A comparison of the language policies of two public universities (in Brazil and Spain). Both universities were prompted to draw up policies by national initiatives related to the internationalisation of higher education and we explore the extent to which these policies have been informed by research.
In this paper we compare the recently published language policies of two medium-sized public universities, each located in the capital of their regions, one in the global South (Brazil) and one in the North (Spain). We find that both universities were prompted to draw up policies by national initiatives related to the internationalisation of higher education and we explore the extent to which these policies have been informed by research. In line with Spolsky’s tripartite distinction (2003) we explore the beliefs, practices and planning relating to bi- and multilingual initiatives in the two universities. Our discussion encompasses the RO (Roles of English) in the ROAD-MAPPING framework (Dafouz & Smit, 2014); the tensions between attracting international students and local enrichment initiatives (IaH - Internationalisation at Home) (Crowther et al. 2000) and the pedagogic praxis envisaged in classrooms. References Crowther, P., Joris, M., Otten, M., Nilsson, B., Teekens, H. and Wächter, B. (2000). Internationalisation at Home: a position paper. Amsterdam: EAIE. Dafouz, E. and Smit, U. (2014). Towards a dynamic conceptual framework for English-medium education in multilingual university settings. Applied Linguistics 37 (3), 397-415. Spolsky, B. (2003). Language Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
