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The Sociolinguistics of Higher Education pp 17–41Cite as

Language Policy, Internationalisation, and Multilingual Higher Education: An Overview

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Abstract

The term ‘internationalisation’ is fraught with different meanings and ambiguities. As such, when applied to the university domain, it may end up obscuring, rather than illuminating, the major issues currently facing higher education around the world. Sociolinguistic studies of higher education, for their part, have focused on language policy as a site of struggle and tension. In non-anglophone contexts, it seems that the introduction of English is both linked to the internationalisation efforts of institutions and also plays a vital part in many of the present discussions and debates around the sustainability of linguistically diverse higher education systems, particularly in situations where a minority language has managed to attain a relatively solid presence within the university domain. We provide an overview of these issues in this chapter, starting with a discussion about what the concept of the internationalisation of higher education might mean, and then considering some of the key themes emerging from recent sociolinguistic studies of higher education.

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  1. Department of English, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Josep Soler

  2. Department of English and Linguistics, University of Lleida, Lleida, Spain

    Lídia Gallego-Balsà

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  1. Josep Soler
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Soler, J., Gallego-Balsà, L. (2019). Language Policy, Internationalisation, and Multilingual Higher Education: An Overview. In: The Sociolinguistics of Higher Education. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16677-9_2

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