The convergence between internationalisation and language policy in higher education: a discursive analysis of language implications for internationally engaged universities

Enmarcada en el contexto de la globalización y motivada por comprender el impacto de las actuales políticas educativas de corte neoliberal, esta tesis doctoral busca examinar cómo el discurso de la internacionalización, la cual se considera un efecto directo de la globalización, se construye a nivel nacional en las universidades españolas. También busca identificar y analizar de forma crítica los retos que el inglés y otras lenguas plantean en dicho proceso, y en particular, las implicaciones que de ello se derivan en contextos de instituciones monolingües. La metodología de trabajo empleada se basó en un enfoque mixto que combinó técnicas cuantitativas propias de la lingüística de corpus con técnicas cualitativas propias del análisis crítico del discurso. Estas técnicas se aplicaron a un corpus de documentos sobre estrategias de internacionalización y política lingüística organizados en tres niveles: el supranacional, con documentos europeos y nacionales, el nacional, que incluye documentos estratégicos de universidades españolas,y el local, que examina la presencia de la internacionalización y las lenguas en un estudio de caso concreto, el de la Universidad de Zaragoza.Los resultados principales muestran que la internacionalización se lleva a cabo a través de estrategias en el extranjero, como la movilidad, y estrategias en el campus local, especialmente en el área de la educación y la enseñanza. Tanto el inglés como los idiomas aparecieron como elementos protagonistas de la internacionalización de las universidades, lo que apoya las reivindicaciones previas de la literatura científica sobre el papel predominante del inglés como la lengua de internacionalización en la educación superior.En lo relativo a la política lingüística, los datos revelan dos ideologías principales en los documentos. Por un lado, el inglés se asocia con la visibilidad internacional y como herramienta para atraer audiencias internacionales. Por otro lado, se observa un discurso proteccionista con respecto a las lenguas locales y un compromiso hacia la adquisición de la competencia plurilingüe, acciones que recaen en la regulación y planificación lingüística. Avalando los resultados de estudios previos sobre el tema, se puede concluir que el apoyo institucional y la existencia de documentos escritos son clave para el éxito de los objetivos de internacionalización de las universidades. Como demuestran los resultados de esta tesis, una estrategia claramente articulada y una red fuerte de servicios de apoyo son esenciales para incentivar a la comunidad universitaria a participar en talesiniciativas de internacionalización y lenguas.In delving into the context of globalising trends and neoliberal educational policies, this PhD thesis aims to explore how the discourse of internationalisation, which is considered to be a direct consequence of globalisation, is constructed in top-down policies of universities. In particular, this study sought to identify and critically discuss the challenges and implications that English and other languages bring to the internationalisation process of predominantly monolingual institutions. The methodology used in the study drew on a mixed methods approach that combined quantitative corpus linguistics techniques with qualitative enquiry, namely, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). Both approaches were applied to a corpus of internationalisation and language policy documents organised into three main layers: the macro-level of European and national policies, the meso-level of institutional strategic documents from Spanish universities, and the micro-level, encompassing the internationalisation plan and language policy documents of a case study, the University of Zaragoza, a medium-sized primarily monolingual university in Spain. In general, the main findings of this study showed that the implementation of internationalisation is done through a combination of internationalisation abroad strategies, namely, mobility, as well as an approach to internationalisation at home in teaching activities in English. The findings showed that languages lie at the core of the internationalisation agenda of universities, thus supporting the previous claims of the literature on the ‘Englishisation’ of higher education. Turning to language policy, a two-fold mission was encountered in the documents. On the one hand, English was associated with international visibility and considered a tool to attract international audiences. On the other hand, there was a maintenance stance for the local languages and commitment towards the acquisition of multilingual language competence, which calls for language management and language planning. Supporting the existing literature on internationalisation studies and language policy in Higher Education, it is concluded that top-down support and written plans are crucial for the success of institutional objectives. According to this PhD study findings, a well-articulated strategy and strong support services are essential to foster all stakeholders’ engagement in internationalisation and language-related initiatives.<br /

Proceedings of the COLING 2004 Post Conference Workshop on Multilingual Linguistic Ressources MLR2004

