English as a Lingua Franca in the International University

The Politics of Academic English Language Policy

Jennifer Jenkins

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135124472
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Filología
• Subtopic: Lingüística

In this book, Jennifer Jenkins, one of the leading proponents of English as a Lingua Franca, explores current academic English language policy in higher education around the world.

Universities around the world are increasingly presenting themselves as "international" but their English language policies do not necessarily reflect this, even as the diversity of their student bodies grows. While there have been a number of attempts to explore the implications of this diversity from a cultural perspective, little has been said from the linguistic point of view, and in particular, about the implications for what kind(s) of English are appropriate for English lingua franca communication in international higher education.

Throughout the book Jenkins considers the policies of English language universities in terms of the language attitudes and ideologies of university management and staff globally, and of international students in a UK setting. The book concludes by considering the implications for current policies and practices, and what is needed in order for universities to bring themselves in line linguistically with the international status they claim.

English as a Lingua Franca in the International University is an essential read for researchers and postgraduate students working in the areas of Global Englishes, English as a Lingua Franca and English for Academic Purposes.

1

ENGLISH, THE LINGUA FRANCA OF THE GLOBAL ACADEMY

Setting the scene

In March 2009 during a research strategy seminar held by the Centre for Applied Language Research at the University of Southampton, one speaker, the multilingualism scholar Gabriele Budach, posed the following question:

How do we respond in our teaching to an academic culture that is becoming more and more globalized, and the needs of students with diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds?

The “we” in the question referred, presumably, to the members of the Centre and perhaps also to all our colleagues in the wider University. But it could equally well be taken to include all academics in the UK and, indeed, all globally, given that academic culture “is becoming more and more globalized” around the entire world.

In essence, this book is an attempt to answer Budach's simple but profound question. She herself would no doubt have approached the issues it raises from a multilingualism perspective, particularly the implications for generating and disseminating knowledge in languages other than English, and for their mother tongue speakers (see, e.g., Ferguson 2007 in relation to Europe); and she would very likely have focused on the cultural aspects of the question as much as the linguistic. While I would not want to minimize in any way the critical importance of such concerns, my own interest is in the linguistic issues raised by the question. Specifically, given that globalization has gone hand-in-hand with the globalization of English, I am interested in what globalization means for English language use and users in Higher Education settings around the world. And while the prime focus of this book is on the implications of the globalization of English for its non-native speakers, particularly so-called ‘international students’ studying in Anglophone contexts, the chapters that follow also consider the question in relation to other kinds of English users, be they home students and staff at Anglophone universities, students and staff at so-called ‘offshore’ or ‘branch’ universities of Anglophone universities in overseas settings, or native and non-native English speakers at English medium instruction (EMI) universities in mainland Europe, East Asia, and Latin America.

The chapters of this book, along with the research underpinning them, combine my two main academic preoccupations: English as a Lingua Franca, and the international student language experience. English as a Lingua Franca (henceforth ELF) refers, in a nutshell, to the world's most extensive contemporary use of English, in essence, English when it is used as a contact language between people from different first languages (including native English speakers). I have been working on ELF since the 1980s when I began investigating phonological accommodation in ELF communication for my PhD. Since then, empirical research into ELF and academic ELF (ELFA) has grown dramatically, and in the process has demonstrated numerous ways in which English is used effectively by its (majority) non-native lingua franca speakers but often differently from ways in which it is used among native English speakers (see Chapter Two for a fuller definition of ELF and discussion of empirical ELF research, Chapter Three for a discussion of ELFA specifically).

My interest in the international student¹ language experience has developed in parallel with that in ELF as a result of my role as supervisor to large numbers of postgraduate, particularly doctoral, students for whom English is not their mother tongue, and the majority of whom come from Asia. At exactly the same time as ELF research has been questioning the validity of the current widespread insistence on native English norms for non-native English speakers, I have thus had the opportunity to observe at first hand the often negative impact of this insistence on non-native English students studying at university through the medium of English. And increasingly, the findings of empirical ELF/ELFA research and the experiences of my students as well as those of others' students (see, e.g., Hyland, Trahar, Anderson, and Dickens 2008, Montgomery 2010, Trahar 2011), have combined to feed a conviction that university students and staff, including native English speakers, are poorly served by the linguistic status quo, and that academic English policies and practices need to be brought into line with, and better reflect, the sociolinguistic reality of international university life, to which I turn next.

