape” as comprising mindsets of people regarding languages other than English (LOTE) and varieties of English, in particular, their awareness, perceptions, and attitudes, or beliefs and ideologies in relation to language practices on university campuses. It is important to investigate the nature of our linguistic mindsets because where our mind is set determines where our linguistic behaviours and practices go. According to Gorter (2013, p. 205), “the typical linguistic landscape method of collecting photographical data can be considered an additional source of information about the sociolinguistic context along with censuses, surveys, and interviews” (see Chapter 1, this volume for further details of linguistic landscaping methods). By contrast, linguistic mindscaping, as far as this chapter is concerned, involved finding out how students and staff perceived their language practices in various circumstances, and their awareness of language expectations and relevant regulations and policies, as well as measures and initiatives provided by the university to enhance intercultural communication. Whereas linguistic landscaping research typically involves photographing signage in the environment, linguistic mindscaping data is collected through (in our case, student and staff) self-reported linguistic behaviours and ideologies in interviews, as well as by means of online discussion forums, and class observations. The data collected for our study, in line with the overall LDIC project, included various types and quantities. These were: (1) documents in a broad sense, including policy documents, staff development documents, handbooks, and webpages; (2) semi-structured interviews with students and staff; (3) observations of lectures and seminars; and online discussion forums; and (4) posters and signs on campuses documenting features of the physical surroundings, e.g. to what extent are LOTEs presented or “erased” on international university campuses. More specifically, our datasets involved language policy documents and other relevant documents (e.g. language issues-related webpages, staff development documents, student handbooks,
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unit guides, reports), semi-structured interviews, observations of lectures, seminars and other teaching and learning activities, online discussion forums, and signage around the campuses. Some of our datasets, e.g. online discussion forums and class observations, were collected for triangulation in order to address critical reviews of “qualitative interview data” in terms of “parameters of sensitivity” and “discursive dilemmas” that arise “in the process of carrying out, analysing and reporting on qualitative interviews” (Mann, 2011, pp. 6–7). Appendix 1 lists the major questions for semi-structured interviews for the AU students and staff. These questions are primarily about what languages students and staff use on campus, their views on standard language and English varieties, and their awareness of language requirements and policies. Drawing upon Jenkins’s (2014) University Staff Questionnaire, questions regarding overt and covert language policies and practices, the effects of university’s language expectations and requirements, and the measures and initiatives provided by the university as well as the responsibilities of students and staff are also included. Appendix 2 lists the major pre-designed topics for lecture, seminar, and tutorial observations. These include: (1) the type of the class, e.g. lecture, seminar, or tutorial; (2) the number and general make-up of the students; (3) information about the lecturer and tutor; (4) the varieties of English that are spoken by the students and the lecturer and tutor; (5) whether or not other languages than English are used in class; (6) whether or not comments on the language use are provided; (7) evidence of intercultural communication among students, lecturer, and tutor of different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. A full list of all our datasets is provided in Appendix 3.
5. Analytical framework The analytical framework of this project is a reconfiguration of relevant theories and concepts that reflect the current paradigm shifts in the era of globalisation, super-diversity, mobility, the spread of English, and multilingual practices. This ethnographic case study is a journey of discovery into language practices as “a local phenomenon” (Pennycook, 2010), in this case, the AU campuses. The data was collected and the datasets were stored in a shared Dropbox folder among the project team members. These datasets were examined by the first two authors of this chapter with both bottom–up and top–down approaches. The bottom–up approach means that the data was examined without preconceived assumptions so that themes and patterns would emerge from the various data; the top–down approach was adopted after the initial examination of the data and the themes and preliminary findings were drawn upon. Given the qualitative nature of the ethnographic case study, the data was coded and analysed manually without computer packages or apps for analysis. As far as the analytical framework is concerned, we adopted a deconstructionist approach, based on Derrida’s (1997 [1967]) deconstructionist philosophy. The deconstructionist approach is not to criticise or reject prior systems or philosophies,
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but to re-construct and reinterpret existing social and linguistic phenomena. In this ethnographic case study, the approach involves a framework to analyse current systems, and it is primarily based on variation and diversity rather than homogeneity of language and culture. In terms of linguistic landscaping, we have mainly investigated the presence and salience of languages on the AU campuses. The languages include LOTE and different varieties of English in their broadly categorised written and spoken forms. We understand that a linguistic landscape does not merely comprise signage and visible linguistic symbols, but it also includes people moving through the landscape. This gives rise to our proposal of “linguistic mindscape” studies. In terms of linguistic mindscaping, we have mainly investigated the collective mindsets and ideologies of people regarding languages other than English, and different varieties of English, in particular, their awareness, perceptions, and attitudes, or their ideologies and beliefs in relation to language practices on university campuses. Linguistic mindset can be distinguished between ethnorelativism and ethnocentricism. Ethnorelativism refers to the tendency “to understand a communication practice or worldview from other person’s cultural frame of reference”, whereas ethnocentricism is defined as “a way of thinking that holds that one’s cultural worldview and way of life are superior to all others”, or “a point of view that views one’s group’s standards as the best and judges all other groups in relation to them” (Jackson, 2014, p. 366). Linguistic mindscaping in this chapter serves as an umbrella term in relation to linguistic landscaping, and it is closely associated with language mindsets and ideologies, such as monoglot ideology (Silverstein, 1996), and the tension between “monoglot ideology” and “polyglot repertoire” (Dong & Blommaert, 2009).
6. Findings, discussions, and implications In this section we report and elaborate on our findings with relevant data analysis, and address the two major research questions. This section is structured in a way that findings are presented in the following subsections from 6.1 to 6.5 with supporting data analyses and relevant discussions.
6.1 The AU is a “richly diverse and inclusive community” and diversity is valued as “among this University’s greatest cultural assets” The University Planning and Statistics (2016) explicitly states that: [AU] is a richly diverse and inclusive community serving Indigenous and recent Australians together with students from over 100 countries. International students make up around 36 per cent of all enrolments and mostly come from Malaysia, China, Indonesia, and Singapore. Previous large-scale surveys regarding language use on the AU campuses by Clyne et al. (1995), Francis et al. (2008), and Marriott (2013) show that approximately 75%
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of the students and staff on the AU Australian campuses indicated knowledge and use of LOTE and that approximately 150 LOTE are used on university campuses for a range of functions: I speak English most of the time, but I also speak Cantonese, Mandarin, and sometimes code-switch to Japanese with my friends and students. Interview data … but I use English with different international students and I also use Farsi Persian with my Persian friends. My social language is English because I am in contact with, for example in my own room, I have an Australian office mate; in the next room I have a Sri Lankan girl so in the other room, there is an Italian boy, so we need to socialise with each other so the common language for us is English, so we talk in English. I also have some Persian friends on campus so we share that common language. We talk in Farsi with each other. Interview data I speak Italian all the time apart from when we have to work out the meaning of something. … If I am trying to write something down in English, because I am writing my thesis in English on an Italian subject, well, if I write a sentence in English, and she [the supervisor] thinks that I am not expressing myself clearly enough, we go back to the same sentence in Italian, so we use both [languages] to work out what I am trying to say in English. But apart from that, when we are discussing, we speak mostly Italian. Ninety-nine per cent of the times. Interview data I don’t [see] any reason for having a rule for all should speak English because some students are not very fluent in English and they need, or sometimes they have emotional needs, sometimes they have social needs to interact in other languages or ask from their friends; they have other friends from other countries and it is easier for them to talk or socialise for their life. Interview data According to the President and Vice Chancellor of the AU in one of her Global Mails to all members of the university on 2 February 2017, “our diversity is among this University’s greatest cultural assets” (Gardner AO, 2017). The Vice Chancellor reiterates in the same email message that the university “aspires to the internationalism that is fundamental to excellence in education and research”, and that “inclusion, openness and respect are fundamental to the University’s values and realisation of our aspirations”. Themes of diversity and inclusion are explicitly communicated to students and staff on the AU campuses. For example, the university organises a series of activities including workshops, presentations, panel discussions, and informal gatherings
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on a yearly basis during the university’s “Diversity and Inclusion Week”, which takes place during the second semester of the academic calendar. According to the university website (www.monash.edu/news/articles/monash-welcomes-diversity- and-inclusion-week) “the week celebrates the AU’s commitment to diversity and inclusion, focusing on gender equality, Indigenous engagement, disability awareness, diverse genders and sexualities, student equity, intercultural competence and other social justice initiatives”. In terms of the linguistic landscape on the AU campuses, messages such as those that are delivered through the Vice-Chancellor’s Global Mails, the University’s Planning and Statistics documents, the University’s Diversity and Inclusion Week’s activities, as well as road signs, such as the “Ancora Imparo Way” (Figure 9.1), all constitute the multilingual and multicultural make-up of the university on a daily basis.What is also worth mentioning is that the University Motto, Ancora Imparo is in Italian.This motto does not only instil a spirit of “still, I am learning” (Michelangelo), but it also signifies linguistic diversity on primarily English-speaking campuses. Linguistic diversity and cultural inclusion are overtly expressed and promoted on the AU campuses. Linguistic diversity in this context does not only translate into the presence of different languages, i.e. multilingualism, but also the salience of different varieties of English, or multivarietalism, for ongoing intercultural communication on the AU campuses across Australia and overseas. One of the students points out that “inter-varietal contact” among speakers of different varieties of English on campus has become an essential feature for communication on the university campus:
FIGURE 9.1 A
road sign on the AU campus
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… an increasingly globalized state implies great inter-and cross-cultural contact, which is highly relevant to the linguistic landscape. Each English variety is influenced by other varieties, media, communications technology, multiculturalism –leading to extensive code-switching and meshing, such that there is no pure World Englishes variety. Inter-varietal contact should therefore be an essential feature of the new model for communication on the University campus. Data from Discussion forum Such “inter-varietal contact” also manifests itself in the signs during campus events, such as Orientation Week prior to teaching semesters. For example, for the area labelled “[AU] Sport”, there are stands promoting various student activities, societies, and clubs, and seeking expressions of interest from the AU students and staff. Such labels and signs for the different stands include Shorinji Kempo, Shoji, Judo, Aikido, Arnis, Taekwondo, Kendo, and Wushu.These showcase not only different sports clubs, but also different borrowings or loanwords, representing different varieties of English. In addition, there are also English L1 varieties of English, e.g. one stand has a sign of Welcome, Ickle Firsties!, with an implicit reference to Harry Potter, where Peeves uses the term Ickle Firsties to mock first-year students, meaning “little first years”. The following interview data excerpts also show that varieties of English are spoken or heard on the AU campuses: The ones that I have heard most are Malaysian English, Singaporean English, Indian English, or Indian/Sri Lankan, that whole area. Those are the most common Englishes that I have heard around campus. Interview data … My supervisor is Italian, she speaks perfect English, correct English but with a thick Italian accent, and she is 60. So what I am saying is… no… let’s say she is 25. But what I am saying is that, that just doesn’t happen.You can’t reduce… Then after all, variety is good.You know, that’s the point of being in an international environment, I guess. Interview data Linguistic diversity is highly valued on an international university campus, and in the Australian context, it also manifests itself in the form of multilingualism comprising different language, and multivarietalism of world Englishes.
6.2 Despite the overt linguistic diversity and cultural inclusion, a covert language hierarchy exists on the AU campuses As far as the AU linguistic landscape is concerned, the overt linguistic diversity and cultural inclusion may imply equity and egalitarianism in linguistic and cultural practices, however, there also exist covert language hierarchies across the linguistic mindscape. The specific geographical locations and the make-up of the
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European, African, South American languages
Chinese, Korean, Japanese
Aboriginal languages, Malay, Tamil, Hindi, Tagalog, Bahasa Indonesia
Malaysian, Singaporean, Indian ... Englishes
‘Aussie’, British, American, NZ Englishes, Aboriginal Englishes Greek, Italian, and Indian ...‘ethnolects’
Chinese, Korean, Japanese Englishes
FIGURE 9.2 The
inverted T model of multiple varieties of English and multiple languages in Australia
student population and staff members make it inevitable that the AU campuses are multivarietal, multilingual, and multicultural. The way that multiple varieties of English and multiple languages are presented in Australia can be illustrated in an inverted T model (Figure 9.2). The horizontal line of the inverted T represents the many different varieties of English that are spoken in Australia and on the AU Australian campuses, with “Aussie” Englishes alongside British, American, New Zealand Englishes, and Aboriginal Englishes, as well as various “ethnolects”, such as Greek ethnolect, Italian ethnolect, and Indian ethnolect at the centre, and Malaysian, Singaporean, Indian Englishes as well as Chinese, Korean, and Japanese Englishes at the periphery. The vertical line of the inverted T represents the languages from Australian local Aboriginal communities and the neighbouring countries in Southeast Asia, East Asia, and the rest of the world, including Australian Aboriginal languages, Malay, Tamil, Hindi, Tagalog, Bahasa Indonesia, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, as well as European, African, and South American languages. Despite the overt linguistic diversity on the AU campuses, a covert language hierarchy exists concurrently. Geographically, the AU is located in the southeastern part of mainland Australia, within the state of Victoria. English is the “default” language on university campuses. This “English” is apparently not a monolithic “standard” variety, but a spectrum of different varieties of English, ranging from Australian English, British English, Southeast Asian Englishes, and other varieties across
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the world. The majority of the students and staff members are local Australians, speaking “general” and “cultivated” varieties of Australian English (Delbridge, 1999, pp. 263–264). In addition, students of migrant families, particularly those second or subsequent generations from certain migrant speech communities also speak different “ethnolects” (Clyne, 1994) of Australian English, e.g. Greek ethnolect, Italian ethnolect, and Indian ethnolect. Among the different varieties of English, “standard Australian English” has been placed on the top of the hierarchy. This is also stipulated in Australia’s National Policy on Languages: It is important to accept this internal diversity of English whilst at the same time promoting standard Australian English for formal and public uses. It is important also to recognise the national character of English as it is used in Australia and its role as a unifying element in the society and a distinguishing feature of Australia among the English-speaking nations. Lo Bianco, 1987, pp. 4–5 Other languages, including LOTE or “community languages”, Aboriginal languages, Torres Strait Islander languages, Australian Creoles, and sign languages, although equally acknowledged in Australia’s National Policy on Languages in the form of three “recognitions”, are placed underneath “standard Australian English” in the pyramid of the language hierarchy in Australia, due to the “recognition of the status of Australian English as the national, convenient and shared language of Australia and its major official institutions” (Lo Bianco, 1988, p. 33). Such a language hierarchy (see Figure 9.3) also operates on the AU campuses.The hierarchical status of English, including its varieties, is further strengthened through the new “English Language Policy” of the AU, in which, the first of its eight general principles stipulates that “English is the standard language of instruction, assessment, supervision and administration except in specific contexts such as LOTE”. In this new policy, expectations and requirements on students and staff members in relation to their English language proficiency are also explicitly communicated through the definition of “English language proficiency” as “the ability to make and communicate meaning in spoken and written English to required standards and in specific academic, professional, social and global contexts”. The language hierarchy leads implicitly to a paradoxical situation on the AU campuses where multivarietalism of English and multilingualism are overtly observed and acknowledged, however, the AU is still characterised and largely perceived as an English- speaking university with a predominant monolingual mindset lingering among students and staff on campus. This has been evidenced in the earlier research by the AU Department of Linguistics teams, which shows that the “mindset” of the Australian society at large and the AU campuses has still been “monolingual” (Clyne, 2005). It has been observed that the AU campuses have a wide diversity of languages and varieties of English, and are rich in language resources, with increasingly more multilinguals than monolinguals, yet the linguistic landscape is characterised by monolingual thinking. Students and staff members hold ambivalent views on linguistic diversity. On the one hand, they acknowledge
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Australian English (Broad, General, and Cultivated) Ethnolects of Australian English (e.g. Greek, Italian, and Indian ethnolects), Aboriginal Englishes
Southeast Asian varieties of English (e.g. Indian English, Malaysian English, Singaporean English); Other Englishes across the World; Australian Creoles
LOTE (or Community Languages), e.g. Chinese, Hindi, Tamil, Malay, Bahasa Indonesia, Greek, Italian, French Aboriginal languages, Torres Islander languages, Sign languages
FIGURE 9.3 The
language hierarchy in Australia and on the AU campus
linguistic diversity and the presence and salience of different languages and varieties of English. On the other hand, they also pre-empt the “standard” use of Australian English, and treat varieties of English as sub-standard or non-standard usages of English.They also have concerns regarding the use of their own varieties of English on the AU campus. For example, Should I be communicating with my Aussie friends, I use words like “arvo”, “maccas”, “breakie” to express my Australian identity. … I refuse to adopt my Singaporean identity when talking to my Australian friends as not only do they not understand, there is still an inferiority when it comes to Singapore English.While there has been a paradigm shift within the academic-linguistic world, in the daily world, there is still a clear hierarchy among the Englishes. I do not believe that this hierarchy will be changing any time soon.Thus, while it is admirable to encourage showing who we are, ultimately, unless there has been a complete shift not only within the World Englishes (WE) field, but worldwide, it is perhaps more hazardous to show who we are. Online discussion forum data
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The monolingual mindset is also reflected at the institutional language policy level at the AU in that the previous “University Language Policy” adopted by the Academic Board of the AU has been taking a minimalist approach listing only broad generalisations without explicit references to any specific language(s), taking the presumption that English is the exclusive language for communication. For example, it is the responsibility of the university to ensure that adequate facilities are provided to assist students of all backgrounds in improving their communication skills; communication within the university should take into account that [AU] is a multicultural communication in an international multilingual setting; communication within the university should be fair and inclusive of gender, race, ethnicity, age or disability. Over the years, the “University Language Policy” has fallen into disuse and the majority of students and staff have become unaware of it. Instead of redeveloping or reinstating the “University Language Policy” in response to the rapidly changing linguistic landscape on campus, the AU has introduced a specific policy, titled “English Language Policy”. Although the new policy recognises the “global” status of English, the university’s local and international profiles, impact, goals and mission, as well as the development of “strong communication skills” among its local and international students and staff, it may have also implicitly reinforced the monolingual mindset and the presumption that English is the exclusive language for communication on the AU campuses. The fact that the “University Language Policy” has been phased out over around two decades and been substituted by a more explicit “English Language Policy” shows how strongly the monolingual mindset still prevails, and the language hierarchy exists.
