Recent developments concerning the use of English for teaching and research purposes

1 Introduction

In the last few decades there have been great developments in the use of languages for pedagogic and research purposes in Universities all over the world. These developments have strongly favoured English, which has become the preferred medium for international communication in many contexts. This spread of English as a lingua franca (ELF) has had relevant implications in the process of knowledge dissemination, where the need for a common language is particularly felt for the development of research at a global level.

However, this spread of English has not always been considered a great advantage in terms of better global communication, but has also aroused criticism as it has often been seen as a factor of marginalisation or even obliteration of important existing differences among non-English speaking communities, with the possible risk of a ‘colonisation’ process preventing the attainment of authentic intercultural discourse (Canagarajah 1999; Scollon and Wong Scollon 1995). As globalising trends commonly rely on covert strategies meant to reduce participants’ specificities, they are likely to hybridise local identities in favour of Anglocentric textual models. Globalisation thus offers a topical illustration of the interaction between linguistic and cultural factors in the construction of discourse, both within specialised domains and in wider contexts (Candlin and Gotti 2004, 2007). As language is strictly linked to the setting in which it is used, cultural elements operate as key contextual constraints, influencing both the level of discursive organisation and its range of realisations (Gotti 2012; Pérez-Llantada 2012).

Another recent phenomenon which has become quite topical in the academic context at a global level is the use of English as a medium of instruction (EMI) in higher education in many non-English-speaking countries, as part of their internationalisation programmes. These courses are meant to attract students from as many countries as possible all over the world, and the only feasible solution to the language problem is seen in the use of English as a lingua franca. The implementation of these ‘international’ courses has opened up new opportunities for learning the English discourses relating to the disciplines taught, but has also aroused dilemmas connected with language proficiency and the level of content competence acquired.

2 Recent developments in the research field

The adoption of English as a lingua franca in the process of globalisation of academic practices has certainly provided a solution of great practical value, but has also aroused fears and complaints in many non-English-speaking academics. The strict English-medium policies adopted by many academic publications and book series have heightened non-English-speakers’ awareness that the increasing use of this language in publishing and higher education might greatly reduce the role of national languages for academic purposes. Indeed, as there is a tendency of scholars to publish what they consider to be their best work in English so as to reach a wider audience (cf. among others Gunnarsson 2000 for Sweden; Yakhontova 2001 for Ukraine; Salager-Meyer et al. 2003 for Latin America; Giannoni 2008 for Italy; Kachru 2009 for Asia; Ferguson et al. 2011 for Spain), non-English-medium publications are often relegated to the status of local scholarly products providing only a marginal contribution to the mainstream because they are unable to disseminate knowledge through a global lingua franca.

These hegemonic tendencies of English are known to have relevant ideological and ethical implications. The complex interaction that opposes and often merges globalising/localising trends contains evidence of hybrid forms of discourse which are as unstable and provisional as the sociocultural identities they encode (Robertson 1992; Wright 2000) and which result in the simplification of discourse strategies, the recontextualisation of actor-space-time relations, the enactment of processes of deter-ritorialisation and reter-ritorialisation, and the rise of cultural hybridity (Fairclough 2006). Furthermore, anthropological and sociological accounts of cultural interaction in international communities and organisations (Hofstede 1991) suggest the possibility of hybrid communicative schemata in which a new set of cultural values and identities – functional to communication within the wider community – are created in response to the need to communicate internationally. The new, contaminated system generally adopts the norms and features of the language/culture that is dominant in the wider discourse community, but it retains key traits of its users’ native languages and cultures. At the same time, as English is the language dominant in international professional exchanges, it has a backwash effect that contaminates and hybridises native systems. The gradual globalisation or hybridisation of discursive practices that first appeared in English-speaking environments, now significantly affects also smaller languages (Cortese and Riley 2002; Gotti et al. 2002), which are subject to standardising pressures in their semantic, textual, sociopragmatic and even lexicogrammatical construction.

Hegemonic tendencies have clearly been identified in academic English, especially in the language policies commonly adopted by major international publications employing English as ‘the world’s academic lingua franca’ (Oakes 2005; Bennett 2007). Non-native academics are thus expected to have good English literacy skills so as to be able to present their papers in that language at conferences and publish them in peer-reviewed journals and volumes. This expectation has greatly influenced academics, with the result that the last decades have seen a massive conversion of journals from other languages to English, thus determining “a real loss in professional registers in many national cultures with long scholarly traditions” (Swales 2000: 67). The story of the Egyptian marine biologist reported by Swales (1990: 204) shows that, in order to have her dissertation accepted, she had to rewrite it several times, modifying the original style typical of the Arabic way of writing and adopting the rhetorical conventions commonly shared by the American scientific community. Moreover, the influence of English has greatly conditioned the evolution of local specialised discourses (cf. Scarpa 2007 for the spread of the nominal style and the related progressive depersonalisation in Italian scientific prose).

