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Reflections on EMI and the multilingual university in word and deed: Internationalisation, EMI and
bi/multilingualism in policy and practiceHartmut Haberland, Roskilde University
The Multilingual University: The impact of linguistic diversity in higher education in English-dominant and EMI contexts
Lleida, January 29, 2016 – ESRC seminar series
calpiuresearch
centre
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} An overview of some issues of EMI, based on experiences in the Nordic countries and especially Denmark
} Comparison between Northern Europe and Catalonia (on the basis of the other keynotes and the three panel discussions)
Outline of my presentation
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} On-line just in time: } Anne Fabricius, Janus Mortensen & Hartmut
Haberland 2016. The lure of internationalization: Paradoxical discourses of transnational student mobility, linguistic diversity and cross-¬cultural exchange. Higher Education
Outline of my presentation
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} Catalonia as part of Spain, Spain as part of a vague entity called ‘Southern Europe’ (a region within the EU?)
} Denmark as part of Scandinavia (with Sweden and Norway) and the ‘Nordic countries’ (Scandinavia plus Finland, Iceland and the autonomous units Greenland, Faroe Islands and Åland)
What to compare, and why compare?
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} “Yet the potential intercomprehensibility between French, Italian and the local official languages, Catalan and Spanish, is hardly contemplated in university internationalization strategies. ” (Moore in preparation)
} Block 2007, 2010, Barfod 2016 in press
A point of comparison: shared erasure
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} production of knowledge (recherche scientifique)} dissemination (diffusion)} education (formation)
(Rainer Enrique Hamel 2008)to be added:
} administration and self-governance
Language use and language choice in academia
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University types and language configurations(Mortensen and Haberland 2012: 192)
Four phases oftheDanishuniversity (inspired byBull2004)
University type Period Legitimizing principle Language_________________________________________________________________medievalandearly 15thand16th auctoritas (authority) Latinmodern university centuries
enlightenment 17thand18th ratio (reason) Latin,otheruniversity centuries European
languages,Danish
nationaluniversity 19thand20th nation Danishcenturies
post-national endof20th, market/ Danish,university 21thcentury bureaucracy English
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} Der Sprachenwechsel ist nie, auch nicht in den Wissenschaften, ein bloßer Austausch eines arbiträren Zeichensystems gegen ein anderes. . . Fü̈r die Wissenschaften des 18. Jahrhunderts war der Sprachenwechsel auch mit einem Funktionswandel der Universität und einer Neubewertung wissenschaftlicher Inhalte verbunden. (Schiewe 2000: 91–92)
} [Language change is never, not even in academia, a mere replacement of one arbitrary sign system by another. . . . For scholarship in the 18th century, language change was related to a transformation of the function of the university and a reassessment of academic content.]
Jürgen Schiewe 2000
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} Internationalization as an answer to the (perceived or real) challenges of globalization
} English as the language of globalisation or of globalism (Haberland 2009)?EMI programs are supposed to
} prepare local students for a global career} attract transnationally mobile (“international”)
students} provide possibilities for employing transnationally
mobile (“international”) teaching staff
Functions and purposes of internationalization
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} university administrators} teaching staff} local students} transnationally mobile students
} different internationalization projects that not always involve English, or involve English in the same way
Stakeholders
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} The inbuilt monolingual bias of EMI (English as the only shared language)
New problems
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} [1] Bertil Malmberg, part of Sprogets mekanisme: Tegn ogsymboler (in Danish, translated from Swedish)
} [2] Roman Jakobson, Tegn og sprogsystem (in Danish, translated from German)
} [3] Arne Næss, Tolking (in Norwegian)} [4] Per Linell, Språket och andra kommunikationssystem (in
Swedish)} [5] Erik Hansen, Den danske rigssprogsnorm (in Danish)} [6] Roman Jakobson, Metasprog som lingvistisk problem (in
Danish, translated from English)} [7] Roman Jakobson, Linguistics and Poetics (in English)} [8] Roger Fowler, Power (in English)} [9] Helga Kotthoff, So nah und doch so fern. Deutsch-
amerikanische pragmatische Unterschiede in universitären Milieus (in German).
New problems: monolingual bias
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} [1] Excerpts from Arne Næss, Communication and argument (same text as above in Næss’ own translation)
} [2] Roman Jakobson, Linguistics and poetics (same text)
} [3] Hartmut Haberland, Written and spoken language: relationship (an entry from the Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics)
} [4] Excerpts from Jacob Mey, When voices clash} [5] Roger Fowler, Power (as in 2002)} [6] Horace Miner, Body Ritual among the Nacirema} [7] Maribel Blasco, Stranger than the birds in our
garden?
New problems: monolingual bias
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} Linguistic capital of local students is often devaluated; so is the linguistic capital of the teachers (they experience lack of authenticity, Preisler 2014).
} But the same goes for transnationally mobile students (ERASMUS students).
New tensions: local linguistic capital
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} Administrative staff cannot cope
New tensions: administrative staff
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} Foreign academics feel marginalized and kept outside decision processes
New tensions: exclusion of non-Danish speakers
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} Transnationally mobile staff often complain that they have to make the effort to learn Danish and need (paid) time for that. English L1 colleagues have a huge privilege here: they only have to learn Danish, we others had to learn Danish andEnglish.
New tensions: burden of language learning
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} The Multilingual University of a bilingual speech community in Southern Europe. How might EMI affect language attitudes? Some views from a stakeholder’s perspective.