6.3 The AU language policies need to be reinstated in alignment with Australia’s National Policy on Languages As reviewed in the “Background” section of this chapter (section 2), at the institutional level, language-related policies lack “explicitness and coherence” (Marriott, 2013, p. 465). Most of them are minimalist, and they disappear or fall into disuse over the years due to lack of implementation, or they have become either implicit or been incorporated into other policies within the university. Instead of developing and reinforcing a comprehensive “University Language Policy”, the AU communicates its language expectations and requirements through faculty, school, programme, and unit or course-specific documents. As a result, ad hoc or uncoordinated measures may be taken when language-related issues arise. In terms of “language policy”, the Senior Management and the Linguistics staff members from the School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures, and Linguistics may have different conceptualisations. While the Linguistics staff conceive of a language policy as a “discrete, independent policy in the traditional sense”, the AU Senior Management
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have been seeking to “produce integrated policies covering numerous educational matters” (Marriott, 2013, p. 458). In addition, in order to reflect on and respond to the multivarietal and multilingual nature of the AU campuses, the relevant institutional language policies may need to be redeveloped and reinstated in more congruence with Australia’s National Policy on Languages, particularly in more alignment with the three “recognitions”, i.e. (1) recognition of the status of Australian English as the national, convenient, and shared language of Australia and its major official institutions; (2) recognition of the rights of use and continued use of community languages other than English, including the languages and language systems of the deaf; (3) recognition of the rights of use, indigenous, and unique nature of Aboriginal languages, Torres Strait Islander languages, and Australian Creoles (Lo Bianco, 1988, p. 33). It can be suggested that a more explicit “language policy” of the AU be reinstated, taking Australia’s National Policy on Languages as a major point of reference, and considering the current super-diverse linguistic landscape as well as relevant research on language policy, linguistic diversity, including the current volume where this chapter is included, and linguistic landscape and mindscape studies.
6.4 The changing AU linguistic landscape embodies a paradigm shift, which in turn has an impact on the mindscape of the students and staff in terms of developing multilingual mindsets for “translanguaging” practices on campus The linguistic landscape of the AU has been changing alongside the global linguistic paradigm shift, particularly in relation to English becoming a pluricentric language, namely from English to “Englishes”. Concepts such as English as a foreign language (EFL) and English as a second language (ESL) co-exist, and in some disciplinary areas, substituted gradually by paradigms including world Englishes (WE), English as an international language (EIL), and English as a lingua franca (ELF). It becomes evident that who “owns” English does not matter as much as who has the best “access” to English as a linguistic resource for personal and professional purposes in varying contexts. In addition, there has also been a shift in people’s perceptions of the role of their first language and culture (i.e. L1 and C1), from a “problem” resulting from “interference” to a “resource” that can be naturally “transferred” into their English language learning and use. Xu, 2017, pp. 703–704 Such a paradigm shift has an impact on the mindscape of the students and staff in terms of developing multilingual mindsets for “translanguaging” practices on campus. Translanguaging practices through ELF and LOTEs have increasingly become the new “norm” on the AU campus. Students and staff have become increasingly aware
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of the paradigm shift, and they develop relevant strategies for managing their interpersonal and academic communication. For example, the following class observation data shows that students and the lecturer have multilingual awareness and mindsets: Student 1: Yasuko is trying to say itadakimasu, which means thank you for the food. Student 2: It means Bon Appetit in French. It means, “let’s start eating”. Lecturer: Both languages have two different meanings to it. Itadakimasu is more thanks for the dead fish, the energy of the chef for preparing the meal. Bon Appetit means that “we’re going to eat”. Class observation data Such translanguaging practice and multilingual mindsets may not be exclusively developed by multilingual speakers of English, but they are also expressed by L1 speakers, in the following cases, of English and Japanese, respectively. For example, I often feel disadvantaged when dealing with people around the world by the fact that I have only one method of effective communication (i.e. English), whereas they may have 2 or 3 languages where they can communicate effectively. Even if I’m the most proficient English speaker in a given situation, that doesn’t necessarily put me in a position of power if those I am dealing with can speak both English and Chinese proficiently –in fact it could be argued I am at something of a disadvantage. This isn’t a complaint by the way –I recognise that in some ways those of us who learn English as our “mother tongue” are lucky. But it’s not necessarily completely positive either. Online discussion forum data I really appreciate some of my Japanese friends speak Japanese with me in “foreigner talk” that is to say they realized that the one they are speaking to is not a native speaker, then they speak slowlier and clearer, though I can understand them without “foreigner talk” anyway. Online discussion forum data Multilingual mindsets are also reflected in students trying to acquire another language, in the AU context, another Asian language, such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Bahasa Indonesia, in addition to the L1 or L2 use of English: English is seen by so many as a key to global opportunities, and it would be ridiculous to deny this. However, it should also be noted that so many young people nowadays are trying to acquire the ability to speak an Asian language as it is becoming common knowledge that this is one of the keys to many more global opportunities with so many companies working with Asian partners and industry counterparts. Online discussion forum data
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6.5 More systematic proposals and measures in relation to linguistic diversity on the AU campus need to be developed to enable students and staff to take full advantage of the rich linguistic resources for effective academic and professional communication in multilingual and multimodal contexts The multilingual and multicultural make- up of the student population and staff members of the AU lends itself to a linguistic landscape where rich linguistic resources exist on the AU campuses.As illustrated in the first two findings in sections 6.1 and 6.2, the AU is also situated in a truly multilingual, multivarietal, and multicultural society. Australia’s National Policy on Languages reiterates the rich linguistic resources of Australia, and its primary purpose is to “make the nation’s choices about language issues in as rational, comprehensive, just and balanced a way as possible” (Lo Bianco, 1987, p. 2) and to “ensure that Australia derives maximum benefit from its rich linguistic resources” (Lo Bianco, 1987, p. 3). In the same vein, it can be suggested that more systematic proposals and measures in relation to linguistic diversity on the AU campus need to be developed to enable students and staff to take full advantage of the rich linguistic resources for effective academic and professional communication in multilingual contexts. Staff members of the AU have also expressed such a need, e.g. in class observation data, one lecturer points out explicitly in his class that “[AU] acknowledges that there are a lot of international students in the school. So our curriculum needs to be internationalised, and have international elements in it” (class observation data). The “international elements” in this context include multiculturalism, multilingualism, as well as global awareness and outlook in teaching and learning materials and methodology. Although English is primarily used on the AU campuses, the use of other languages as well as practices of code-mixing and code-switching should also be acknowledged as indispensable means of tapping into the rich linguistic resources for efficient and effective communication among students and staff on various occasions. For example, the following interview data excerpt shows how bilingual students and staff members negotiate and agree on what language(s) to use for personal and professional communication. I mainly use English with my colleagues and students. It really depends on the circumstances. Sometimes I have Chinese students coming to have consultations with me and we’re both aware that we are Mandarin speakers and then we will ask whether speaking Mandarin Chinese would make both of us comfortable and in that case, we would switch to Mandarin Chinese… most of the time it is the student who initiates to speak in their first language and I would agree. Interview data In addition, as mentioned in the previous findings that the AU organises a University Diversity and Inclusion Week as an annual event, however, such events focus largely on social issues, gender issues, and other relevant issues, and no explicit language
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issues have been included. Therefore, new agendas need to be established to take advantage of the linguistic resources of the AU campus, and to further enhance the explicit linguistic diversity while alleviating the implicit language hierarchy in order to nurture a truly inclusive community among students and staff. The AU has a School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures, and Linguistics, which offers systematic degree courses on languages, including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Bahasa Indonesia, French, Spanish, German, Italian, and Ukrainian. In addition, there are also courses on language studies, linguistics and applied linguistics, literary studies, and culture studies, which cover a wide range of language and culture- related subjects and research. These are also explicit resources that students and staff may consider exploring. In addition, given the recognition of Australian sign language(s) nationwide alongside community languages, Aboriginal languages, Torres Strait Islander languages, and Australian Creoles, Australian sign language (Auslan) interpreting services are also provided by the AU “Disability Support Services” in collaboration with the University Resources Office. Auslan signer students may benefit from the diverse resources provided by the university, however, they also contribute to the ongoing academic activities as well as the diverse linguistic profiles and landscape of the university. For example, in one of the online discussion forums for a postgraduate course in Applied Linguistics, an Auslan student has shared her view of stereotypes of Deaf people regarding whether they are native Auslan signers or native English speakers: It is really hard for me to think whether I am a native English speaker even it was my first language with my hearing family. Half of my life, I have started to look myself whether I am native Auslan signer or native English speaker.There are lots of labels for Deaf people being stereotyped as Deaf and mute or Deaf and Dumb etc. because of their “signing”. Many Deaf people felt that Auslan is their first language not English even they were learning to speak (limited) English and reading English. All over the world many deaf people plus their hearing children or siblings believe that sign language is their first native language and other language is their second e.g. English or Swedish etc. Online discussion forum data The AU is also leading in the research of Deaf studies and sign language linguistics, with an active research team from the Faculty of Arts exploring the situation and needs of the deaf population in the state of Victoria, regarding service delivery for Deaf people, including in aged care, education, employment outcomes, and sign language teaching. In order to take full advantage of the rich linguistic resources, including Auslan and its relevant research, for effective academic and professional communication in more inclusive multilingual and multimodal contexts, the AU needs to set its agenda to develop more updated language policies and more systematic proposals and measures to respond to the diverse needs of the students and staff, and the rich linguistic resources both locally on the university campuses and globally across the country and beyond.
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In response to the two major research questions, the AU has developed language policies, in particular, English language policies, over the last few decades. However, these policies have not been made explicit to the students and staff systematically and they are not implemented consistently or coherently. Most students and staff members of the AU are not aware of stated language policies of the university, or even though they are generally aware of the language requirements or expectations for enrolling in relevant faculties and programmes, they are not kept informed of the relevant language policies as they commit to their degree or diploma studies, as shown in the following interview data: For on campus, I have never seen anything like a language policy. Interview data Not aware of any language requirements on campus. Interview data I don’t know about locals but for international students, I know we are required to have certain scores of either TOEFL or IELTS to enrol the Uni, but I’m not aware of language policies after we’ve started our studies here. Interview data Therefore, the extent to which linguistic practices of the students and staff correspond to the stated language policies has yet to be explored. Regarding the second research question about the overt and covert English language expectations made of students and staff, and how far they meet the expectations, our research shows that English language expectations are made explicit through course descriptions, unit guides, and marking rubrics, and students are generally meeting the expectations through successful completions of degree or diploma- related units and courses. For example, one of the staff participants shares his views on “marking rubrics” for a particular unit in relation to language requirements: In a particular unit, we have language requirements for the students in the marking rubrics.The school would ask the staff members to work on marking rubrics. The rubrics have expectations for subject matter content, and language as well, in terms of clarity, e.g. whether an assignment is written with well-justified grammatical appropriateness and choice of discipline specific vocabulary and structures etc. Interview data In addition, explicit language requirements can also be found in the unit guides data. For example, The assignments will be marked by two academic staff who will provide a written critique covering aspects such as: Use of language, review and integration of existing literature, logic of arguments, insights and original
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thoughts, understanding of research methods, logic and timetable for project, plan, presentation. Unit guide data It can be suggested that such overt expectations conveyed through course or unit- specific documents be aligned with relevant stated language policies at the school, faculty or institutional levels, so that there is consistence and coherence in relation to language requirements of the students and staff on the AU campus.
7. Conclusion In conclusion, this chapter has explored issues of linguistic diversity of an Australian university. It has reviewed relevant Australian national and institutional policies on languages. Adopting a framework consisting of language policy studies, linguistic landscape and linguistic mindscape studies, and collecting and analysing a set of data ranging from university language and diversity-related documents, semi-structured interviews with students and staff, observations of lectures and seminars, online discussion forums, as well as posters and signs on campus, this chapter has reported a number of findings, namely: the Australian university as a linguistically diverse and culturally inclusive university, valuing “diversity” as one of its greatest assets; the existence of language hierarchy on campus; the paradoxical situation of multilingual campuses characterised by monolingual mindsets; language policies needing greater explicitness and coherence, and more alignment with national policies on languages; and a call for concrete proposals and measures being developed and implemented to enable students and staff to take full advantage of the rich linguistic resources on the university campus for effective academic and professional communication in multilingual and multimodal contexts.
Acknowledgements We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the international project leaders, Prof. Jennifer Jenkins and Prof. Anna Mauranen, and co-investigators in various other universities involved in this project.
References Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of globalization. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Clyne, M. (1994). Intercultural communication at work: Cultural values in discourse. Cambridge & New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Clyne, M. (2001). Micro language policy as a barometer of change. In R.L. Cooper, E. Shohamy, & J. Walters (Eds.), New perspectives and issues in educational language policy (pp. 211–234). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Clyne, M. (2005). Australia’s language potential. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press.
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Clyne, M., Pauwels, A., Newbrook, M., & Neil, D. (1995). Towards a language policy for an international university. Monash: Language and Society Centre, Department of Linguistics, Monash University. Delbridge, A. (1999). Standard Australian English. World Englishes, 18(2), 259–270. Derrida, J. (1997 [1967]). Of grammatology (trans. G.C. Spivak). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Dong, J., & Blommaert, J. (2009). Space, scale and accents: Constructing migrant identity in Beijing. Multilingua, 28, 1–24. English Language Policy. (2016). Monash: Monash University. Equal Opportunity Policy. (2011, November 14). Monash: Monash University. Retrieved from www.monash.edu/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/1294680/Equal-Opportunity.pdf Francis, R., Burridge, K., Clyne, M., Kishere, D., Marriott, H., Momberg, C., & Wilson, R. (2008). Task Force on Learning and Usage of Languages Other Than English (LOTE). Monash: Monash University. Gardner AO, M. (2017). Response to the US Executive Order restricting entry to the United States. Monash: Monash University. Gorter, D. (2013). Linguistic landscape in a multilingual world. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 33, 190–212. Jackson, J. (2014). Introducing language and intercultural communication. London & New York, NY: Routledge. Jenkins, J. (2014). English as a lingua franca in the international university: The politics of academic English language policy. London: Routledge. Lo Bianco, J. (1987). National Policy on Languages. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service. Lo Bianco, J. (1988). Multiculturalism and the national policy on languages. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 9(1), 25–38. Mann, S. (2011). A critical review of qualitative interviews in applied linguistics. Applied Linguistics, 32(1), 6–24. Marriott, H. (2013). Multilingualism among university staff: A case study of language management at an Australian university. International Journal of Multilingualism, 10(4), 454–468. Paton, M.J. (2007). Why international students are at greater risk of failure: An inconvenient truth. Journal of Diversity in Organisations, Communities and Nations, 6(6), 321–324. Pennycook, A. (2010). Language as a local practice. Hoboken: Taylor & Francis. Robertson, M., Line, M., Jones, S., & Thomas, S. (2000). International students, learning environments and perceptions: A case study using the Delphi technique. Higher Education Research & Development, 19(1), 89–102. Sawir, E., Marginson, S., Forbes-Mewett, H., Nyland, C., & Ramia, G. (2012). International student security and English language proficiency. Journal of Studies in International Education, 16(5), 434–454. Silverstein, M. (1996). Monoglot standard in America: Standardization and metaphors of linguistic hegemony. In D. Brenneis & R. Macaulay (Eds.), The matrix of language (pp. 284–306). Boulder, CO: Westview. Spolsky, B. (2004). Language policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. University Planning and Statistics. (2016). Monash University: Pocket statistics 2016. Retrieved from www.monash.edu/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/352324/pocket-statistics- 2015.pdf Xu, Z. (2017). Developing meta-cultural competence in teaching English as an international language. In F. Sharifian (Ed.), Advances in cultural linguistics (pp. 703–720). Switzerland: Springer.
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Appendix 1 Semi-structured interview questions 1. What language(s) do you speak on campus, with your colleagues, your schoolmates, in the canteen, with your friends ….? 2. How would you define yourself, in terms of an “international student/staff member’, or a “local student/staff member’? 3. Do you think you have to speak perfect, or standard, or Australian English on campus? Do you think other Englishes/varieties of English should be allowed on campus? 4. Are you aware of any language policies, or language requirements for the students (both local and international) at the AU? 5. Do you think some Englishes are better than others, e.g. Is Australian English better than American English? Is Indian English better than Singapore English? 6. Do you think other language(s) apart from English can be used while students have small group discussions in class? 7. Students’ assignments are marked according to language and content usually. Do you think they should have equal weighting, or lecturers should pay more attention to “content” rather than the “language”? The following questions were adapted from Jenkins’s (2014) University Staff Questionnaire. 8. (Drawing on question 4), if there are not any such policies and practices, do you think there should be some? Why, or why not? 9. Are you aware of any language policies within your department in regards to English language entry requirements? What are your opinions about it?