International audienceIn an ever expanding information society, most information systems are now facing the "multilingual challenge". Multilingual language resources play an essential role in modern information systems. Such resources need to provide information on many languages in a common framework and should be (re)usable in many applications (for automatic or human use). Many centres have been involved in national and international projects dedicated to building har- monised language resources and creating expertise in the maintenance and further development of standardised linguistic data. These resources include dictionaries, lexicons, thesauri, word-nets, and annotated corpora developed along the lines of best practices and recommendations. However, since the late 90's, most efforts in scaling up these resources remain the responsibility of the local authorities, usually, with very low funding (if any) and few opportunities for academic recognition of this work. Hence, it is not surprising that many of the resource holders and developers have become reluctant to give free access to the latest versions of their resources, and their actual status is therefore currently rather unclear. The goal of this workshop is to study problems involved in the development, management and reuse of lexical resources in a multilingual context. Moreover, this workshop provides a forum for reviewing the present state of language resources. The workshop is meant to bring to the international community qualitative and quantitative information about the most recent developments in the area of linguistic resources and their use in applications. The impressive number of submissions (38) to this workshop and in other workshops and conferences dedicated to similar topics proves that dealing with multilingual linguistic ressources has become a very hot problem in the Natural Language Processing community. To cope with the number of submissions, the workshop organising committee decided to accept 16 papers from 10 countries based on the reviewers' recommendations. Six of these papers will be presented in a poster session. The papers constitute a representative selection of current trends in research on Multilingual Language Resources, such as multilingual aligned corpora, bilingual and multilingual lexicons, and multilingual speech resources. The papers also represent a characteristic set of approaches to the development of multilingual language resources, such as automatic extraction of information from corpora, combination and re-use of existing resources, online collaborative development of multilingual lexicons, and use of the Web as a multilingual language resource. The development and management of multilingual language resources is a long-term activity in which collaboration among researchers is essential. We hope that this workshop will gather many researchers involved in such developments and will give them the opportunity to discuss, exchange, compare their approaches and strengthen their collaborations in the field. The organisation of this workshop would have been impossible without the hard work of the program committee who managed to provide accurate reviews on time, on a rather tight schedule. We would also like to thank the Coling 2004 organising committee that made this workshop possible. Finally, we hope that this workshop will yield fruitful results for all participants

INTRODUCING TRANSLATION ACTIVITY: AN IMPLEMENTATION OF LANGUAGE MANTAINENCE IN CLASSROOM

Multilingual communities have language shift. This ‘shift’ can change the plurality of languages in those communities; it favors the more dominant language and pushes the minority to its death or loss (Holmes: 2001). And when one language dies or losses, this world also losses one of its treasures. Translation activity in schools, in the spirit of language maintenance, helps to mantain minority language over the presure from the dominant language. It also helps students appreciate values of both languages. This paper discusses how important introducing translation in language teaching as part of language maintenance

A Review of the "Digital Turn" in the New Literacy Studies

Digital communication has transformed literacy practices and assumed great importance in the functioning of workplace, recreational, and community contexts. This article reviews a decade of empirical work of the New Literacy Studies, identifying the shift toward research of digital literacy applications. The article engages with the central theoretical, methodological, and pragmatic challenges in the tradition of New Literacy Studies, while highlighting the distinctive trends in the digital strand. It identifies common patterns across new literacy practices through cross-comparisons of ethnographic research in digital media environments. It examines ways in which this research is taking into account power and pedagogy in normative contexts of literacy learning using the new media. Recommendations are given to strengthen the links between New Literacy Studies research and literacy curriculum, assessment, and accountability in the 21st century

"Language barrier" in UK newspapers 2010-2020: Figurative meaning, migration, and language needs

This article investigates the use of the expression “language barrier” in online and printed newspapers in the United Kingdom between 2010 and 2020. The analysis focuses on occurrences published in news items dealing with migration and language needs in multilingual UK contexts. The usage of the expression is discussed referring to policies addressing language needs of long-term and recent culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities. Language policy changes in the UK over the same period indicate an adoption of progressively negative connotations of the concept of “language barrier”, which reshaped language provision thus creating vulnerabilities for CALD communities. Being able to access information in a language that is understood in crisis settings relies on language policies recognising the linguistic diversity of the local population and accepting the need for language service provision for transient resident and/or recent arrivals in a country. The study focuses on the parallel between an increased frequency of use of the term in the UK media and a gradual dismantling of language service provision for the country’s CALD communities. Mapping the usage of “language barrier” leads the article to reflect on the politicization of the discourse on multilingualism, as historically the UK pursued ever stricter migration policies, leading to policy-making choices that risk increasing societal vulnerability