The changing global landscape of Higher Education

The terms ‘globalization’ and ‘internationalization’ are often used interchangeably. However, in many areas of life, Higher Education being a prime example, it makes far better sense to distinguish the two. Starting with globalization, Maringe and Foskett (2010) point out that while there is no single agreed definition of the concept, it is generally understood to mean “the creation of world relations based on the operation of free markets” (p. 1). Internationalization, they continue, is a key strategy by which universities have responded to the influence of globalization and is, itself, widely taken to mean “the integration of an international or intercultural dimension into the tripartite mission of teaching, research and service functions of Higher Education” (ibid.).

Foskett (2010: 44–45) categorizes universities globally into five groups: Domestic universities, which focus on their own local (regional and national) context and are therefore largely outside the interests of this book; Imperialist 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’” (p. 44); Internationally aware universities “which are changing their organization and culture to have a profile that is international … but have not yet engaged with ‘overseas’” (p. 45); Internationally engaged universities which are “driving an internationalization agenda ‘at home’. This typically includes curriculum review to make the teaching programmes global in perspective and to provide an international experience” as well as “encouraging staff to seek research and education partnerships overseas”² (ibid.); and finally Internationally focused universities, “a small number where the level of progress and achievement in internationalization is strong in many dimensions, and where the cultural change within the university has been transformational” (ibid.).

Foskett's categories are derived from the analysis of a survey of 23 universities, 7 within the UK and 16 in Asia. The universities surveyed were found to spread across all five categories, but with only three being in the ‘Internationally focused’ group, revealing in the other 20 cases a gap of some sort “between strategic aspiration and strategic reality” (Foskett 2010: 45). In the ‘Imperialist’ group, for example, a primary (although not explicitly stated) interest seemed to be in the economic rewards of international student recruitment rather than in promoting an international culture. This, Ferguson (2007) argues, is a prime feature of international universities in mainland Europe, where universities have introduced English medium courses in order firstly, “to attract fee-paying international students”, secondly, “to enhance the university's international prestige and contacts” (again, likely to bring financial rewards), and thirdly, “to develop the English language skills of their staff and students” (p. 13). Their actions, he believes, are conditioned by “the globalization and commodification of higher education in a competitive, market-driven world characterized by the increased mobility of academics and students, and by the increased ease of international communication” (p. 14). Thus, when any university around the world advertises itself as ‘international’ or ‘global’, as increasing numbers do,³ we cannot be at all sure what this entails in practice. Whether this same ambiguity extends to English language policies and practices, or whether international universities around the world adopt a more uniform approach to English language issues regardless of differences in other respects across Foskett's five categories, is an empirical question, and one which this book goes some way to answering.

Central to the internationalization of Higher Education (henceforth HE), as Ferguson (ibid.) points out, is student (and to a lesser extent, staff) mobility, which is leading above all to a massive increase in the number of international students. The English mother tongue countries, particularly the US, the UK, and Australia, along with France and Germany, currently account for the largest number of students from outside their own borders. According to the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) (2010: 314), in 2008 these countries were responsible for just over 50 per cent of such students, with the US taking 18.7 per cent, the UK 10 per cent, Germany 7.3 per cent, France 7.3 per cent, and Australia 6.9 per cent, although figures vary according to source. For example, while Maringe and Foskett (2010), put the total market share of these five nations at 56 per cent, close to the OECD's figure, Woodfield (2010) considers that it may be as high as 70 per cent. But whatever the precise figure, it is clear that these five nations accounted in 2008 for the education of over half the total of foreign students in tertiary education globally, while, according to the OECD (2010: 314), the mother tongue English countries (US, UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand) together accounted for just short of 43 per cent.

However, there have also recently been growing transnational flows within both mainland Europe (e.g. into Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands) and the Asia-Pacific region (e.g. into China, Hong Kong, and Malaysia), as universities start teaching in English medium in order to attract more students from outside (Woodfield 2010). According to the OECD (2010: 315), while “an increasing number of institutions in non-English-speaking countries now offer courses in English to overcome their linguistic disadvantage” vis-à-vis the dominance of English medium in attracting foreign students, “this trend is particularly noticeable in countries in which the use of English is widespread, such as the Nordic countries”, as can be seen from Table 1.1 below. At the time of writing, it is not yet clear whether this trend will continue, while a further complicating factor is the

TABLE 1.1 OECD and partner countries offering tertiary programmes in English (2008)

Use of English in instruction	OECD and partner countries
All or nearly all programmes offered in English	Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, United Kingdom, United States
Many programmes offered in English	Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden
Some programmes offered in English	Belgium (Fl.), Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Japan, Korea, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Switzerland, Turkey
No or nearly no programmes offered in English	Austria, Belgium (Fr.), Chile, Greece, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, Portugal, Russian Federation, Spain