10. What kind of support does your university provide for both non-native and native English students with their academic work? Have you used it before? [students] Do you think this support is sufficient, or could more be done? [staff] 11. What effects (positive or negative) do you think your university’s expectations have on the students? 12. What are the responsibilities of native English students and non-native English students in achieving effective intercultural communication? Do you have any real-life examples?
Student interviews 1. What are some of the assignments you were asked to do in your university courses? 2. What are some examples of feedback given by your lecturer or tutor on your academic language use? 3. What languages do you speak? 4. What languages does your lecturer/tutor use in class? Do you think it would be helpful if your lecturer or tutor speaks another language?
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Appendix 2. Pre-designed topics for lecture/seminar observations 1. 2. 3. 4.
What type of class is it? Lecture/Seminar/Tutorial How many students were there? What is the general make-up of the student population? Where is the lecturer/tutor from? What variety of English does the lecturer or tutor speak? What characteristics of that particular variety of English can be identified? 5. What language(s) are used in the lecture/seminar/tutorial? a. By the lecturer/ tutor? b. By the students? c. Between students? 6. Were there any explicit comments made by the lecturer/tutor/students regarding language and language use? 7. Was there evidence of intercultural communication where students or staff from different linguistic backgrounds engage in conversation?
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Appendix 3 Different datasets for the Linguistic Diversity project on AU campuses Datasets
Descriptions
University documents
1. [AU] university webpages: Mission Statements, words from the Chancellors and Deans or Heads of Faculties/Schools/ Departments. 2. Documents regarding staff: Workplace Policies and Procedures by Monash Human Resources (HR) (www.adm.monash. edu.au/workplace-policy/); Staff Development Course Offerings (www.adm.monash.edu.au/staff-development/). E.g. “Working with Others” Courses (www.adm.monash.edu. au/staff-development/course-catalogue/professional-skills/ work-with-other-index.html); Online Training Modules for Staff Induction (www.adm.monash.edu.au/staff-development/ ws/work/essential/). 3. Documents regarding students: Assessment Cover Letter (one from each faculty: Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Education, Faculty of Information Technology, Faculty of Science, Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Faculty of Law, Faculty of Engineering, Faculty of Business and Economics, Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture) with references to Monash University Statute 4.1: Student Discipline, plagiarism Policy and Procedures; Sample Unit Guides (ten each from the Faculty of Arts and Faculty of Sciences); Education Policies and Procedures (http://policy.monash.edu.au/policy- bank/academic/education/); Unit Assessment Procedures (http://policy.monash.edu.au/policy-bank/academic/ education/assessment/unit-assessment-procedures.html). 1. Interviews by the author and research assistant with students and staff (local and international) from different faculties for 15-minute face-to-face one-on-one semi-structured interviews/open-ended questionnaires about their experiences about language use at the AU. (Questions for the interviews and questionnaires can be found in Appendix 1.) 2. Interviews by doctoral students jointly supervised by the author in the areas of intercultural communication in ELF on university campuses. The data includes: interviews of 56 ELICOS (English language intensive courses for overseas students) teachers (with transcripts in a total of 125,760 words) by student A; 17 hours of ELF interactions, involving 63 AU students (30 undergraduate and 33 postgraduate students) (with transcripts in a total of 129,331 words) by student B; and 16 hours of ELF interactions, involving 107 AU students (36 undergraduate and 71 postgraduate students) (with transcripts in a total of 149,754 words) by student C.
Interviews with students/staff
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Observations of lectures/seminars; Online discussion forums
Posters and signs on campus
1. Observations of ten lectures or seminars from staff from the Faculty of Arts and Faculty of Sciences (but not limited to these faculties) conducted by the author and research assistant. 2. Observation notes are taken based on pre-designed questions and topics of discussion. 3. Online discussion forums: a total of ten discussion forums are collected involving the first author as coordinator and lecturer. The students are from different faculties of AU, with the majority coming from Arts and Humanities. These discussion forums are integrated sessions in the units, including English as an International Language; Language and Globalisation; Englishes in the Global Context; Writing across Cultures; Cultural Linguistics; and Language and Intercultural Communication. 1. Pictures of posters and public signage on campus. 2. Advertisements at the Campus Centre.
10 HOW MUCH LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY ON A UK UNIVERSITY CAMPUS? Jennifer Jenkins, Will Baker, Jill Doubleday, and Ying Wang
1. Introduction: the university and our research focus The University of Southampton is one of only two institutions in the LDIC project that is situated in a mother-tongue English country. And like the other one, Monash, it seems at first sight that the University of Southampton (henceforth UoS) prides itself on the diversity of its student and staff composition. This is emphasised on various parts of the website. For example, the International Students page states: “Over 6,500 international students from more than 135 countries choose to study at the University of Southampton each year. In addition we have links with universities and partners around the world, making us a truly international institution.” Likewise, a report to the UoS Council on the Diversity pages of the website points out the following: Council will be aware that the University has become a significantly more globally diverse organisation over the past decade. In 2013/14, the proportion of students from outside the UK passed 30% of the total student population for the first time. The proportion of international staff has also grown rapidly, such that a third of all our academic staff members were born outside the UK and 21% are citizens of other countries. www.southampton.ac.uk/diversity/how_we_support_diversity/our_objectives.page The issue for us Southampton researchers, then, was how far this remarkable growing international diversity was recognised and taken into consideration in our institution’s language policies/practices, and orientation to intercultural communication. In these respects, our study was underpinned by a theoretical framework consisting of four overlapping areas: language ideology; critical language policy (in the Spolskyan sense, to include practices); ELF in Academic Settings
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(ELFA)/intercultural communication; and critical multilingualism (see Chapter 1, the Introduction to the whole LDIC project, for detailed discussion of these and other theoretical underpinnings of the overall project). We aimed to find out what kinds of language ideologies were circulating at different levels of the university, how these were/were not affecting language policies and practices, in particular, the extent to which lingua franca uses of English were understood and taken into account, and how multilingualism was viewed. Like the other teams in the project, we aimed to answer these two research questions: 1. To what extent do language practices correspond to stated language polices (including stated ethos and mission)? In particular: • To what extent are other languages than English used/accepted? • What kinds of English are used/accepted? • What evidence is there of intercultural awareness? 2. What are the overt/covert English language expectations of/made of students and staff, and how far do students and staff feel they meet these? However, the “generic” questions needed some adjustment in respect of our own mother-tongue English setting. That is, for question 1, we knew from the start that we would find little in the way of stated language policy, and therefore that we would have to do some “reading between the lines” to uncover covert policy. As well as this, our focus inevitably had to be more on the kinds of English being accepted than on other languages used and accepted, as we knew from first-hand experience that although we would find plenty of evidence of other languages than English being used, we would find little of their being accepted, at least in academic as opposed to social settings.
2. Southampton methodology For practical reasons, mainly the ability to access classrooms for observation and staff and students willing to participate in interviews, we chose to conduct our research within seven faculties of the university: Business, Law and Art (BLA); Engineering and the Environment (EE); Health Sciences (HS); Humanities (H); Natural and Environmental Sciences (NES); Physical Sciences and Engineering (PSE); and Social, Human, and Mathematical Sciences (SHMS), as shown in Table 10.1. Within departments across these seven faculties, we collected four kinds of data: documentary analysis (Baker); linguistic landscaping (Jenkins); classroom observations (Wang); and interviews with staff (Doubleday) and postgraduate students (Wang). The four researchers all had a history of conducting research into language issues within “international universities”, and EMI more specifically. In addition, Doubleday, had been co-directing a university-funded project, “Intercultural Connections”, since the previous year with the aim of improving intercultural awareness on campus. Meanwhile, Wang, both younger than the other
newgenrtpdf
TABLE 10.1 Data collection faculties at the University of Southampton
Documents Linguistic landscaping Observations Staff interviews Student interviews
Total number of faculties
Business, Law & Arts
4 3
√ √
4 4 5
√ √ √
Engineering & the Environment
Health Sciences
√ √
√
Humanities
Natural & Environmental Sciences
√ √
√
√ √ √
Physical Sciences & Engineering
Social, Human, & Mathematical Sciences √ √ √ √
√ √
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three of us, and the only non-Caucasian, was able to sit in lectures among predominantly Chinese students, without drawing attention to her presence and potentially affecting staff and student behaviour. The documentary data was collected between 2015 and 2017 both from the main university website on general policy, and from particular programmes and modules within certain departments of the four individual faculty websites (BLA, H, NES, SHMS). The data included both webpages and downloaded documents. The focus was on language issues in the areas of recruitment, admissions, assessment of assignments, and teaching. The majority of documents studied were either general (referring to all student levels) or postgraduate (the main focus of our study), although some undergraduate documentation was included for the sake of balance. In total, 31 documents consisting of 145,706 words and an additional 20 webpages were collected and analysed. Due to the large number of university webpages, in order to manage data collection and analysis only the main university homepage and direct links from this were analysed. However, given the key role such resources play in presenting the university externally these were likely to be a good reflection of policy and thinking on language management (Jenkins, 2014). The linguistic landscaping (henceforth LL) data was collected on several days over November 2015 and February 2016 and consisted of 102 photographs taken across several departments within three of the seven faculties involved in the project (BLA, H, SHMS). Because the setting was an English mother-tongue institution with which the LL researcher was familiar, it was known from the start that the signage would be predominantly monolingual English. Unlike previous LL research, it would therefore have been pointless to take photographs of everything present, i.e. largely English posters and signs. The decision was therefore taken to focus on what was absent/marginalised, i.e. languages other than English, and on the various ways in which these languages were excluded. The other major difference from previous LL research was that whereas it has typically explored settings where two or three languages are in use, a massive number of languages are spoken by staff and students at UoS, and so the languages other than English in the LL come from a far larger range. They included Arabic, Dutch, Hebrew, Italian, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, and Spanish to name but a few of the examples collected. In order to select the items to be photographed, the researcher first walked around the entire faculty or department under research making notes as she went, in order to gain an overall “feel” for what was present. She then repeated the process, this time taking photographs of typical examples of the vast majority of signage in English-only, along with anything untypical or that made a revealing point (e.g. the use of local British idiomatic language indicating lack of intercultural awareness), and all examples of English plus another language or languages, and of signage in other languages only. Turning to the classroom observation, the researcher observed undergraduate and postgraduate lectures and seminars in departments in BLA, EE, H, and SHMS.
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The total observation time was 15 hours, and class sizes ranged from 12 to 60 students. Every class observed included students and staff from a range of first languages including (British) English. In line with research ethics, the observer first sought the permission of the lecturers and students. In order to ensure that the participants were comfortable with her presence and to build “rapport” with them (Marvasti, 2012), she made clear at the start that she had no prior knowledge of the course content and welcomed the opportunity to learn. She thus played an “overt” observer role as a “peripheral” member among classroom participants (Marvasti, 2012, p. 356). However, to minimise the overtness, no audio-or video-recording was employed; instead, the observations were recorded in fieldnotes. Finally, there were interviews with both staff and students across a range of departments within six faculties (BLA, EE, HS, H, NES, PSE). One researcher conducted semi-structured interviews, each lasting approximately an hour, with five lecturers. Of these, one was a non-native English speaker and the other four native English speakers. While all five taught mixed cohorts of home and international (mainly non-native English speaker) students, there was considerable variation in terms of the proportion of native English speaker and non-native English speaker students in any one group, as well as in the number of students. In addition, there were differences among the five lecturers with regard to seniority, length and type of experience, and specific roles (e.g. responsibility for student support or programme assessment). However, in order to maintain anonymity, neither these roles nor the lecturers’ departments are identified, and the lecturers are given the pseudonyms Ali, Anna, Julia, Martin, and Victor. There were also nine interviews with undergraduate and postgraduate international students. Each student interview lasted between 40 and 75 minutes depending on the participant’s interest in developing the conversation. Their countries of origin included mainland China, Hong Kong, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, and Thailand, and again, in order to preserve anonymity, those quoted directly are referred to only by the name of their home country.
3. Southampton findings and discussion We now present the analysis of the individual datasets before drawing them together in order to identify the common themes and key differences that emerge. The analysis goes from broader to narrower datasets, starting with documentary analysis, followed by LL, then classroom observations, and finally interviews.
3.1 Documentary analysis The documents were analysed by means of quantitative and qualitative content analysis. The data was first imported into Nvivo to aid in storage and organisation. The analysis followed that of Jenkins (2014) and Saarinen and Nikula (2013) in combining content and discourse analysis. The content analysis involved quantitatively documenting the occurrence of key words for frequency and the coding
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of key themes based on the research questions related to internationalisation and English language. This also aided identifying areas in the documents for discourse analysis, which was used to uncover the ways in which language and English were positioned in the texts, and to reveal any underlying ideologies present in the positioning of English. Equally important was the identification of what was absent from the texts, which also provides an important indicator of ideology (Jenkins, 2014, p. 85). Content analysis clustered around four areas of policy: recruitment; admissions; assessment; and teaching. At the broadest level, the central webpages appear predominantly focused on recruitment and marketing, most links leading to promotional material and information about courses/programmes. Here the international orientation is obvious, with many images of multicultural and ethnically diverse groups of students and staff.There are frequent references to the international, global and “world-leading” nature of UoS such as “[o]ur successes are acknowledged in international and UK league table rankings”, and “[o]ur lecturers are leaders in their fields and offer you the chance to learn about world-changing research as it happens” (both from the homepage). However, this diversity does not extend to language use as the only language on the webpages is English. The importance of international connections and students is further reinforced by following the links on the homepage, which lead to pre-sessional English courses alongside undergraduate and postgraduate programmes and a dedicated section for international students under “University Life”. One of the five main homepage tabs is “Global”. This provides links to information from the university’s international office, again emphasising UoS’s self-presentation as international. It is worth noting, however, that most of this international orientation is of a general nature and appears primarily for marketing purposes. In contrast, for international students there is much specific information on English language requirements and support as well as other practical information on coming to the UK, suggesting that UoS expects the majority of adaptation to be undertaken by them. The exceptions to this are the information on study abroad and exchange, which seems more evenly aimed at both domestic and international students, and the section “Southampton Language Opportunity”, which offers language courses (as opposed to English language support) to “all students” and also a “mini” intercultural communication course. Here, the intercultural nature of the university for all students is most explicitly recognised, with the courses advertised as helping students “to take a step closer to becoming a transnational graduate”. Turning to more specific policy statements, in terms of recruitment, the main website admissions policy states that “[a]ll programmes at the University of Southampton are taught in the medium of English (other than Modern Languages where instruction will be in both English and the language(s) being taught)”. And with the exception of Modern Languages and one reference to Mandarin Chinese with respect to a joint programme with a partner in China, no reference is made to other languages. Moreover, it is apparent from the quantitative analysis that references to English, or even to language in general are relatively scarce, with
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“English” being the 87th most frequently occurring word at just 0.14% of the texts analysed, and “language” at 170th (0.09%). Other terms such as “international” are considerably less frequent and “intercultural” does not occur once in the documents examined. “English” and “language” are, unsurprisingly, most often referred to in the admissions policy under “English language proficiency”, and next most often in the assessment criteria for individual programmes and modules. In relation to the recruitment of students, the admissions policy states in a number of places that the university aims to recruit the best students internationally, “irrespective of background”, “from different cultures”, and to prepare students “to be confident citizens and potential leaders in an increasingly globalised work environment”. It is also clear that English proficiency is an important criterion for acceptance: “all applicants must demonstrate that they possess at least a minimum standard of English language proficiency in order to be admitted to a programme of study at the University”. Interestingly, the general admissions documents begin by stipulating what this means for home students in terms of GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) English examination results before going on to stipulate how the language criterion is interpreted for “[s]tudents requiring a visa to study in the UK”. This might seem appropriate in view of the fact that more applications are received from home than international students. However, under the admissions policy dealing specifically with English language proficiency, the order is reversed, with a detailed specification of acceptable English language tests (for non-native English students) coming first. These tests, called SELTs, or Secure English Language Tests by the government, are IELTS (International English Language Testing System), TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language), PTE (Pearson Test of English) Academic, Cambridge English (Proficiency, Advanced, and First Certificate), and Trinity College London ISE (Integrated Skills in English). And given the native English bias of all these tests (see, for example, Jenkins & Leung, 2017; McNamara, 2014), this would suggest a highly Anglocentric approach to English language proficiency. As regards assessment, there is very little reference to English or to language in the general assessment guidelines. For example, the three-page assessment principles policy has only one sentence on language, recommending that tasks are written in a way that is clear for English L2 users, as well as one short paragraph on the need to avoid bias, including cultural bias. Of greater concern is that when English is mentioned at all, a highly deficit perspective is taken vis-à-vis non-native English use. This is shown, for example, in the following quotation from the “Types of assessment” policy: “It is important to recognise the possible limits or disadvantages for students presenting in a language that is not their first language, and the communication difficulties that may result from some disabilities.” Despite its apparent desire to be helpful to L2 users, the statement unwittingly reveals an underlying assumption that L2 English use is comparable to a disability. More detailed references to language and communication occur in the marking criteria at both general and programme/module levels. But again, there is very little
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reference to English specifically, despite this being the only language of assessment. Overall, the assessment bands appear reasonably consistent across disciplines, and make rather vague references to terms such as “language”, “communication”, “structure”, and “presentation”, which tend to be used interchangeably. So, for example, high scoring students at postgraduate level should possess a “very high degree of competence in communicating accurately and reliably”, the presentation of their work will be “crisp, uncluttered, highly fluent, focused and sophisticated, and in an appropriate format”, while their organisation will be “well-structured and synthesised, and subtly signposted in agreement with [their] argument”. Exactly what role proficiency in English, which was so important in the admissions process, plays in all this is unclear from such criteria. The least frequent references to English and language are contained in the teaching documentation, and even where mentioned, this is usually in relation to support services for home and international students. However, in the introductions to student handbooks, there are often references to the international nature of faculties or programmes, of which the following are two examples: To those of you who have come from overseas, we wish you a happy stay in this country. You are part of a vibrant research led Faculty which is committed to the highest standards of teaching by internationally renowned scholars. In other words, the references are largely to the presence of international students and staff rather than to the inclusion of some kind of international “component” in the programmes themselves. Indeed, the only other reference in the handbooks to the programmes rather than to the people concerns differing perceptions of academic integrity, and what might be regarded as “cheating” in assessed work and examinations. This leads us to question how deep the commitment to internationalisation is. In sum, the international orientation of the university is prominent in both the discourse and images on the main webpages through frequent references to the international/global nature of the university, and multicultural images of staff and students. Yet the depth of this commitment is questionable given the rather general and marketing-orientated nature of this discourse and the monolingual design of the website.The superficial nature of international commitment is further reinforced by the policy documents analysed above, which illustrate an EMI policy focused primarily on Anglophone notions of English, as represented particularly by the majority of the entry requirements. Outside of admissions procedures, there is little reference to English or to language in general, and where it does occur, it mainly concerns assessment. It seems, then, that at the documentary level at least, there is minimal recognition of the de facto multilingual intercultural nature of linguistic practices in UoS.
