In Switzerland and Hong Kong respectively, neither Swiss German nor Cantonese are considered to be academic languages. Drawing on two university sites, the University of Fribourg in Switzerland and the Hong Kong Education University, we shall argue that both should be taught as languages for academic purposes/as academic languages.
Multilingual Switzerland has four national languages, German, French, Italian and Romansh. While German is one of the national languages, the type of German is not specified. This is significant, as the German spoken by Swiss Germanophones comprises varieties of Swiss or Alemannic German, not Standard German. In multilingual Hong Kong, the government’s aim is for citizens to be trilingual in Cantonese, Putonghua and English and biliterate in Chinese and English. Neither Swiss German nor Cantonese are considered to be academic languages. In this presentation, we shall argue that both Alemannic German and Cantonese should be taught as languages for academic purposes/as academic languages. We shall illustrate our argument by drawing on two university sites, the University of Fribourg in Switzerland and the Hong Kong Education University. Fribourg/Freiburg University is Switzerland’s only officially bilingual university, with French and German, as well as English as a lingua franca, whose use has developed bottom-up and runs counter to the university’s language policy, with all three being used as languages of learning and teaching. Swiss German is used orally, but Standard German is expected on formal occasions. The university Language Centre’s most popular German course has been ‘Comprehending Swiss German’. However, university management has curtailed the ‘Comprehending Swiss German’ course on the grounds that Swiss German is not an academic language. In Hong Kong, Cantonese is not taught as an academic language in higher education despite being by far the most used language in both informal and formal domains. Most universities are English medium and the Hong Kong Education University is the only one which treats Cantonese as an academic language. We shall conclude by arguing that, as both Alemannic German and Cantonese fulfil the full range of functions, they should be taught as academic languages.