Source: OECD, compiled from brochures for prospective international students by OAD (Austria), CHES and NARI (Czech Republic), Cirius (Denmark), CIMO (Finland), EduFrance (France), DAAD (Germany), Campus Hungary (Hungary), University of Iceland (Iceland), JPSS (Japan), NIIED (Korea), NUFFIC (Netherlands), SIU (Norway), CRASP (Poland), Swedish Institute (Sweden) and Middle-East Technical University (Turkey) (OECD 2010: 316).

substantial growth in the number of offshore branches of local (mainly Anglophone) universities, particularly in the Asian region, where English is again the usual medium of instruction.

The mobility of people involved in HE has meant a far greater degree of contact and interconnectedness across borders than has been the case hitherto (Held, McGrew, Goldblatt, and Perraton 1999). Accompanying this, on the one hand, there have been new homogenizing discourses and activities across global HE, such as the Lisbon Strategy and Bologna Process in Europe, and a global increase in the use of uniform international English language tests for university entry. In Gibbs's view, the result is that “distinct forms of higher education have become homogenized in a collusion of mediocrity based on immediacy, hedonism and financial return” (2010: 251). On the other hand, mobility has also meant a substantial increase in the diversity of individual university populations, as people from various parts of the world, often with very different linguistic and cultural backgrounds, converge on the same university site to learn, teach, and research either partly or entirely through the medium of English. The globalization of English is thus particularly well exemplified in HE, where it has become a key aspect of the strategic response to globalization of many universities. In other words, the English language is playing a major role in the internationalization of global HE.

Furthermore, the existence of growing numbers of universities teaching some or all of their courses in English in addition to the large numbers of international students studying in Anglophone universities means, in practice, that for the first time there are probably more non-native than native English speakers using English for at least some purposes on university campuses around the world. Mauranen and Ranta (2008) argue that this situation “calls for a better understanding of the way English is used in the new circumstances where the native speaker may not be present, and where Standard [i.e. native] English may not be the most relevant norm” (p. 199). Seidlhofer (2011) puts it more strongly: “it is important to realize that native-speaker language use is just one kind of reality, and one of very doubtful relevance for lingua franca contexts” (p. 19). International universities are prime examples of such “lingua franca contexts”, and yet these universities have not even begun to consider the possible linguistic implications of their diverse student and staff make-up. What does it mean, for example, for the kind of English that is required in entry tests, or that is acceptable (or not) to those who assess students' content work, or that is the focus of the teaching of English for Academic Purposes?

Attempts to address such questions are likely to exacerbate existing tensions between those who favour the homogenization of English and those who take a broader ELF-oriented view. This is particularly likely in Anglophone countries, where even those academics who acknowledge the appropriateness of different kinds of English in non-Anglophone HE settings tend to adopt a proverbial ‘when in Rome, do as the Romans do’ position at home. And in my experience this also applies to many non-native academics working in Anglophone contexts as well as to those commenting on Anglophone contexts from outside. For example, Klitgård (2011: 185) argues that this approach “does not have to be the norm in a non-English-speaking educational system” but is “obviously” so in English-speaking settings.

In adopting this stance, academics ignore not only the needs of non-mobile home students for ‘internationalization at home’ (Jackson 2010, Turner and Robson 2008; and see the penultimate section of this chapter), but also the fact that international students in Anglophone countries, especially at postgraduate level, tend to be taught and to socialize largely in English lingua franca groups where the majority of their peers are also non-native English speakers. As an example, my own experience of teaching at different UK universities has been that at masters and doctoral levels, and increasingly also at undergraduate level, the vast majority of my students (postgraduate) and a sizeable minority (undergraduate) have been international students from different language backgrounds who speak English mainly among themselves for both academic and social purposes, and do so happily and successfully as well as using their mother tongues with each other where appropriate. However, this ‘grassroots interconnectedness’ is of a very different order and status from the ‘homogenizing from above’ t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• 1 English, the lingua franca of the global academy
• 2 The spread of English as a Lingua Franca
• 3 ELFA and other approaches to academic English
• 4 Researching English language policies and practices in international universities
• 5 How international universities orient to English on their websites
• 6 Staff perspectives on their universities' English language policies and practices
• 7 Conversations with international students
• Afterword: Taking stock and looking ahead
• Appendix 1: Universities in the website study
• Appendix 2: University staff questionnaire
• Appendix 3: Questionnaire main and sub-themes
• Appendix 4: Interview transcription conventions
• References
• Index