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3.2 Linguistic landscaping analysis We turn next to the analysis of the LL data which, as will be seen, corroborates the findings of the document analysis. As observed earlier, the LL researcher took a rather different approach from other LL studies.These typically explore the amount of diversity on official and non-official written signage in respect of which languages are present, and how prominently or not the different languages are displayed on the signs. But because of the largely monolingual landscape of the UoS research setting, the usual LL approach could be applied only to the tiny amount of signage using languages other than English. In these rare cases, the analysis explores the extent to which the multilingual signs are official or non-official, and the ways in which the different languages are displayed on them in terms of prominence (e.g. their respective position on sign, font size, colour, and the like). Alongside this, the analysis examines a sample of typical and ideology-revealing English-only signs, concentrating on their positioning on campus, their topic, their intended readership, and their degree of appropriateness for this readership. In order to provide structure to the analysis, the signage is divided into three groups, respectively “English-only”, “English-plus” (i.e. plus another language), and “Languages other than English-only”. The settings for the LL data collection were the Education School and Psychology department (both in Social, Human, and Mathematical Sciences), the Business School (in the Faculty of Business, Law and Art), and several departments within the Faculty of Humanities. Starting with the vast majority, the “English-only” signs, these were generally official notices (i.e. produced and/or put in place by someone with authority). They were mostly situated in prominent positions in main corridors and foyers, and intended to be read by both native and non-native English speakers, although occasionally they specifically addressed (non-native English speaker) international students. English-only signage appeared across all four faculties and departments investigated in the LL part of the UoS study. All but two signs in the School of Education were English-only. Most consisted of notices and posters pinned to noticeboards, with many advertising volunteering abroad as well as an expedition to Kilimanjaro and a TEFL course in Seville. In the case of the expedition, there were in fact two non-English words on the poster, but these were simply the place names –Kilimanjaro itself (unknown origin, possibly Kiswahili), and the name “Uhuru” (Kiswahili for “freedom”), the name of the mountain’s peak, in a photograph of climbers posing at the peak. On the other hand, the Britishness of the expedition is emphasised by a British Expedition Company logo standing out in bright orange in pole position at the top left-hand corner, against the muted blues and greys of the rest of the poster. Meanwhile, the TEFL poster (Figure 10.1) did not even use the Spanish name of the City Sevilla, but the anglicised Seville. And whereas the Kilimanjaro poster could conceivably be directed as much at a non-Anglo as an Anglo readership, this is less likely in the case of the TEFL poster. For although TEFL courses accept non-native English speaker applicants nowadays, it is still more of a challenge for them to be accepted.
A UK university 235 Get certified to teach English in the beautiful city of Seville About the TEFL Course The TEFL International TESOL Certificate course is a four-week intensive course that includes approximately 120+ hours of study and at least 10 hours of Observed Teaching Practice. Our certificate is recognised worldwide and will give you English teaching job opportunities that can be found all over the world! Email: [email protected] Number: +34 955 322 875 Website: https://www.teflinternationalseville.com 10% Discount if you quote this code: Solent123 FIGURE 10.1 Advertisement
for TEFL course in Seville
In this case, for example, the website in the poster leads to a page of Frequently Asked Questions in which the question “Do I need a university degree to get into the program?” is answered as follows: “No, you don’t. We do however require that you speak English fluently. If you are a non-native English speaker we will set up a phone interview where we will check your level.” By displaying this poster (which also contains a photograph of a teacher training class containing only Caucasians), the faculty is thus condoning the notion, albeit probably unwittingly, that native English is superior to non-native. Although the Faculty of Humanities had by far the most signs containing languages other than English, again, the vast majority were entirely in English, advertising the faculty’s departments and programmes, offering various kinds of help to students such as with reading, providing information (e.g. relating to the café and rubbish disposal) and instructions (e.g. the layout of the faculty, what to do in event of fire), and so on, regardless of whether their focus (and any images) related to other countries and languages than English. Some contained idiomatic English that would likely have been incomprehensible to non-Anglo students. For example, a noticeboard at the entrance to the faculty advertising an Opportunities Fair (Figure 10.2) referred to free “goodie bags” for those who attended. The next two photographs were taken respectively in a prominent position in one of the main concourses of the ground floor of the faculty under a large heading “International Opportunities (this can only be partially seen in the photograph (Figure 10.3), and along the Modern Languages (subsequently Modern Languages and Linguistics) department floor (Figure 10.4). The main poster in the former promotes study abroad in countries such as Korea, Japan, and Spain, while the latter photograph shows the noticeboard for degree programmes relating to Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin American Studies. But despite their focus, there is not a word of another language on either board except for “Don Quijote” on a small poster
236 Jenkins, Baker, Doubleday, & Wang
FIGURE 10.2 Humanities
entrance: advert for Opportunities Fair, and close up
advertising Spanish language classes that is placed in a non-prominent position at the bottom right-hand side of the second one. Turning to Psychology, the names on several office doors and on the staff webpages of its website demonstrate that the department has a substantial number of non-native English speaker staff members. Meanwhile, the postgraduate section of the Psychology website describes it as “a global research centre”. Nevertheless, there was no signage involving languages other than English apart from one advert for a transcription service (discussed in “English-plus” below). In this respect, there is a certain irony in the fact that office 4001 is called “Self and Identity Research” (Figure 10.5), when linguistic identity apparently has so small a role to play in the department (including on its website). Other languages likewise had no presence in the Business School except for staff names on many of its office doors, many of which were Chinese and Indian. On the other hand, while I was taking photographs around the school’s six floors, several small groups of Chinese students were milling around, all talking to each other in Chinese. In fact they were the only people present in the school’s common
FIGURE 10.3 Humanities
FIGURE 10.4 Modern
noticeboard
Languages noticeboard
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FIGURE 10.5 Psychology
office door
space during that time, and thus the soundscape was entirely Chinese in contrast with the English-only writing of the signage. On the walls were many adverts for conferences, courses, and holidays in other parts of the world, often with images of local scenes. The poster in Figure 10.6, a typical example, advertises study abroad in China so as to “[g]et ready for the Asian century: Understand Chinese, Business & Economics”. But from the evidence of the signage, Chinese, probably the first language of several of its staff and certainly of many of its students, has no place in the Business School. The one positive feature, diversity-wise in the Business School’s LL (in terms of culture rather than language per se), was an advert for the “Welcome to Our World Festival” (Figure 10.7) being held by the “Intercultural Connections” project to which we referred earlier. Business was, in fact, the only one of the four sites in the LL study to display this poster. And while it could be argued that “wow” is as idiomatic British English as “goodie bag”, in this case the more important meaning, appearing both above and below it, is “Welcome to Our World”. This would be obvious to readers regardless of whether they were familiar with the exclamation, “wow”. And again, although the poster did not originate with Business, and is written entirely in (native) English, the fact that they were displaying it prominently is a positive sign. We turn next to the far fewer examples of English plus another language/ other languages on the signage in the selected settings. There were none at all
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FIGURE 10.6 Poster
in the Business School
in the Business School, and as already mentioned, only two English-plus signs in Education. And I later discovered that these two had been designed and placed by a doctoral student in the Department of Modern Languages, a native speaker of Russian and Armenian who also speaks Chinese. Her two posters were asking for participants, respectively Chinese and Russian, for her doctoral research project (Figures 10.8a, 10.8b).
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FIGURE 10.7 Business
School poster for Intercultural Connections event
A comparison of the two led to questions as to why the heading on the Chinese version was in English first and only in Russian on the Russian version, and why much of the practical information was in English on the former, and apart from the campus name and payment figure, entirely in Russian on the latter. However, we were able to track down the doctoral student, who explained as follows: I decided to include the title in English. I thought that this way if an English- speaking student sees the poster and s/he knows a native Chinese speaker, s/
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FIGURE 10.8A School
of Education, Chinese/English poster
he will let them know of the study. The reason the information about the dates is English is due to the same reason. However, note that the title of the poster is written in Chinese, too. Questions remain as to why she did not think English-speaking students would know any native Russian speakers, as well as why she seemed not to sense a possible effect on potential Chinese readers of putting English first in the Chinese poster’s heading. Nevertheless, the first-hand contact with her demonstrates how
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FIGURE 10.8B School
of Education, Russian/English poster
useful it can be in LL research to have access to the source of the signage under analysis. There was more English-plus signage in Humanities than in the other faculties put together. This was particularly true of signage put up by individuals, usually on noticeboards outside their offices, rather than official signage, which, apart from the following examples, was uniformly English-only. The first of the official English- plus items involves the entrance doors to the Faculty (Figure 10.9), where the word
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FIGURE 10.9 Faculty
of Humanities entrance door
“Welcome” appears in nine different languages (including English). Although a relatively small number of non-home students within the faculty come from mainland Europe, and the vast majority come from East/Southeast Asia and the Middle East, the ratio of “welcomes” is 60:40 in favour of European languages. More positively, the signage on doors (and on others appearing around UoS at a similar time) at least prioritises other languages over English. The second example of official English plus in Humanities is the Confucius Institute office door (Figure 10.10). This prioritises the Chinese script over the English in terms of both its central position on the plaque, and its font size. On the other hand, the multilingual emphasis only goes so far: for anyone wanting to know which office is which, the information (immediately under the plaque) is available in English only. The third official English-plus example is that of two Chinese lecturers in Modern Languages, who unlike those observed elsewhere, included their names in Chinese script on their office door (Figure 10.11). Nevertheless, the ordering of the respective scripts, with the English names being presented in a larger font and above the Chinese, shows again that multilingualism has its official limits even within a depart of Modern Languages. The final English-plus sign in Humanities official space was a small poster on a noticeboard in the foyer area advertising the university’s “Italian film season” (Figure 10.12). The items sharing the noticeboard were entirely in English apart
FIGURE 10.10 Faculty
of Humanities, Confucius Institute office door
FIGURE 10.11 Faculty
of Humanities, staff office door
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FIGURE 10.12 Faculty
of Humanities foyer, Italian film season poster
from this one in the top right-hand corner, which was partly in Italian. While the most prominent part of the poster, the heading at the top, standing out from the rest of the text in a large red font, was in Italian, the only other Italian element was the names of the Italian films being advertised. The rest of the text, albeit placed at the bottom of the poster, was in English. Tellingly, the English text points out that although all the films are in Italian, most have English subtitles, implying a limited expectation of attracting viewers in the university who understand Italian. Apart from this small amount of official signage, the rest of the English-plus signage in Humanities (though still relatively little) was displayed on individual staff doors and personal noticeboards outside staff offices. This was particularly true of the departments of History and Modern Languages. For example, a History lecturer displayed a pair of posters advertising events in a Jerusalem museum, identical except that the left-hand poster was entirely in Hebrew and the right-hand poster entirely in English. The two Modern Languages Chinese lecturers who had their names in Chinese on their office door also displayed a small flier advertising the re-opening of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, with English translation below. The heading of the Dutch text, “WEGENS VERBOUWING GEOPEND”, and the blurb beneath it are nevertheless in larger script than the English translation, “OPEN DUE TO RENOVATION”, which appears to have been stuck to the poster at a later date. This is the only example of an English-plus sign in which English rather than the other language is marginalised.
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FIGURE 10.13 Psychology
department, advert for transcription services
Finally, the single English-plus item in Psychology was a small advert for transcription services at the bottom left-hand of the student noticeboard (see Figure 10.13). This was the only item on the board (or elsewhere in the department’s signage) containing any language other than English. And even here, the English text is prioritised. The large heading is only in English, as is the smaller text immediately below the image. There are then two lines in Arabic, followed by further information again in English. The service is apparently for transcription of both
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FIGURE 10.14 Humanities
corridor, Chinese poster
English and Arabic recordings. Nevertheless, it is the English side of the service that is prioritised on the advertisement, with the two lines of Arabic creating an impression of being an optional add on (much like, in reverse, the stuck on piece of English text in the Rijksmuseum poster discussed above). Turning to signage containing languages other than English, at the time of the LL data collection, there was no other languages-only signage at all in Business, Education, or Psychology. Meanwhile in Humanities, there was just one item in the public space and one unofficial item in the Department of Modern Languages. Starting with the item in the public space, this was a small poster on a noticeboard in one of the main Humanities concourses on the ground floor. All items on the noticeboard were in English-only apart from one, half-way up (below the arrow) about renting and flat-sharing, which was entirely in Chinese (Figure 10.14). Again, the linguistic soundscape where I took this photo was very different from the English-only landscape surrounding it. It was lunchtime, and the area was filled mostly with international students such as the one in the photo, who was chatting in Arabic with a group of other Middle Eastern students. But their existence on campus could not have been inferred from the walls around them. The only other example of other languages than English only was on an individual Modern Languages lecturer’s noticeboard outside her office: a poster from the collection of Cinématheque Française for the artwork of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. However, the vast bulk of the poster was taken up with the image, while the French
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text, although in red font and in prime position on the top left-hand side, consisted of only few words: “L’Alliance Cinématographique Européenne présente une production UFA réalisé par Fritz Lang d’après le scénario de Thea von Harbou.” In other words, we are looking here at a very minor example of the use on campus of a language other than English, and it seems that even in the one department where we might expect substantial evidence of other languages in the LL, English is still by far the most predominantly, and often exclusively, used. To sum up the LL analysis, for a university with students from “over 135 countries”, and a good number of international staff as well, there is little evidence of their existence in the linguistic landscape. If the extent to which UoS is an international campus was evaluated on the basis of the linguistic diversity of its signage, it would score very low indeed. Not only is the vast majority of its signage in English, but it is native English: mostly formal standard native English, occasionally local idiomatic English and slang. There is very little evidence of text in other languages only anywhere, and not even much in English-plus other languages, let alone in other kinds of English than standard native. Having said that, there is more English plus in Humanities, and although this can be attributed mainly to the presence of the Department of Modern Languages, there are also interesting examples of language diversity in other parts of the faculty. In the majority of cases, however, this signage has been put in place (and sometimes designed) by individual members of staff or students rather than having an official origin. In this respect, the LL findings support the findings of the interview study discussed later, in which individual staff and students were found to orient more positively to notions of linguistic diversity/multilingualism on campus than UoS policy documents and most of its linguistic landscape suggest. As already pointed out, the university’s LL is in stark contrast to its linguistic soundscape, where many languages other than English are evident. There is also far more diversity in the images than in the texts on the university’s signage. This suggests there may be in progress a gradual move towards greater intercultural awareness, even though this has not as yet extended to language. However, on the less positive side, many of the signs with images from other parts of the world tended to present these as exotic, far-away places without any sense of appreciating their presence, by virtue of international staff and students, in Southampton.