Keynote by Maria Pilar Safont-Jordà
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} I always wondered how to explain the role of English in a Catalan-speaking context and maybe the explanation is to be found in this quote from Lluís V. Aracil:«Perqué tothom pugui comunicar-se amb tothom, n’hiha prou que cadascú sàpiga només dos idiomes: et seupropi i una interlingua comuna a tots. … I la logica ensdiu que la interlingua europea farà automàticamentinútils les interlinguas dels imperis parroquials.» (Aracil1982: 37).
Keynote by Maria Pilar Safont-Jordà
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} The linguistic ecologies of multilingual universities: three PhD students discuss their current research.
} [Sònia Mas] Particularly interesting were to me the experiences of Catalan students at two campuses of the Danish University College VIA in Århus and Horsens.
Panel with Sònia Mas, Helena Torres & Vasilica Mocanu
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} The linguistic ecologies of multilingual universities: three PhD students discuss their current research.
} [Helena Torres] The mismatch between language policies and linguistic practices has been studied in Denmark as well, and Mia Madsen’s 2008 book is an excellent case study of a Natural Science department of a Danish university.
Panel with Sònia Mas, Helena Torres & Vasilica Mocanu
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} The linguistic ecologies of multilingual universities: three PhD students discuss their current research.
} [Vasilica Mocanu] It is interesting to see how ‘the language’ is defined locally. There are students that come to Denmark to learn Danish, but the international position of Danish is rather comparable to that of Finnish, Romanian and (except for Latin American Students) Catalan than to e.g. Italian.
} “Denmark is a little country and Danish is a difficult language” is a common autostereotype
Panel with Sònia Mas, Helena Torres & Vasilica Mocanu
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} Multilingual universities à la catalane
} Different causes – same consequences: state-induced Anglicization for different reasons with similar and different effects.
} Ramon Llull’s “we” and “I” perspectives show that language is not just an arbitrary sign system
} Translation is only a prothesis, we need the real, multilingual thing
Keynote by F. Xavier Vila Moreno
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} “Playing in the highest league” is not automatically achieved by switching to English (this was a favorite expression by former Danish minister of education Helge Sander).
} Actually, if you use the market argument, you have to understand the market. Our students cannot compete with Harvard graduates on their English skills, but they have Danish skills which should give them an international competitive edge.
Keynote by F. Xavier Vila Moreno
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} The challenges of administering and running EMI in a Catalan/Spanish bilingual university
} Problems are similar to Denmark and Sweden
Panel Cristian Solé, Romi Pena i Subirà, Marc Medrano & Carmina Nogareda
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} The student experience of EMI in the multilingual university
Panel with University of Lleida students
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} Linguistic capital in the sense of Bourdieu (including access to the legitimate languages) is always unevenly distributed.
} By comparison, the distribution seems to be more uneven in Catalonia compared to Denmark, making EMI an even more difficult project here than in Denmark.
} A number of pseudo-explanations• PISA• greater need to learn other languages in a small nation• quality of teaching• attitudes not favorable to successful learning• lack of ‘real’ motivation?• no sufficient return on investment
General conclusion
References} Aracil, Lluís V. 1982. Conflicte lingüístic i normalitzácio a l’Europa
nova. In L. V. Aracil ed. Papers de Sociolingüística. Barcelona: Editions de la Magrana.
} Block, David 2010. Speaking Romance-esque. In David Nunan & Julie Choi eds., Language and culture: Reflective narratives and the emergence of identity, 23-29. New York and London: Routledge.
} Fabricius, Anne, Janus Mortensen & Hartmut Haberland 2016. The lure of internationalization: Paradoxical discourses of transnational student mobility, linguistic diversity and cross-cultural exchange. Higher Education
} Haberland, Hartmut 2009. English – the language of globalism? Rask, Internationalt tidsskrift for sprog og kommunikation 30: 17-45.
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References
} Haberland, Hartmut 2014a. English from above and below, and from outside. In Anna Kristina Hultgren, Frans Gregersen & Jacob Thøgersen, eds. English in Nordic Universities: Ideologies and practices, 251-263. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
} Hartmut Haberland 2014b. Review of “English-Medium Instruction at Universities”, eds. Aintzane Doiz, David Lasagabaster & Juan Manuel Sierra, Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 2013. Rivista di PsicolinguisticaApplicata 14(1): 115-117.
} Haberland, Hartmut & Bent Preisler 2015. The position of Danish, English and other languages at Danish universities in the context of Danish society. In: F. Xavier Vila and Vanessa Bretxa, eds. Language Policy in Higher Education: The case of medium-sized languages, 15-42. Bristol: Multilingual Matters
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References
} Madsen, Mia 2008. “Der vil altid være brug for dansk”. En undersøgelse af 11 naturvidenskabelige forskeres grunde til at vælge henholdsvis dansk og engelsk i deres arbejde. Copenhagen: Københavns Universitet. (Københavnerstudier i tosprogethed, 48.)
} Mortensen, Janus & Hartmut Haberland 2012. English — the new Latin of academia? Danish universities as a case. IJSL 216: 175-198.
} Preisler, Bent 2005. Deconstructing ‘the domain of science’ as a sociolinguistic entity in EFL societies: The relationship between English and Danish in higher education and research. In: Bent Preisler et al. eds. The Consequences of Mobility: Linguistic and Sociocultural Contact Zones, 238-248. Roskilde: Institut for Sprog og Kultur, Roskilde Universitet.
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References} Preisler, Bent 2014. Lecturing in one’s first language or in English as a
lingua franca: The Communication of authenticity. Acta LinguisticaHafniensia 46(2): 218-242.
} Jacob Thøgersen 2010. “Parallelsproglighed” i teori og praksis. [“Parallelingualism” in theory and practice.] Nyt fra Sprognævnet2010(4): 1-5.
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