These trends have a number of serious consequences. The first is the concentration of immense power in the hands of a restricted group of academic gatekeepers, located in very few countries in the world. These countries have attained the right to enforce norms and to certify the academic recognition of research carried out all over the world. Their academic power in certain disciplines is so strong that it can decide the careers of scholars who need to publish in leading international journals to validate and disseminate their research findings (Curry and Lillis 2004). There is therefore a risk of linguistic monopoly, scholarly chauvinism and cultural imperialism. The exclusive use of English disfavours non-native writers who have “the triple disadvantage of having to read, do research and write in another language” (Van Dijk 1994: 276). It may thus give rise to unintentional – or even intentional – discrimination against non-native speakers on the part of the editors of specialised publications (Canagarajah 2002). The demands associated with writing and publishing in English are usually very strict and can be used by academic publications to filter foreign contributions. Moreover, since only the British or American varieties are favoured, a failure to comply with the journal’s linguistic standards is usually penalised with rejection.

Scholarly chauvinism and cultural imperialism may be detrimental to the growth of specialised knowledge itself. There is a risk that ‘periphery’ perspectives (Canagarajah 1996) in the various disciplines may have no influence on the trends developed in intellectual centres located in a small number of monopolising academies. The periphery, instead, may play a healthy role by questioning views prevailing in the centre and providing alternative perspectives. In recent years, there has been a heightened awareness in the academic world of the valuable contribution of non-Anglophone scholars working within dominant research paradigms and agendas. However, this increased awareness has rarely “translated into a recognition that the discipline[s are] also ‘owned’ nowadays (to use the new management-speak) by a very large number of people for whom English is neither a first, nor a second language” (Kayman 2003: 52). In some cases, ‘periphery’ publications have changed their language or even title to suggest a more international collocation. For example, in 2006 the Italian Heart Journal (which already published in English) changed its name to the Journal of Cardiovascular Medicine. As local journals are regarded as second-class research tools by the Italian medical community and since medical literature is regarded as being more competitive if published in the UK or the US, the scientific board of the Italian Heart Journal decided to conceal the peripheral provenance of the journal by assigning it to an American publisher, while maintaining an Italian editor.

The complexity of the choices made by non-native English speakers depends on the fact that they participate in at least two different communities: the English-speaking academic community and the global discourse community of their own discipline. To belong to the former community, they have to show that they are able to use English and master its norms of use, including grammar rules, word choice, idiomatic expressions and technical aspects such as punctuation and spelling. Moreover, in order to be accepted by the English-speaking academic community, scholars need to be aware of the practices commonly used in expository academic prose, as reflected in the guidelines provided by books on academic communication and by the notes to contributors published in international academic journals.

At the same time, membership of the global discourse community of their discipline depends on scholars’ compliance with expectations concerning the specific academic genre to which the text they are writing belongs. These include textual and paragraph organisation in terms of information presentation and ordering, as well as the need to consider cross-cultural issues. Indeed, stylistic/rhetorical structures may differ from culture to culture; for example, Japanese writers prefer a specific-to-general pattern in contrast to the general-to-specific pattern favoured by American writers (Kobayashi 1984). Another well-known case is the one visually expressed by Kaplan (1966) referring to the difference between linear (English) and circular (Oriental) patterns in the rhetorical structuring of an argumentative paper. Since intercultural differences are bound to influence the comprehension of events by people belonging to different cultures, research in the field of contrastive rhetoric (Connor 1998) has greatly helped the identification of textual aspects which may be attributed to culturally determined schemata reproducing a ‘world view’ typical of a given culture. It has been shown that the non-native, when communicating in English, is confronted with a psycho-cognitive situation where his/her L1 linguistic and cultural schemata conflict with the schemata dominant in international professional communities, and is thus forced to negotiate and redefine his/her cultural identity in order to successfully communicate in international intercultural settings. The importance of compliance with such conventions (not only linguistic but also cultural ones) for the acceptance of an academic contribution has been aptly pointed out by Mauranen (1993: 263):

The option of not conforming to the norms of the target linguistic culture is not available with respect to grammatical and lexical use, and, as it seems, at least some textual rules must be included in the same category, possibly more than we are accustomed to thinking at present. Breaking grammatical rules has different consequences from breaking textual or rhetorical rules originating in a national culture: by breaking grammatical and lexical rules, a writer conveys the impression of not knowing the language, which may in mild cases be forgiven and in serious cases cause breakdown of comprehension; by breaking rules of a text-linguistic type, a writer may appear incoherent or illogical; finally, by breaking culture-specific rhetorical rules a writer may seem exotic and command low credibility.