3.3 Classroom observation analysis The classroom observer engaged in the observation analysis in two main steps. The first, as mentioned above, was the writing of fieldnotes.The second involved the analysis of the corpus composed of notes taken during and after every observed event. The researcher focused on the research questions in order to decide what to note and analyse, with an overarching focus on any evidences demonstrating the participants’ language choices and preferences, language expectations, and intercultural awareness. The examination of the fieldnote corpus led to the categorisation of four primary data clusters: staff practices; student practices; staff expectations; and student
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expectations, although it should be noted that practices and expectations tended to overlap. Where evidences were found to support understanding of the research questions, further details were examined regarding the context and representation of the evidence, both of which led to a number of sub-codes. These included: medium of instruction; medium for social purposes; group engagement; isolation; accommodation to diversity; and “correctness” ideology. The following analysis presents the key themes that emerged with regard to the classroom participants’ language practices and language expectations, both of which pointed to their level of intercultural awareness. English was the only language used as the medium of instruction in the observed lectures and seminars, and the observation data revealed lively participation and engagement in various sessions in this medium. Somewhat surprisingly, no other languages were used at all, even among same-L1 students, in the observed sessions apart from their use of their first languages among their same-L1 peer groups during break times when, for example, Chinese and Middle Eastern students spoke in Chinese and Arabic. The use of languages other than English thus seemed to serve only social purposes among the students. In this respect, because the observer was herself a Chinese speaker, she was able to capture the Chinese students’ casual chats with each other in her fieldnotes, including their jokes, their feelings about the sessions, discussions about ticket bookings, computer games, social meetings, and so on. There was no evidence revealing explicit expectations about the use of English in the educational settings. Rather, the fieldnotes provided a general picture of the use of EMI appearing to align with both lecturers’ and students’ expectations and engagement. On the one hand, the observed lecturers seemed able to address students from diverse language backgrounds: they checked the students’ understanding, engaged them in discussion, and encouraged them to share their knowledge about the contexts from which they came. For example, Chinese students in the Business School were asked about Chinese products and marketing in China, while Middle Eastern students in Audiology were asked about the treatment of patients in their home countries. On the other hand, in response, the students seemed keen to share their experience, insights, and knowledge. For instance, in a seminar in the Business School, presentations were given by a Vietnamese and a Chinese student to a peer group of 50. These two students’ presentations as well as their answers to the questions that followed were delivered confidently. Likewise, international students frequently volunteered to answer the lecturers’ questions, and seemed to feel free to engage with their lecturers by asking questions themselves, and volunteering their own examples. For example, a student in the School of Education went to the front of the class and, based on her experience of studying in China, demonstrated to the lecturer and students how the teacher’s use of gesture could aid learning. In Audiology, many international students had previous experience of working in clinics prior to coming to study at UoS, and were able to contribute their knowledge of terms and theories to the discussion, often elaborating in long turns on points made by the lecturer. Meanwhile, as well as exhibiting
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confidence to speak out, the international students in the observed faculties were found to mix across L1 groupings to talk in breaks, and to form international groups for project work in class. None of this fitted with the frequent stereotype of the anxious, international student struggling with EMI university settings. Nevertheless, this positive picture of educational practices was clouded, sometimes in subtle ways, by certain classroom events. A case in point was a module in the School of Education which, according to the lecturer, had been designed specifically to support teachers who speak English as a second language. In one session, the focus was on how to understand children’s over-generalisation as an inevitable stage in the development of knowledge. After the theoretical discussion of over-generalisation in relation to learning more broadly, the lecturer turned to some examples of children’s language acquisition. She described over-generalisation of past tense –ed in English verbs such as “write” (write/writed) as “errors”, implying that there is only one correct way of using English. The delivery of the disciplinary content of the lecture, children’s education, thus revealed implicitly the lecturer’s expectation for international students’ use of English, and that it was for “correct” native English. As well as undercurrents suggesting that lecturers had a native English “correctness” approach to English, there were occasions when international students did indeed struggle in class more than home students and were “left behind”. Because of this, they seemed at times to lose their concentration, with some turning their attention away from the lecture to their mobile phones. And despite the student engagement described above, there were also occasions in seminars when lecturers asked students to participate in group discussion and some international students sat in silence while the home students did the talking. This supports a finding in Jenkins (2014) in which a Thai student described in an interview how the home students monopolised seminar discussions, speaking fast to each other, and excluding the international students. In a nutshell, the classroom observation provides an overview of educational practices in UoS, through which language ideologies and intercultural awareness are reflected. The use of EMI along with other languages purely for social purposes suggests the different statuses of languages in the UoS context. There was no space for other languages than English in international communication in classroom settings, meaning that other languages were used exclusively among students with shared first language backgrounds for social purposes. While lecturers showed their appreciation of international students’ knowledge of and experience in diversified cultural contexts, intercultural awareness was not evidenced in their own use of English, which was otherwise associated with a subtle preference for native English “correctness”. Although some lecturers encouraged student participation and some international students played active roles in class by offering their case studies and local insights, there was a striking undercurrent of other international students struggling and being left behind to form silent groups. The observation data thus provides an insight into the inconsistency and imbalance of the “international” student experience at UoS, as well as implicit language ideological issues associated with a lack of intercultural awareness.
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3.4 Interview analysis As mentioned earlier, we interviewed both staff and students. For both datasets, qualitative content analysis was employed. We coded data using both theory driven coding based on the interview guides, and data driven coding which emerged from repeated readings of the data (Schreier, 2012a), and explored both manifest and latent meaning (Sarantakos, 2005; Schreier, 2012a). Starting with the student interviews, the interviewer probed the extent to which these aligned with the findings from the classroom observation. “Successive parts of the material” (Schreier, 2012b, p. 170) transcribed from interview recordings were assigned to a coding frame which juxtaposed students’ accounts of their experiences and perceptions about language choice, English expectations, and intercultural encounters.The interviewer searched for evidence of intercultural awareness paying attention to what did and did not fit the coding frame. She was also interested in the interview data that overlapped different codes and in the codes where different data parts clustered. Given space constraints, what follows highlights only three themes: (1) the choice of English; (2) the choice of other languages; and (3) expectations for English. Three examples are provided below, one to illustrate each of the three themes respectively. The student participants gave accounts of experiences of language use by themselves, their friends, their colleagues, and their supervisors, all of whom had either strong or weak ties with them in their social network. Their accounts implicitly reflected their own language preferences and perceptions. In this respect, they were likely to hold complex perceptions about the choice of English as a medium of instruction in international higher education settings. In particular, they seemed to perceive English as a “double-edged sword” for international students. That is, on the one hand, they acknowledged the value of English in international communication and regarded using English as necessary for their career development. On the other hand, they observed that it caused international students to struggle with their studies, with several describing English as “a barrier”. For example, a Thai postgraduate student researching physio treatment, said the following:
Exchange 1: Thai student TS: At the beginning of state, I know a lot of things of research, compared to him, but within a year, he know @ much more than me @ because I think it is easier for him to read, yeah, compared to me, and learn great @@ I: So you think language is a big challenge for international students? TS: Yeah it is a big barrier for us, but it a thing that we would like to learn because if I study in Thailand, I’m sure that, I can, I will be better in academy, I mean, in my field, in my area, I will be good in my field, in my area, but I’ll have, has, have difficulties to communicate in English with ahh, the physio around the world something like that. It will be easy just to communicate my knowledge, that knowledge I would know in my
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country, but I cannot express to the rest of the world. So I think it is good to learn in English and we can communicate to any people, yeah. TS = Thai student, I = Interviewer, @ = laughter The Thai student was comparing her own progress with that of a Singaporean PhD student who started his doctorate at the same time. She believed the shift from Thai to English as medium of instruction had delayed her progress, and that her Singaporean peer overtook her because he had previously studied through English medium. The interviewer followed up this comparison by asking whether “language is a big challenge for international students”. In response, the student positioned herself as one of the group, “international students”, and illustrated why she thought English was “a big barrier” for this group. He focus was clearly on the negative side of the narrative about international students’ experience of EMI. This seems to suggest that the “challenge” caused by EMI may outweigh any gains from it for many international students. Despite the challenge, however, the Thai student believed EMI was key to successfully communicating her disciplinary knowledge in international settings, and thus that she would benefit from EMI in the long run. Although the student participants saw English as having the primary role for academic purposes, they were positive towards the use of other languages for non- academic purposes. This was particularly evident in the case of a Hong Kong student. She perceived English as an important working language in her international work setting regardless of whether or not she was communicating with others who spoke her first language. She divided Chinese speakers into working and socialising groupings. She categorised her programme leader as belonging to her “work” group and therefore believed she should communicate with them in English despite Chinese being their common L1. As can be seen in the following exchange, she also included the interviewer in this research project as a member of the “work” group, saying she would not feel comfortable communicating with the interviewer in Chinese because they were working rather than “hanging out”.
Exchange 2: Hong Kong student HK: My programme leader is a Chinese, but we still speak English I: Do you speak Chinese here? HK: En, I speak Chinese with my close friends.When we discuss questions in class, we are in a group of students from different places, like Europe, we speak English. If we are all Chinese in the same group, we switch to Chinese. I: Do you know I speak Chinese? HK: Yeah, I know. I saw your Chinese name in your email signature. I: So you know we can speak Chinese? HK: @eh, We are doing academic job. I know you are Chinese. But we are at work, and we are not hanging out in leisure time, so […] HK = Hong Kong student, I = Interviewer, @ = laughter, […] = continued talking
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The student participants generally saw communicativeness as the priority for “good” English, while simultaneously believing that it is always better to approximate “correct” English for their academic development. For example, an Iranian student who was confident that her English was good because she had had years of education in international schools before she came to the UK, discussed how she felt about international students’ English in general. Noticeably, she made a link between international students’ English and “broken English”. The following extract shows how the interviewer pursued the notion of broken English, and how the interviewee responded.
Exchange 3: Iranian student I: So when you described international students’ English, either those from European countries or those from Asian contexts, you described their English as broken English. Do they speak good English? IS: Uh I: Do any international students speak good English? IS: (Silence) I: Or, did I misunderstand anything? IS: No. Err. They, they have the accents. Especially those who have been long time here.You can clearly hear accents in their English.When I say broken English, I mean the grammar, the actual structure of sentences, the way they speak, and the words they use.That’s what I mean by broken English.They use bad grammar, or the wrong word at the wrong time, or the wrong content in the wrong context. That’s what I mean by broken English. IS = Iranian student, I = Interviewer The aspiration for “correct” English seemed to derive in part from their teachers’ explicit and implicit expectations of their use of English, including the impact on them of teacher–student interaction. A few student participants offered stories of how their British peers or supervisors voluntarily corrected their English and indicated how they felt lucky to have those colleagues or supervisors. For example, a Thai student felt that she was “fortunate” that she had a British supervisor who had worked for several years in Cambodia and therefore, according to the student, understood her language support needs and offered her substantial help with the use of “correct” English. This brief discussion of findings from student interviews has explored views regarding the choice and appropriacy of English and other languages. The lecturer interview data is presented next, and we then draw the interview findings together. The main themes arising from the qualitative content analysis of the lecturer interviews were: (1) appropriacy of English language entry requirements; (2) students’ use of languages other than English expectations of students’ English; and (3) lecturers’ adjustment practices. In general, the findings indicated that lecturers’ views and practices with regard to language were affected by their specific contexts as well as their previous experience. That is, aspects such as programme structure
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and assessment criteria, over which lecturers may have little or no influence, were seen as impacting upon both their and their students’ use of English. In terms of the policy for English language entry requirements, all five participant lecturers were aware of the IELTS test and that passing a pre-sessional course is an alternative to it. But some seemed to have a better understanding than others about the required scores and their implications. For example, Martin questioned whether students beginning a pre-sessional course with IELTS 6.0 could improve their proficiency sufficiently to be at the equivalent level to IELTS 6.5 when they finished the course. He observed that he had seen students who had completed a pre-sessional course but were “struggling to write what I would, or [what] people regard as a basic academic sentence”. He felt that these students might continue to struggle because they lacked opportunities to speak English in a Master’s programme that was largely lecture-based. In addition, Martin felt that the modular structure of their Master’s meant that students might not feel a sense of belonging to their own degree programme, since they did not study with the same classmates in each module. The result, he believed, was that they tended to socialise with friends from their own language background. In fact IELTS 7.0 was seen by several lecturers as the minimum level at which students would have little difficulty in their academic studies in relation to their native English-speaking counterparts. Anna, for instance, explained that the requirement on her programme had been raised from 6.0 to 7.0 because of the technical nature of the subject, noting that some international students had been “really lost in the content”, and that “it’s a hard subject to keep up with if English is your first language, never mind if it’s your second or third”. None of the lecturers questioned the IELTS test in terms of the type of English/proficiency it exemplifies. Rather, their focus was always on the minimum score required. Turning to perspectives on the use of other languages than English, as already noted, some programmes are largely lecture-based so do not offer students the opportunity for peer discussion. Where they do so, there was some indication that the lecturer participants did not insist on English only. Anna, for example, said this: I suppose sometimes in practical sessions, if they are in small groups and there may be a couple in one group where they do speak the same language, it would be very logical for them I suppose to slip into that because it’s what’s comfortable. Anna’s use of “I suppose” here could be interpreted as implying that her acceptance of students’ L1 use was to an extent tolerated rather than happily accepted. However, taken in the context of other comments she made, it is probably more appropriate to read her comment as portraying uncertainty about whether her practice is acceptable. In other words, is it in line with (unwritten) policy. Two lecturers, Victor and Martin, were happy for students to develop their knowledge by reading materials in languages other than English. Victor had, in fact, provided a text in another language in order to help a specific L1 group of
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international students who, he felt, were at a disadvantage vis-à-vis home students in having to read substantial amounts of text in English. At the same time, he emphasised that all students must write in English. Martin made a similar point, using French as an example: I wouldn’t have any problems with people, you know, doing their dissertation and using French language resources to assimilate knowledge on it if that’s how they get to a deep knowledge, as long as they can relate and translate those ideas into an English that I can review and assess. Like Victor, Martin pointed out that the written product must be in English, but he further qualified this by saying “an English that I can review and assess”. Elaborating on this, Martin explained that he does not deduct marks every time the English is unclear, but that there is a limit to how much effort he will put into understanding a student’s meaning, and that if he has to read a sentence three times and still cannot understand it, the student will be penalised. The implication is that for Martin, clarity rather than native-like English is key. Initially, it might seem that Victor takes the same approach: When I would mark people down it would be stuff that’s just unclear, stuff that’s like “that makes no sense, that sentence doesn’t make sense” I mean I’m not the world’s greatest speller, so I don’t think, you know, spell check is there for everybody, grammar is like, you get from that all sorts of things, but it’s when stuff doesn’t make sense and students will hide stuff that they do not understand by writing a really convoluted sentence which goes on forever and you get that with everybody.We’re always trying to say, just write simply, just write clearly, don’t make complex stuff, don’t use big words that I won’t understand, just use it simply and that’s mostly what I’m talking about when I’m talking about language, it’s simple and clear. However, on closer inspection, it seems that for Victor, correct spelling and grammar come first, and that clarity is dependent on these. His comment in this respect (in italics) suggests that he expects all students to first check their spelling and grammar, and after this to keep their language simple and clear. His reference to “everybody” suggests, nevertheless, that he at least includes home as well as international students in the convoluted sentence “crime”. Julia is still more concerned than Victor about correct grammar, saying that she will deduct marks for mistakes even if the grammar does not impede understanding. She was careful to explain here that her approach is dictated by assessment criteria, which she attempts to follow closely so that she is able to justify her marking if necessary. This means that she has the same expectations of both native and non- native English speakers for written work. In terms of spoken language and participation, she is able to be more flexible. Acknowledging that speaking in a lecture environment could be intimidating for international students, particularly at first,
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Julia noted that she was happy to let home rather than international students feedback from group discussions to the whole class. Julia also discussed the need to adjust her delivery when lecturing to mixed-L1 groups. She explained that she tries to pitch the pace and depth of her content so that all students are able to understand, but that it is then difficult to stop home students feeling she is “dumbing down”. This may be a result of the degree level, Master’s, where international students typically have less previous experience of studying in English medium than do their home counterparts. By contrast, Ali’s experience of lecturing to undergraduates was that it was easier to meet everyone’s needs. Although he began by saying he slowed the place and used more repetition when there were non-native speakers present, he concluded that this was equally necessary for native speakers: “just the usual things of sort of taking things a bit slower, being a bit more repetitive when it’s necessary but having said that, first-year undergraduates need that as well you know, native”. Martin also talked about slowing down, and observed he was careful to avoid cultural references and idiomatic language. While Anna showed awareness of the potential benefit of making adjustments, she regretted that she had not yet been able to incorporate changes into her teaching. Victor’s response in this respect, however, was in stark contrast to the other four lecturers. Explaining that he lectured at fast speed so as to cover all the content, he added that he expected students to prepare for the lecture with the help of additional English classes if necessary. While Victor’s lack of adjustment gave the impression that he places sole responsibility for understanding with the students, it should be remembered that this is the same lecturer who provided a key reading source in another language, something which could be considered surprising for a UK university. This apparent contradiction in Victor’s practices seems in part due to the challenging nature of his role, which requires him to deliver lectures to a diverse group of 300 students –diverse not only in terms of their first languages, but also with regard to their depth of subject knowledge. Similar challenges were described by other lecturers in this study. To sum up, the interview data from students and lecturers reveals some similarities. Both discussed the challenges of studying through the medium of English. For example, the Thai physiotherapy student felt disadvantaged by her course mate being able to read faster than she could. Victor had identified this inequity for his students and taken steps to redress it by supplying a key text in another language. With regard to using other languages than English in spoken communication, both students and lecturers seemed comfortable with this for informal peer discussion, provided no student was excluded by the language used, although they tended to regard other languages as more appropriate to social than academic settings. Finally, in terms of expectations of students’ English, both students and lecturers emphasised the importance of clarity and intelligibility. However, while there were some exceptions in the lecturer data, in general both sets of participants indicated their belief that grammatical “correctness” was a prerequisite for achieving clear, “good” English.
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4. Drawing our findings together What, then, can we make of these four sets of findings exploring linguistic diversity in this mother-tongue English institution? It should be noted, first of all, that two of the datasets, the interviews and observations, were relatively small, and that even in the case of the other two, documentary/website analysis and linguistic landscaping, the focus was on selected parts of UoS, with means that we are not able to talk definitively about the entire university. Having said that, part of the documentary/website analysis did explore the setting more broadly. Meanwhile, the other three datasets came from very different parts of UoS, and yet their findings were largely similar regardless of faculty or discipline. Indeed, the primary differences revealed in our findings depended on the type of data itself rather than on the part of UoS in which it was collected. The overall picture, nevertheless, is very mixed. On the one hand it shows how positive change in orientations to linguistic diversity is to an extent taking place, but bottom–up from the staff and student “grassroots”, not top–down from senior management. In other words, practices are changing, albeit very slowly, while policy, both covert and overt, remains largely static. This confirms that in UoS at least, the situation which one of us identified some years ago, is still the case, i.e. “English language policy [still] lags far behind English language practice”, especially in academic English settings (Jenkins, 2011, p. 926). Our findings nevertheless imply that UoS is in the early stages of transition in respect of orientations to linguistic diversity. For whereas the findings relating to UoS in Jenkins’s (2014) study were almost unremittingly negative (though it must be acknowledged that her study found the same in respect of many other HE institutions globally), the UoS situation was more nuanced in the findings of the current study. We see this transitional phase as stemming to an extent from the university-wide “Intercultural Connections” project mentioned earlier set up in 2014 by one of us (Doubleday) and another lecturer colleague to raise awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity. As well as this, the high-profile research centre, Centre for Global Englishes, with its large international membership, particularly PhD students, in our own department, Modern Languages, continually draws attention to the issues and promotes more multilingual approaches to English. By contrast with this bottom– up activity, although UoS has for some years had a Pro Vice Chancellor (now “Vice President”) for Internationalisation, to our knowledge, no such change vis-à-vis linguistic diversity on campus has so far been effected from the top, where the focus to date seems to be largely on publicising the university’s overseas campuses and the numbers of its international students. Where diversity is approached more extensively top–down, e.g. on the UoS Diversity website (see our introduction in section 1), this is principally in respect of gender rather than language issues, with international staff being mentioned only in terms of their growing numbers. Meanwhile, there is no evidence whatsoever of any interest at the “top” in linguistic diversity, or any awareness, let alone understanding, of the key arguments being made for academic ELF such as those of Mauranen (2012).
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Turning to the various similarities and contradictions across our datasets, the positive signs at the level of non-official individual staff and student practices were found to an extent in three of our four datasets –the interviews, classroom observation, and linguistic landscaping. In all three, there was an element, if small, of the acceptance of both other languages than English and (apart from the LL data) of non-native ways of using English. However, in respect of non-native English, with very little exception, it was more a case of individuals tolerating “bad” English provided the meaning was clear, than of their actually considering it acceptable. In other words, native language ideology was very much in evidence, just as it was in Jenkins (2014), where tolerating “incorrect” English was the most frequent response to an open questionnaire study to 166 university staff. And as Sjaak, Blommaert, and Dong (2013) point out in this respect, the fact that non-native English is tolerated “does not prevent people from making identity judgments about those who speak with non-native accents” or “prevent educational institutions to not use the material reality of English but the institutionalised artefactual images of what accent-less English should be as yardsticks in judging ‘English’ language proficiency” (p. 280). What Sjaak et al. (2013) say about accents applies in our data to all linguistic levels of English, with even those tolerating some degree of non-native diversity still judging the latter against native English. And at the official end of the scale, the documentation/website, there is no evidence whatsoever of even tolerating, let alone regarding as acceptable, any other kind of English than native or languages other than English. These English-only and “English begrudgingly” orientations contrast dramatically with the linguistic soundscapes of UoS, where diverse languages and diverse kinds of English are very much in evidence, and sometimes the only languages/English in evidence, among both students and staff. To sum up, our answers to the research questions are as follows. To what extent do language practices correspond to stated language policies (including stated ethos and mission)? While UoS’s stated language policies are entirely focused on native English, its mission and ethos (and marketing/recruitment) try hard to demonstrate inclusivity in respect of the university’s large international staff and student membership. This leads to a major contradiction at its heart, in which its language policies involve conforming entirely to British native English ways of doing things (even American English may be discriminated against), while in other respects it considers itself to be deeply “international”. This, we argue, demonstrates a serious lack of critical thinking about both multilingualism/its intrinsic role in internationalisation, and English as an academic lingua franca/its role as an academic tool of communication. The first sub-question asked: To what extent are other languages than English used/accepted? Not at all officially, but occasionally in the classroom practices of more enlightened staff, and among international staff and students themselves outside the classroom (and sometimes, without staff approval, inside it!). The second sub-question asked:
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What kinds of English are used/accepted? Many diverse non-native kinds of English are used, but when it comes to being accepted, this is primarily native English. But again, unlike those in charge of university policy, more enlightened teaching staff tolerate other kinds of English speech and writing provided they understand the meaning, even though they do not consider it to be “proper” English. Finally, the third sub-question asked: What evidence is there of intercultural awareness? Very little to date. For example, substantial use is still made of idiomatic English that is unlikely to be comprehensible to international students, even on signage. Intercultural awareness is nevertheless starting to grow, mainly as a result of the Intercultural Connections project and the work of the Centre for Global Englishes discussed above, and it is interesting to see references to the transnational graduate (though infrequently) on the website. What are the overt/covert English language expectations of/made of students and staff, and how far do students and staff feel they meet these? From the evidence we have, admittedly comprising only a small dataset, it seems that both staff and students believe they are expected to conform to native English and avoid other languages entirely, but that to varying degrees, they do not necessarily respect these expectations. In conclusion, it seems that in respect of linguistic diversity, like the vast majority of UK and US universities, UoS fits in with Foskett’s (2010, p. 44) “imperialist universities” category, according to which universities “have strong international recruitment activities to draw students from overseas, but have done relatively little to change their organization, facilities or services ‘at home’ ” (see Chapter 1 for an explanation of Foskett’s five categories). We are disappointed but not surprised by these findings, and fear that they will compare unfavourably with those of the other eight LDIC institutions, including the other Anglophone university, Monash. On the other hand, we are also tentatively optimistic insofar as we sense at UoS a gradual bottom–up increase in positive orientations towards linguistic diversity, particularly towards the use of ELF, but also to a lesser extent to other languages than English.
References Foskett, N. (2010). Global markets, national challenges, local strategies:The strategic challenge of internationalization. In F. Maringe & N. Foskett (Eds.), Globalization and internationalization in higher education: Theoretical, strategic and management perspectives (pp. 34–50). London: Continuum. Jenkins, J. (2011). Accommodating (to) ELF in the international university. Journal of Pragmatics, 43(4), 926–936. Jenkins, J. (2014). English as a lingua franca in the international university: The politics of academic English language policy. London: Routledge. Jenkins, J., & Leung, C. (2017). Assessing English as a lingua franca. In E. Shohamy, I. Or, & S. May (Eds.), Language testing and assessment (pp. 103–117). Cham: Springer International. Marvasti, A.B. (2012). Analysing observation. In U. Flick (Ed.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative data analysis (pp. 354–366). Los Angeles, CA: SAGE.
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Mauranen,A. (2012). Exploring ELF:Academic English shaped by non-native speakers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McNamara,T. (2014).Thirty years on: Evolution or revolution. Language Assessment Quarterly, 11, 226–232. Saarinen, T., & Nikula, T. (2013). Implicit policy, invisible language: Policies and practices of international degree programmes in Finnish higher education. In A. Doiz, D. Lasagabaster, & J.M. Sierra (Eds.), English-medium instruction at universities worldwide (pp. 131–150). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Sarantakos, S. (2005). Social research (3rd ed.). Houndmills, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Schreier, M. (2012a). Qualitative content analysis in practice. London: SAGE. Schreier, M. (2012b). Qualitative content analysis. In U. Flick (Ed.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative data analysis (pp. 170–183). Los Angeles, CA: SAGE. Sjaak K., Blommaert, J., & Dong, J. (2013). Chinese and globalization. In J. Duarte & I. Gogolin (Eds.), Linguistic superdiversity in urban areas: Research approaches (pp. 275–296). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Conclusion
11 WHERE ARE WE WITH LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY ON INTERNATIONAL CAMPUSES? Anna Mauranen and Jennifer Jenkins
Echoing the title of this book, the studies presented in the chapters deal with university campuses that invoke internationalisation, and display notable diversity –not only in terms of languages, but between themselves in a number of other ways. It is time in this concluding chapter to reflect upon their similarities and differences, and the implications arising from both. As we noted in Chapter 1, the purpose of the research for the LDIC (Linguistic Diversity on the International Campus) project was motivated by a desire to investigate the extent to which, if at all, the phenomenon of ELF, and especially ELFA, had penetrated universities around the world that claimed international status. That is, in light of the self-evident fact that these universities had become prime sites of intercultural and hence ELF(A) communication, to what extent had their orientation to English moved on in line with their linguistically diverse reality on campus? The question was raised not only in respect of the diversity of Englishes used, but also of the multiple languages also present, and the inevitable translanguaging among these and English; in other words, not just ELF, but ELF within a framework of multilingualism. As also mentioned in the introductory chapter, the LDIC project took to heart the point made by Doiz, Lasagabaster, and Sierra (2013) in respect of the crucial importance of studies being “rooted in each specific context” (p. 219). As noted in Chapter 1, the teams in each of the nine specific contexts, that is, Continental Europe (Finland, Italy, Spain, and Turkey), East and Southeast Asia (China, Japan, and Malaysia), and the Anglophone world (Australia and the UK), all addressed two main research questions: 1. To what extent do language practices correspond to stated language polices in the partner institutions? In particular: • To what extent are other languages than English used/accepted? • What kinds of English are used/accepted?
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• What evidence is there of intercultural communicative awareness? 2. What are the overt/covert English language expectations of/made of students and staff, and how far do students and staff feel they meet these? The time has come for us to draw the various findings of the nine individual studies together so as to address our third research question: What similarities, differences, and implications from questions 1 and 2 emerge across the nine research settings? The final chapter attempts to answer this question, and to consider the implications not only for the nine institutions in the LDIC project, but also the extent to which these findings might resonate more widely across the higher education system of each of the nine respective countries as well as more globally.
1. Why internationalise? All the universities investigated in the project that underpins this book were eager to endorse internationalisation as a major policy goal. Moreover, in nearly all of them, internationalisation was at least covertly, and in some cases quite overtly, equated with English, very much along the lines of Jenkins’s (2014) earlier observations.The Anglophone countries did not address this question, perhaps because it was felt too self-evident to deserve attention: in other words, in their view, in an Anglophone setting it should go without saying that English is the only conceivable language of instruction on university campuses. Our sample universities are not alone in this respect, as we can see in studies on university internationalisation, such as the series of reports from European student mobility and international programmes (e.g. Kelo, 2010; Wächter & Maiworm, 2007, 2014) for instance: student mobility is a major goal, and English-medium courses are seen as the principal reflection of the degree of internationalisation in higher education institutes. The fears, objections, and linguistic defences expressed in, for example, the parallel language policy movement in the Nordic countries (Bolton & Kuteeva, 2012) recognise this, too, as they direct their activities directly against English. The desire to be global, then, is inextricably entwined with using English in most people’s minds in higher education –and from all available evidence, the same holds true also outside higher education. As pointed out in the Introduction to this volume, universities have a number of interests in internationalisation apart from their study programmes. Competition for research resources has become more international: competition for funding has got stiffer, and competition for jobs has become global, making researchers themselves increasingly mobile (cf. Franzmann, Jansen, & Münte, 2015). For universities, in turn, this has meant growing competition for talent. Universities like to hire as good researchers as possible from the international job market, and as has been noted by our research teams, the number of international staff working at a university is something they like to mention on their self-promotional webpages. Staff diversity means more linguistic and cultural diversity on campus, as staff members normally engage in both research and teaching. International staff are not usually required to be fluent in the local languages (unless this is English), at least at the
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outset, so the obvious, one-size-fits-all solution is to have them teach in English. The result is then, again, more English, with the diversity confined to and contributing to the natural variability of Englishes, including ELF. A very similar picture surfaces from student recruitment: the goal is to be international, to attract as many talented students from as many countries as possible, to advertise their numbers on the webpages, and as with staff, the answer to the internationalisation of the student body is to teach them in English. A variety of higher-level policy documents, at governmental or ministry levels, stipulate goals for HE in all the countries concerned, but how much these bind universities varies. In some countries, such as all the Asian ones in our project, as well as Italy, it seems that universities are bound to echo the strategies devised at a higher level. But even where they are not, it is clear that as public institutions their funding is dependent on meeting goals and criteria that relevant ministries stipulate. Yet the private university in our sample (Waseda) does not behave manifestly differently. In most countries discussed in the present volume, local ministries set goals or at least define policies for internationalisation, and Australia (Chapter 9) even has a national language policy. Clearly, institutions of higher education also define their own policies of internationalisation and language use at a level that is more specific than any national political document likes to commit itself to. What the key level is of formulating the policies varies across institutions. In most places, strategic objectives seem to be formulated at the level of the top management and leadership. However, Finland is the only place where the university (Helsinki) has a dedicated language policy document, as well as a separate internationalisation road map, in addition to the university strategy, all of these having been formulated in top–down and bottom–up dialogue, with the final endorsement from the university leadership. The Australian university has earlier had language policy documents at university level, too, but currently has an English Language Policy. Of course, where and by whom documents in effect are formulated is always a complex issue: in organisations with thousands of employees and tens of thousands of students, possibly on several campuses, only a fraction of the people who might actively participate in setting organisational goals actually do so, and the end results are unavoidably compromises. Units such as faculties, departments, or degree programmes tend to further specify their own particular goals, and thus policy statements are made and documented at several different levels. At every juncture something happens, interpretations change, are adapted, and different individuals finally write up the documents. When they come in more than one language version, translators are involved, who can be professionals or just bilinguals, come from within the organisation, or be outsiders –in brief, any documentation in any university has been interpreted and reinterpreted by groups and individuals several times over. It is not surprising that we find so many discrepancies and gaps in the documents, as our own research teams have found. Given all these necessarily rather chaotic production processes, it is far more surprising to see how much these strategies and agendas in the project’s different universities in different parts of the world actually have in common.
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The strongest undercurrent emanating from the internationalisation statements across the board was competition. An acute awareness of competition appears to permeate all nine institutions, even if the precise source or nature of this competition was not distinctly articulated. Some of the most obvious sources were already outlined above, and as they concern universities’ key activities, it is not surprising to find that universities sense it. But the need to increase competitiveness appears to permeate all policy levels. And whether it is a country, a given university, or a region (such as Europe, represented by the European Union) that needs to increase its competitiveness, the solution is to internationalise. Only occasionally was domestic competition mentioned in the nine universities’ policy statements, presumably against other local universities –but even so the answer, still, was internationalisation. Internationalisation, then, entailed competition, and both emerged as ubiquitous, inescapable forces as if they were laws of nature that had to be accepted, leaving universities to navigate their routes through this maze of competition the best they could. Several of the universities quite openly operationalised competition as success in international university rankings. This was brought up as an additional attractor of international students to their campus, although it may well be that prospective staff members are more aware of the league tables than students are. Clearly, a university’s claim to internationalism holds little credibility if few international students are present on campus, but an interest in attracting students in large numbers may also carry economic benefits, even if no universities mentioned those explicitly. The fact is, though, that the benefits from international students’ fees vary enormously between countries, with some, like Germany and Finland, not charging any at the time of the present research, some charging just nominal fees or the same for international as for home students, like Italy and Spain, and others again, like the USA, the UK, and Australia, getting a substantial proportion of their income from student fees. Despite such variation, the universities represented here were all unified in their urge to be international and to attract international students as a key component of their strategic goals. In addition to these most striking similarities and differences, other motives were also expressed. In the European Union, clearly the EU-level policies towards harmonisation of HE in Europe, had influenced universities in the region, encouraging student and staff mobility. The employability of European citizens was also mentioned as a reason to go international, meaning that the internationalised labour market outside universities was also a concern in formulating policies. Connected to this, educational goals were evoked with the global citizen in mind, one with an international outlook, multicultural awareness, and intercultural communication skills. Command of foreign languages went into this category, too, but generally the language that was actually specified was English. Research was not at the centre of our research teams’ attention, but the authors of Chapter 4 noted the pressure to publish in internationally recognised journals, which are almost exclusively English-medium. Clearly, similar practices have been adopted in many universities (see, for instance, papers in Curry & Lillis, 2017;
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Hyland, 2015; Kuteeva & Mauranen, 2014; Lillis & Curry, 2010), and this may be one reason why academics relatively readily accept teaching in English: English is part of their working lives in every way now –in research collaborations, in publishing, in job hunting. It has been normalised and internalised. Since all of our research teams recognised the urge towards internationalisation in their own institution, this must have been communicated very clearly on the part of the university management and leadership. By contrast, few were really very much aware of how exactly the policies are made and by whom, and no active participation in the making of university policies by the authors or their interviewees was reported. The policies were depicted –and apparently experienced –as something imposed by higher powers top–down on staff and students, who were left to cope as best they could. In some places internationalisation was seen as a glued-on high-level slogan rather than a living practice, and apparent omissions in multilingual information and the lack of support for linguistic diversity were revealed and severely criticised in the course of the studies, above all by the analysts, but also clearly by many study participants, who felt their voices had not been heard. However, members of staff were not interviewed in every university, and where this did take place there often were no more than two or three staff members involved. This said, the experience was very similar across institutions, which imparts the general sense that it must be a rather common pattern in university policy-making. On the other hand, students and staff were not unremittingly critical of their international campus. The idea itself seemed to be accepted by most, even though its implementation was seen to have many gaps and faults. Students, whose voices were represented most in the studies, enjoyed their intercultural experience, and many noted the advantages of the international experience for their future careers, whether this had occurred through mobility or internationalisation at home. Documented policies left actual language questions relatively implicit, apart from the general promotion of EMI as if synonymous to internationalisation. Thus, in terms of language policies specifically, a strong connection between internationalism and English was discernible throughout all but one of the universities where English was not the mother tongue. Helsinki was the clear exception: although the connection was presupposed in its strategy documents, its language policy document’s stated goals were promoting multilingualism, internationalism, parallel language use, and protection of the national languages. In actual fact, multilingualism in the University of Helsinki policy document translates into official trilingualism (Finnish, Swedish, English), sets very great store in protecting the two local languages, and rather dismissively mentions the presence of languages other than these three in a general remark that studying other languages is to be encouraged. Despite the degree of ambiguity in all but the Finnish case, overall, there was not a huge amount of difference, document-wise, in explicit and implicit orientations to linguistic diversity, including a certain amount of flexibility over the kind of English desired (see section 2), among the non-Anglophone institutions of the project apart from the Turkish one, whose approach (as also found by Jenkins, 2014 in respect of a different Turkish university) appeared less tolerant. Surprisingly, it was
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the latter along with just one of the two Anglophone universities, Southampton, which emerged as least accepting, top-down, of linguistic diversity. By contrast, the Australian institution, Monash, showed more similarity in this respect to the majority of the non-Anglophone universities in the project.
2. The kind of English desired Universities tend to set entry requirements for students’ English in terms of attested results in one of the main internationally available language tests, most often IELTS or TOEFL. Only Boğaziçi University (Chapter 5) has its own in-house test, which it offers besides the international tests. While it is hard to find evidence of explicit statements in university policies of the kinds of English expected –they are too vague for that –the tacit understanding is that it is standard (native) English (see also Jenkins & Leung, 2017, 2019 in press). A more realistic approach, which accepts diverse kinds of English is adopted in Australia (Chapter 9) and in the universities of Malaya (Chapter 8) and Helsinki (Chapter 2), with the last mentioned actually talking about English as a lingua franca in its language policy. The hidden agenda of standard English usually implies American English, even though many European universities including those in our project apart from the Turkish institution (see Chapter 5) still seem to embrace British English equally much. Meanwhile, the UK (Chapter 10) inevitably shows a strong preference for British English, and Australia, despite its liberal statements about diverse Englishes, clearly sets Standard Australian English above other varieties. Such covert expectations raise many concerns. One of these is that students and teachers may set unrealistic demands on their own English and on each other’s Englishes. In some institutions in our project, students did not appreciate their international lecturers’ English, which was seen to hamper the comprehensibility of lecture contents if it deviated from standard Anglophone varieties. By contrast, in the UK setting (Chapter 10), it was not infrequently the home staff ’s English that was found to be incomprehensible to international students (see also Jenkins, 2014, Chapter 7). From the opposite perspective, teachers complained that their students’ English was insufficient to deal with lecture and seminar content. Students also mentioned their experience of feelings of uncertainty about their understanding of lectures or discussions taking place in class. The unrealistic requirement of native-like speech moreover holds students back in classroom communication, where many feel they fall short of the target and are therefore unwilling to try. This came out particularly clearly in the cases of China and Japan, but focus on form and correctness was also apparent in Turkey. As Iino and Murata (2013, 2016) put it, Japanese students can suffer from feelings of inadequacy and an inferiority complex partly due to their misconception of the “E” in EMI as that of native English speakers. In contrast to this, though, classroom observations in the University of Southampton (Chapter 10) indicated that many international students showed lively and active participation in class, asking questions and volunteering opinions. At the same time, reticent
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students who may not have been able to participate or follow the lectures easily were found in the nine focal institutions, including in Southampton. Contrasting with the standard English ideology, more pragmatic attitudes were also identified. An emphasis of content over form was overtly stated in the Malaysian institution (Chapter 8). It would seem that a more welcoming attitude towards less familiar varieties and similects, together with a goal of communicative efficiency over some unattainable native-like ideal arose from two kinds of breeding ground: in a multiethnic community with a colonial past in the case of Malaysia, where diversity within English has long been an everyday experience, and on the other hand in Europe, where a long tradition of communicative teaching has been the standard practice. Both environments can be seen as problematic in their own ways. Colonialism is a problem rather than a solution, and postcolonial countries may just as well follow exonormative as endonormative policies and practices. Communicative language teaching, again, has never in itself questioned the supremacy of the native speaker, or been particularly clear about the criteria involved in “successful communication”, but as an established megatrend of more than a generation, it has laid the basis for more liberal attitudes towards foreign language use. When the expectations in an EMI programme are completely unrealistic in terms of how close to a set standard people’s use of English should be, how do participants manage to go about it? Both the interviews and the analyses of classroom interaction in the above chapters tell a story of flexible accommodation and resourceful adaptation to the situation. Reports of accommodative practices, explicitness, rephrasing, and many other ways of pre-empting communicative problems and achieving communicative efficiency abounded in all these case studies. Despite this, it was felt in many of the universities that some students were experiencing genuine difficulties in keeping up with all that was required of them in English, and in particular that there was little support, if any, on offer for those who struggled with language. A very frequently mentioned practice in the case studies was moving between languages, either language mixing, translanguaging, or the commonest of all, code-switching. Code-switching has been observed as a normal feature in ELF interactions (e.g. Klimpfinger, 2009; Mauranen, 2013), and in the current studies it was noted to have many helpful functions in practical tasks, during lectures, and maintaining rapport. A case where this seemed to work very well was Japan, where it was depicted as an indication of sharedness on the part of teachers to deploy another shared language, Japanese, with students. It was felt to enhance students’ understanding of the contents in the class, and thereby help them manage their studies. Similarly positive were experiences from Spain, Malaysia, and China, where teachers and students resorted to their L1 when it seemed natural for ascertaining communicative fluency or understanding. This was obviously a helpful tactic in environments where the majority of students shared a local language –or at least to the students who did indeed share one.
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At the same time, translanguaging and code-switching were quite unhelpful for international students who were not fluent in the local language. Rather, it could have served as a means of social exclusion for international students while enhancing a sense of sharedness between local students and teachers. Its intercultural desirability can thus be called into question. If from a utilitarian viewpoint of learning efficiency, translanguaging and code-switching are helpful to a large proportion of the students, it is doubly divisive: academically, as the excluded group will not benefit, and socially, as the enhanced sharedness applies only to some of the students.We may of course expect international students to be willing to use all means available to make sense of what is being said, perhaps more so than students staying in their home environments; they also tend to be happier with all-English programmes than home students, as Suviniitty (2012) noted. Such observations would seem to tally with the observations from Southampton in this volume as far as the more active and outgoing international students were concerned.This would seem to be a place for further research. On the other hand, use of any language other than English was considered unacceptable and was discouraged in classroom contexts in Southampton, and was reserved strictly for social settings, including casual chats during break times. This contrasted with all other eight institutions, including the only other Anglophone university, i.e. the Australian one.
3. Tensions between English and local languages In all countries (save Italy, which did not raise this issue) where English was not a mother tongue, tensions were in evidence between the local languages and English. The reasons were nevertheless quite dissimilar. Spain clearly perceives, quite rightly, that Spanish is a widespread world language, and the even greater coverage and distribution of English in the world is not so welcome to Spaniards. No other countries had similar claims to international importance of the national language. China’s attitudes towards EMI revolved around national identity and were shaped by a tension between on the one hand the pride in China’s cultural heritage regarded as inextricable from the Chinese language, and on the other hand, viewing English as necessary for future prosperity. In a sense, then, the values of social cohesion and economic power were pitted against each other in assigning relative values to the languages. Like China, Japan and Turkey displayed somewhat similar tensions between tradition or national pride against modernity and prosperity. Malaysia was the only representative of a postcolonial country; it appeared to be successfully reconciling the promotion of national cohesion and a sense of independence through the consolidation of the national language, while simultaneously putting to good use the strong foundation of English education in the relatively recent past. Finland, sitting comfortably in the modern Western world, adopted an even-handed trilingual policy, with a clear undercurrent of protecting local languages against English, much in line with other small Nordic countries:“domain loss” is their principal fear, in other words the use of English taking over academic discourses and superseding the national languages in this domain.The Anglophone countries remained outside
Conclusion 271
such worries, of course, because they could blithely assume the international relevance of their local language –but ultimately the same issues were discernible there, only at a “varietal” level. New, non-traditional uses of Englishes threaten Anglophone illusions of a traditional, homogeneous, national variety of English. What then, is common to all these countries is a dichotomous ideology of the home language versus the most widespread, variable, international language in an era of globalisation. One response might be that both are needed, but for different purposes.Yet reality is more complex. All of these countries are in actual fact multilingual: all of them have a number of linguistic minorities and minority languages, including sign languages, and varieties of the standard national languages. These minority languages and varieties come in varying sizes and weights, and with varying linguistic rights. And of course English is the most variable and volatile of them all –not only is there no single standard, but the core standard varieties put together account for far less use than the global use of English as a lingua franca in academia.
4. Further questions One recurrent observation in all the research sites was that whatever the emphasis put on internationalisation and diversity in university policies, language did not come up very strongly in any of it. Diversity was perhaps most explicitly celebrated in Australia, but language did not occupy centre stage: culture, identity, gender, ethnicity, and similar issues took priority in events, discussions, and controversies. Interculturality was likewise taken on board in many ways, but not necessarily as a facet of successful linguistic communication.The countries outside the Anglophone world showed more sensitivity to language issues in teaching and assessment, and to moving between and beyond languages to achieve communication. The analyses of classroom discourses as well as interview data indicated a broad range of accommodation practices that both lecturers and students engaged in to make sense of each other’s contributions to the evolving content and learning. The most interesting observations of intercultural sensitivity came out nevertheless in the analyses from Southampton, where teachers recounted practices of asking students to share their experiences and perspectives from their countries of origin and their previous studies and learning in those contexts. If such practices are common, it means that international campuses have a very good chance of achieving many of their goals relating to intellectual synergy and creating an intercultural experience for their students. This would be something that further research could delve into: how much sharing of different perspectives from different backgrounds is taking place on international campuses, and how much, on the other hand, is this held back by the tendencies, reported above virtually everywhere, of international students forming groups around their same-country peers, who also share a common language? Among the loose ends from the present collaboration was explorations into the practices and effects of code-switching in class, and the ways in which translanguaging actually takes place: if a good deal of multilingual practices in class actually mean code-switching between the local language and English, it may not
272 Mauranen & Jenkins
work as an integrative but divisive intercultural experience.There is a clear need for engaging in more ethnographically informed analyses of classroom practices in this respect, including the perspectives of both international and home students. What are most inclusive and most fruitful practices in multilingual higher education? Not very many among the present case studies observed actual classroom interaction, and the findings pointed to quite opposite directions. If future studies could focus more on actually observing international classrooms, and preferably interview the same students after class (see, for example, Hynninen, 2016; Mauranen, 1994), we might delve deeper into the question of what is holding students back, if indeed anything. Some students and student cultures may simply hold different priorities with regard to active participation or correctness in language use, and we would need new and larger studies to tease out large tendencies from individual differences. A clearly linguistic issue revolved around the overt and covert expectations of the kinds of English required, expected, or tolerated –or valued. In some universities, especially Helsinki and Malaya, interviews painted a bright picture of general satisfaction with international programmes and their relaxed, content-focused orientation to linguistic standards and multilingual and intercultural communication.Yet in many other contexts, students were haunted by the spectre of monolingualism and expectations of native-likeness and standard language –even though the classroom practices clearly oriented far more to the content than to correctness. It seems that teachers perceive themselves as more lenient towards non-standard English than students are aware of. Yet it would certainly seem that standard English, generally the American variety, was the implicit target in most contexts. At the same time, a pragmatic attitude and realism led to practical lenience towards non-standard language, despite the hidden agendas of monolingualism and standard language. Clearly, there is an important difference between accepting or tolerating certain kinds of language use and actually valuing them. How far is pragmatic acceptance leading towards changing language ideologies, and to what extent is the prestige factor persisting in linguistic mindscapes despite liberal practices? These would be interesting questions to explore in a comprehensive international collaboration like the present project. We have one final point to make; one that will have become clear to readers as they progressed through the volume. It is that some authors chose not to identify their institution by name in their individual chapters, and instead used various aliases. They did so in the knowledge that their university would be named in the introductory Chapter 1.They also understood, by virtue of the ethos of the project, i.e. its emphasis on researchers exploring their own university setting, that their institution’s identity would be easily accessible in the contributors’ biodata at the start of the volume. However, they anticipated that their managements were likely, if they read the volume at all, to read only the chapter that referred directly to them. The fact that some authors felt uneasy about their institution’s reaction to a critical appraisal of their linguistic diversity credentials is concerning, if not altogether surprising. What it means in terms of their institutions’ openness to change is at present unclear.
Conclusion 273
References Bolton, K., & Kuteeva, M. (2012). English as an academic language at a Swedish university: Parallel language use and the “threat” of English. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 33(5), 429–447. Curry, M.J., & Lillis, T. (Eds.). (2017). Global academic publishing. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Doiz, A., Lasagabaster, D., & Sierra, J.M. (2013). Future challenges for English-medium instruction at the tertiary level. In A. Doiz, D. Lasagabaster, & J.M. Sierra (Eds.), English- medium instruction at universities worldwide (pp. 213–221). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Franzmann, A., Jansen, A., & Münte, P. (2015). Legitimizing science: Introductory essay. In A. Franzmann, A. Jansen, & P. Münte (Eds.), Legitimizing science: National and global publics (1800–2010) (pp. 11–34). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Hyland, K. (2015). Academic publishing: Issues and challenges in the construction of knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hynninen, N. (2016). Language regulation in English as a lingua franca. Berlin: DeGruyter Mouton. Iino, M., & Murata, K. (2013). We are jun-Japa: Dynamics of ELF communication in an English medium context. Waseda Working Papers in ELF, 2, 84–100. Iino, M., & Murata, K. (2016). Dynamics of ELF communication in an English-medium academic context in Japan: From EFL learners to ELF users. In K. Murata (Ed.), Exploring ELF in Japanese Academic and Business Contexts (pp. 111– 131). London: Routledge. Jenkins, J. (2014). English as a lingua franca in the international university: The politics of academic English language policy. London: Routledge. Jenkins, J., & Leung, C. (2017). Assessing English as a lingua franca. In E. Shohamy, I. Or, & S. May (Eds.), Language testing and assessment (pp. 103–117). Cham: Springer International. Jenkins, J., & Leung, C. (2019 in press). From mythical “standard” to standard reality: The need for alternatives to standardized English language tests. Kelo, M. (Ed.). (2010). Beyond 2010. Priorities and challenges for higher education in the next decade. Bonn: Lemmens, ACA. Klimpfinger, T. (2009). “She’s mixing the two languages together”: Forms and functions of code-switching in English as a lingua franca. In A. Mauranen & E. Ranta (Eds.), English as lingua franca: Studies and findings (pp. 348–371). Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Kuteeva, M., & Mauranen, A. (2014). Introduction. In M. Kuteeva & A. Mauranen (Guest Eds.) “Writing for Publication in Multilingual Contexts” Special Issue. Journal of English for Academic Purposes. Lillis, T., & Curry, M.J. (2010). Academic writing in a global context: The politics and practices of publishing in English. London & New York, NY: Routledge. Mauranen, A. (1994). Two discourse worlds: Study genres in Britain and Finland. In A. Mauranen & R. Markkanen (Eds.), Students abroad: Aspects of exchange students’ language. Finlance, XIII, 1–40. Mauranen, A. (2013). Lingua franca discourse in academic contexts: Shaped by complexity. In J. Flowerdew (Ed.), Discourse in context (pp. 225–246). London: Bloomsbury Academic. Suviniitty, J. (2012). Lectures in English as a lingua franca: Interactional features. Aalto University Publication Series Science & Technology 19/2012. Helsinki: Unigrafia. Wächter, B., & Maiworm, F. (2007). English-taught programmes in European higher education:The picture in 2007. Bonn: Lemmens, ACA. Wächter, B., & Maiworm, F. (2014). English-taught programmes in European higher education:The state of play in 2014. Bonn: Lemmens, ACA.
INDEX
Note: Page numbers in bold refer to tables and in italics to figures. Aboriginal languages, Australia 197, 211, 213, 215, 218 accents: adaptation and 186; and native English speakers (NES) 115, 116; of staff 105, 116, 183, 191, 210; and standard native English 143–144, 258 accommodative behaviour 185–188, 192, 269 accommodative pragmatic strategies 87 accountability 51 Ali, N.L. 173, 175 American English 9, 101, 103, 105, 258, 268 ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) 173 Asia-Pacific higher education sector 7 AU (Australian university) 197–220; analytical framework 206–207; bilingualism 217; datasets 224–225; diversity 207–210, 217–220; “Diversity and Inclusion Week” 209; English as lingua franca (ELF) 215, 224; “Equal Opportunity Policy” 204; ethnographic approach 205; hierarchy of languages 210–214; internationalisation 198, 208, 217; interview questions 222; language other than English (LOTE) 198–199, 200, 201–202, 204, 205, 207, 208, 212, 213, 215; language policy 199–200, 202–203, 214, 219, 204; language requirements 219–220; linguistic landscaping (LL) 205, 207,
215–216; methodology 204–206; multiculturalism 200–201, 203, 207, 208–209, 210, 214, 217–218; multilingual mindsets 215–216; multilingualism 210, 212; multivarietalism 200–202, 209–212; number of international students 198; previous research 200–204; topics for observations 223; “Towards a language policy for an international university” 203; translanguaging 215–216; University Planning and Statistics report 207 Auslan (Australian sign language) 218 Australia: indigenous languages 197, 202, 211, 213, 215, 218; internationalisation 199, 204; language hierarchy 210–214; language ideology 199; multiculturalism 200, 201, 202; multilingualism 199; National Policy on Languages 200, 201–202, 212, 214–215, 217; previous research 200– 203; sign languages 212, 213, 218 Australian Creoles 197, 202, 213, 215, 218 authenticity 115, 117, 132, 142 Balkan peninsula, students from 52, 55 Ball, S. 98 Bangladesh, students from 55 Basque Country, Spain 77 BELF (Business ELF) 4 benchmarking 51, 57, 58, 104
Index 275
bilingualism: in Australia 200; at Boğaziçi University linguistic landscape (LL) 105, 106, 107 in Finland 29; at Monash University (AU) 217; at Shantou University 129, 132, 138; at University of Helsinki 24, 26, 27, 28; at University of Malaya (UM) 175, 181, 182; at University of Siena (UNISI) 56, 60–61, 63, 67; at University of Zaragoza (UZ) 77, 83, 88, 89, 90 Boğaziçi University, Turkey 96–118; American English 101, 103, 105; bilingualism 105, 106, 107; document analysis 99; English for Academic Purposes (EAP) 114–116; entry requirements for staff 110–112; entry requirements for students 103–104, 113–114; expectations of students’ English 112–113; ideology 108; interviewee profiles 121; interviews 100–101, 110–116; language support 104–105; linguistic landscaping (LL) 99–100, 105–110; methodology 99–101; native English speaker (NES) teachers 115; Online Student Handbook 103; origin of 96; policy documents 103–105; students on lecturers’ language use 116; theoretical framework 97–98; transcription conventions 122; University Registration Booklet 104; website 101–103 Bologna Declaration 7, 74 Business ELF see BELF Cambridge English tests 232 Cambridge Syndicate exams 64–65 Campagna, S. 52, 53 Catalonia, Spain 77 CDA (Critical Discourse Analysis) 14 CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) 64, 86 Cervantes Institute 75 China 126–127, 270; Gaokao (National Matriculation Examination) 126, 127, 143 Chinese languages: at Boğaziçi University 106; at Shantou University 128, 130, 132, 138, 142; at Waseda University (UTP) 159–160, 165–166; at University of Southampton (UoS) 236, 238, 240–241, 243, 247, 249, 252; at University of Zaragoza (UZ) 83; see also Mandarin Chinese university see Shantou University
Cho, J. 71n1 CLIL (content and language integrated learning) 52, 114 code-mixing 217 code-switching: in classroom 88, 92, 132, 143, 160–167, 217, 269; and exclusion 270, 271–272; and linguistic landscape (LL) 210; unintentional 42; verbal and written 112 coercion mechanism 11, 115 colonialism 173, 184, 192, 269 Common European Framework of Reference for Languages see CEFR Communities of Practice framework 5 complementary signage 13, 67, 68, 106 content and language integrated learning see CLIL contextualisation 39–40, 41 cooperative languaging 40, 42–44, 45 corpus analysis 248 Critical Discourse Analysis see CDA critical language policy 10, 226 critical multilingualism see multilingualism cross-languaging 24, 43–44, 45 deaf, languages of 197, 218; see also sign languages deconstructionist approach 206–207 discourse analysis 14, 25, 79, 129, 130, 230–231 duplicating signage 13, 67–68, 106 EAP (English for Academic Purposes) 90, 114–116 East Asia 6, 55, 152, 167, 174, 211, 213, 243 EFTA see European Free Trade Association EHEA see European Higher Education Area ELE see Español como Lengua Extranjera ELF (English as lingua franca): concept of 4; as factor for mobility 3; literature 4; at Monash University (AU) 215, 224; and multilingualism 9, 10; as “second-order contact” 5, 6; at Shantou University 144; at University of Helsinki 23–46; at University of Malaya (UM) 186, 191; at University of Zaragoza (UZ) 79, 85, 87, 88, 89, 91–92; at Waseda University (UTP) 153, 154, 155, 156, 160–161, 162, 163, 164, 166–168 ELFA (ELF in Academic Settings) 4, 23, 66, 226, 263 ELT (English Language Teaching) 89, 153; see also Shantou University
276 Index
EMEMUS (“English-Medium Education in Multilingual Settings”) 6 English: as default language 173, 197, 211; entry requirements for 268–270; see also American English; ELF (English as lingua franca); standard native English English as native language see ENL English for Academic Purposes see EAP “English-Medium Education in Multilingual Settings” see EMEMUS English-taught programmes see ETPs English-taught programmes in European higher education study 76–77 European Free Trade Association (EFTA) 76–77 ENL (English as native language) 5, 100, 103, 114, 115, 117, 185 Erasmus + mobility programme 7; University of Siena (UNISI) 52, 53, 56, 61, 63, 71n1; University of Zaragoza (UZ) 75, 80, 83, 89, 90 Español como Lengua Extranjera (ELE) 74 ethnocentricism 207 ethnographic approach 11, 14, 25, 79, 156, 272; see also Monash University (AU) ‘ethnolects’ 211–212, 213 ethnorelativism 207 ETPs (English-taught programmes), Spain 76–77 EU (European Union) 52, 53, 55, 57, 71n1, 75, 80, 266; see also Erasmus + mobility programme EURAXESS Centre, Aragon 81 European Higher Education Area (EHEA) 57 European integration 57, 70, 71n1 European Union see EU exclusion international students 38, 98, 181, 250, 270, 271–272 Expanding circle countries 55, 152–153, 154 Finland: academic languages 26–27; trilingualism 270; Universities Act 2009 27; see also Helsinki, University of Finnish language 27–29, 30, 33, 35, 36–39 “first-order contact” 5 former Soviet republics, students from 55, 56 fragment recognition 40–41, 45 fragmentary signs 13, 98, 106 France 51, 55, 75 French language 71n9, 81, 82, 247–248, 255
Galicia, Spain 77 Gaokao (Chinese National Matriculation Examination) 126, 127, 143 gatekeeping 30, 143 Ghana, students from 55 global financial crisis 2008 51 global league tables, higher education 8 globalisation 130, 144, 191, 271 Greece, students from 55 IELTS (International English Language Testing System) 103, 104, 114, 188, 232, 254, 168 India, students from 55 Inner circle countries 143, 151, 152–153, 154 Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) 75, 78 Integrated Skills in English test see ISE International English Language Testing System see IELTS internationalisation 264–268; Australian higher education 199, 204; Chinese Higher Education 127, 128, 130– 131, 138; Foskett’s model of 17n1; Malaysian higher education 172, 173; at Monash University (AU) 198, 208, 217; Spanish higher education 75–78; Turkish higher education 97; at University of Helsinki 23, 24, 28, 38, 44; at University of Malaya (UM) 173–175, 191; at University of Siena (UNISI) 50, 52, 53–63, 65, 66, 70; at University of Southampton (UoS) 233, 257, 258; at University of Zaragoza (UZ) 80, 83–84, 85, 90–92 intertextuality 70 ISE (Integrated Skills in English) test 232 ISI see Institute for Scientific Information Italian language: at Monash University (AU) 208, 209; at University of Siena (UNISI) 55, 59–60, 63–64, 66–69, 71n9; at University of Southampton (UoS) 245 Italy 51–53; see also UNISI (University of Siena) Japan 150, 153; see also UTP (University in Tokyo) (Waseba University) Japan Society for Promotion of Science see JSPS Japanese language 150–151, 154–5, 158–164, 166–167, 216, 268 JCR (Journal Citation Report) journals 78, 90
Index 277
Journal Citation Report journals see JCR JSPS (Japan Society for Promotion of Science) 155–157 language ideology: Australian 199; and linguistic landscapes (LL) 14, 129; at Shantou University 135; Shohamy on 11; Spolsky on 10–11; at University of Siena (UNISI) 68; at University of Southampton (UoS) 226, 258; and world Englishes (WE) 4 languages, hierarchy of 139–140, 210–214; standard native English as norm 104–105, 113–118, 143–144, 185, 232, 235, 250, 258–259, 268; idea of 8–9 languaging 24–26; cooperative 42–44, 45; metalinguistic representations of 39–45; productive 41–42, 45; receptive 39–41, 45 Latin 26, 27 Latin America, students from 75 lexicogrammatical simplification 41 linguistic mindscape studies (LMS) 205, 207 LL (linguistic landscaping) 13–14, 98; at Boğaziçi University 99–100, 105–110; at Monash University (AU) 205, 207, 215–216; at Shantou University 138–141; at University of Southampton (UoS) 229, 234–248; at University of Helsinki 25, 29–39; at University of Siena (UNISI) 65–69 LMS see linguistic mindscape studies Malay language 173, 174–175, 178–182 Malaysia: internationalisation 172, 173; Malaysia Education Blueprint 2015–2025 (Higher Education) (MEB (HE)) 172; National Education Policy 174; number of international students 172 Malaysian University English Test 188 Mandarin language 128, 129, 134 Manglish 182, 183 marketisation 92 Marriott, H. 199, 203, 207, 214, 215 METU (Middle East Technical University), Ankara 96 Middle East, students from 55, 173 Milan Polytechnic 53, 66, 67 monolingualism: in Australia 201, 202; at Boğaziçi University 105, 106, 107, 112, 117–118; in Finland 27, 39; at Monash University (AU) 212, 214; at Shantou University 138; University of Siena (UNISI) linguistic landscape (LL)
66, 67; at University of Southampton (UoS) 229, 233, 234; at University of Zaragoza (UV) 74–92; at Waseba University (UTP) 153, 154, 155, 165 “multilingual repertoire” 6 multilingualism: in Australia 199–202; and English as lingua franca (ELF) 3, 5–6, 7, 9, 24; at Monash University (AU) 203, 210, 212; at Shantou University 140, 141; at University of Helsinki 27, 28; at University of Southampton (UoS) 227, 243, 248, 258 multimodality 14, 15, 56, 218 multivarietalism 200–202, 209–212 native English see standard native English NES (native English speakers) 4, 39, 40, 105, 111, 115, 116 neoliberalism 51 NNES (non-native English speakers) 111, 234–236 non-essentialist approach 91 North Africa, students from 52, 55 North America, students from 53 NSE (native speakers of English) 153–154, 185 OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) International Migration Outlook 2016 52 Official Gazette 97 Outer circle countries 55, 56, 152–153, 154 overlapping signs 13, 67, 98 Pakistan, students from 55 Pearson Test of English see PTE phonetic simplification 41–42 polylanguaging 24 Portugal, students from 75, 83 Portuguese language 81, 82 postcolonialism 4, 270 power relations 13 productive languaging 41–42, 45 PTE (Pearson Test of English) 232 receptive languaging 39–41, 45 regional language preservation 77 Royal Academy of the Spanish Language 74–75 Russia 27, 55 Secure English Language Tests see SELTS Seidlhofer, B. 4, 88, 91
278 Index
SELF project see Studying in English as a Lingua Franca project SELTS (Secure English Language Tests) 232 Shantou University, China 125–145; adoption of English as medium of instruction (EMI) 127; analysis 141–145; analysis of syllabi 131; bilingualism 129, 132, 138; College English Curriculum Requirements (CECR) 126–127; Centre for Independent Language Learning (CILL) 139; Confucianism 126; course materials 132–133; data collection and analysis 128–130; English language teaching (ELT) 126–128; English as lingua franca (ELF) 144; English as gatekeeper 143; foreign-language only policy 139–141; Gaokao (National Matriculation Examination) reforms 143; internationalisation 138; language choice and use 132; language ideology 135; language requirements 133–134, 137–138, 143; language use in and after class 134–136; linguistic landscaping (LL) 138–141; local dialects 128; methodology 128–130; multilingualism 140, 141; perceptions of EMI courses 136–137; research context 128; standard native English 143–144; student interviews 133–137; teacher interviews 137–138; translanguaging 143; websites 130–131 sign languages 212, 213, 218, 271 signage: complementary 13, 67, 68, 106; duplicating 13, 67–68, 106; overlapping 13, 67, 98; see also LL (linguistic landscaping) similect 4–5, 269 slipping 41, 42 South America, students from 55 Spain: “closed continental system” 51; CNEAI (National Commission for the Assessment of Research Activity) 78; demand for English as medium of instruction (EMI) 77; foreign language education 89; internationalisation of higher education 75–78; language of academic research 78; regional language preservation 77; “Strategy for the internationalisation of Spanish universities 2015–2020” 77; see also UZ (University of Zaragoza) Spanish language 74–75, 270 Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology 78 standard native English: acceptance as norm 104–105, 113–118, 143–144,
185, 232, 235, 250, 258–259, 268; idea of 8–9; internationalisation and 85; lexicogrammatical simplification and 41–42 Studying in English as a Lingua Franca (SELF) project 45 sub-Saharan Africa, students from 55 Swedish language 26–29 Test of English as a Foreign Language see TOEFL TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) 64–65, 103, 114, 188, 232, 268 Torres Strait Islander languages 197, 212, 213, 215, 218 transitory encounters 5–6 translanguaging 269–270, 271; at Monash University (AU) 215–216; at Shantou University 143; at University of Helsinki 24; at University of Zaragoza (UZ) 92; at Waseda University (UTP) 160–161 trilingualism: Boğaziçi University linguistic landscape (LL) 105, 106, 107; in Finland 270; at University of Helsinki 23–46, 267 Trinity College London ISE (Integrated Skills in English) test 232 tripartite language policy framework (Spolsky) 11 Turkey: English as medium of instruction (EMI) 96–97; Higher Education Council laws 111; internationalisation of higher education 97; language policy 97–98; linguistic landscaping (LL) 98; private sector higher education (HE) 96–97; see also Boğaziçi University Turkish language 105, 107–110, 112, 117 UK see UoS (University of Southampton) UM (University of Malaya) 173–192; acceptable types of English 182–185; accommodative behaviour 185–188; bilingualism 175, 181, 182; Client Charter 174; data analysis 177–191; English as lingua franca 186, 191; internationalisation 173–175, 191; language requirement 188–191; methodology 176–177; number of international students 174; policy on medium of instruction (MOI) 174–175; staff language 181–182, 183, 185, 190; use of Malay 178–182 UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization) 172
Index 279
UNISI (University of Siena) 50–70; analytic framework 56–57; bilingualism 56, 60–61, 63, 67; EMI Attractiveness Index 54; English as medium of instruction (EMI) courses 53–56; Eramus + mobility programme 52, 53, 56, 61, 63, 71n1; framework and data selection 56–57; governance 70; International Office 62–63; internationalisation 50, 52, 53–63, 65, 66, 70; language ideology 68; linguistic landscapes (LL) 65–69; policy documents 57–62; structure of governance 70; Student Enrolment Office 63–64; website 62–65 University of Helsinki 23–46; bilingualism 24, 26, 27, 28; cooperative languaging 42–44, 45; data and methods 25–26; English as lingua franca (ELF) 23–46; Finnish as default language 35–36; framework 23–25; global awareness as priority 24; history of language use 26–27; internationalisation 23, 24, 28, 38, 44; interview questions 48; linguistic landscapes (LL) 25, 29–39; multilingualism 27, 28; participants 49; productive languaging 41–42; receptive languaging 39–41, 45; Studying in English as a Lingua Franca (SELF) project 45; translanguaging 24; trilingualism 23–46, 267; University Language Policy 25, 27–29; website 29 UoS (University of Southampton) 226–259; admission test 232; classroom observation analysis 248–250; documentary analysis 230–233; intercultural awareness 250, 259; internationalisation 233, 257, 258; interview analysis 251–256; language ideology 226, 258; language policies 258; linguistic landscaping (LL) 229, 234–248; methodology 227–230; multilingualism 227, 243, 248, 258;
number of international students 226; observation 230 US-based English see American English UTP (university in Tokyo) (Waseda University) 149–168; classroom interaction 155–164; diversity of staff 153; English as lingua franca 153, 154, 155, 156, 160–161, 162, 163, 164, 166–168; intercultural communication 165–166; Japanese as lingua franca (JLF) 160; language background of student population 151; language policy 150–151; multilingual students 149–150; native speakers of English (NSE) 153–154; number of international students 151–154; study abroad programme 154–155; translanguaging 160–161; use of Chinese characters 160 UZ (University of Zaragoza) 75–92; analytical framework 78–70; bilingualism 77, 83, 88, 89, 90; cross-border campuses 80; document analysis 80–86; English as lingua franca (ELF) 79, 85, 87, 88, 89, 91–92; English use in research 75; Erasmus + mobility programme 75, 80, 83, 89, 90; Huesca campus 75, 81, 83; Iberus campus 75, 80; internationalisation 80, 83–84, 85, 90–92; language and disciplinary traditions 90; lecture analysis 86–89; number of foreign students 75; staff attitudes and perceptions 89–91; Teruel campus 75, 82, 83; translanguaging 92; use of English and marketisation 92; website 81–86 Valencia, Spain 77 WE (world Englishes) 4, 215 world Englishes see WE WrELFA (written ELF) 23