3 Recent developments in the pedagogic field

In the process of internationalisation of their teaching programmes many universities all over the world are now offering courses in English (Hellekjær and Räsänen 2010; Bowles and Cogo 2015; Wächter and Maiworm 2015; Ackerley et al. 2016). Sometimes the lecturers remain the local ones, who adopt English as a means of instruction although they are not native speakers of that language. In other cases the teaching of such courses is assigned to foreign lecturers (often non-native speakers of English), who are not chosen specifically for their language competence but rather according to their expertise in the subject they are supposed to be teaching. As they are taught in English, these courses attract many students from other countries. This is part of a large process of “international marketization of HE [higher education]” (Coleman 2006: 3), in which universities are fully involved at a global level.

In linguistic terms, the result is a typical English as a lingua franca (ELF) situation in which most lecturers and students – although they are not native speakers of English – use this language as a common means of communication and instruction. Indeed, in the last few years, several studies have taken into consideration the use of ELF in English-Medium Instruction (EMI) courses organised by universities, some of them investigating formal aspects (Ranta 2006, 2009; Jenkins 2007; Björkman 2008a, 2008b, 2009, 2010; Gotti 2015) while others focusing on pragmatic issues (Cogo 2009; Guido and Seidlhofer 2014; Kaur 2009; Leznyák 2002; Mauranen 2003, 2006a, 2006b, 2007; Smit 2009; Suviniitty 2010; Suviniitty 2012). As regards the latter, Mauranen (2003) has pointed out the adoption of ‘self-regulation’ strategies, by means of which speakers tend to adapt their way of speaking to the interlocutors’ assumed linguistic competence. Another strategy commonly employed is the recourse to ‘self-repairs’, which takes place when words or expressions previously formulated are proposed in a different way by the same person to facilitate the hearers’ comprehension. A further way to promote understanding is by means of ‘self-repetitions’, which occurs when the lecturer repeats something said before to make his concepts clearer (Mauranen 2006b).

The clarification of meaning also implies the adoption of cooperative strategies and ‘interactive repairs’ by both the speaker and the interlocutors whenever difficulties or non-understanding occur (Gotti 2014a, 2014b, 2016). Hearers, in particular, resort to ‘minimal incomprehension signals’ (Mauranen 2006b) or direct questions when they encounter comprehension problems. By means of ‘utterance completions’ (Seidlhofer 2011) and ‘overlaps’ (Cogo 2009) they manifest their willingness to cooperate in the fulfilment of the communicative act. Sometimes, instead, minor points of non-comprehension are not raised by the interlocutor, who prefers to adopt a ‘let it pass’ strategy (Firth 1996) in order not to create unnecessary breaks in the interactive flow, on the assumption that the unclear word or expression will either become clear or redundant as talk progresses.

Other studies, instead, have discussed the political and pedagogic value of these courses. As more and more universities in non-English speaking countries are opening up degree programmes entirely taught in English, several people concerned with educational policies wonder whether it is really useful and appropriate to adopt English monolingualism in university courses in non-English speaking countries. This policy seems particularly odd when curricular courses held in English address monolingual/quasi-monolingual audiences, as seen in certain universities, where the offer of entire degree courses taught exclusively in English mainly serves to boost academic prestige and merely to recruit more students – not necessarily foreign, but often coming from other areas of the same country, who are attracted by this ‘internationalisation’ policy.

Moreover, the Anglicisation process carried out in many European universities implementing EMI courses has been perceived by some as a ‘European paradox’ (Phillipson 2006: 72), as it contrasts with the official EU policy of preserving linguistic and cultural diversity through the adoption of multilingual policies. At some universities, when a course is offered in English, there is usually an alternative group of the same course which is taught in the local language, but this is not the case in all universities and countries, where courses are almost always offered in only one language, i.e. English. In this case, students are confronted with a process of ‘forced multilingualism’ rather than ‘optional multilingualism’ (Lasagabaster et al. 2013).

In many universities, the initial impetus to English-taught courses emerged as a participation in higher education exchange programmes. Particularly in those countries whose national languages were little taught elsewhere, bilateral exchanges were facilitated by the provision of courses through an international language, usually English. The increase in EMI programmes has also been facilitated by the implementation of the Bologna Process. Although originally expressed to refer to the Norwegian situation, the following remark could easily be extended to the rest of non-English speaking Europe:

The development towards more English-medium teaching at university level is partly due to Norway’s participation in the Bologna Agreement. […] Although the Bologna Declaration never states that English-medium education is strictly necessary to achieve internationalization, this is the way it is interpreted in Norway […]. (Ljosland 2007: 398, emphasis in the original)

The Bologna Process has sometimes determined a replacement of ESP courses (Räisänen et al. 2008). Indeed, all over Europe many degrees with a tradition of ESP courses have replaced ESP programmes with content courses taught in English. Apart from stakeholders’ pressure, the revision of curricula also reflects the students’ desire to devote as much as their university time as possible to the learning of content rather than language. In particular, rather than general language courses, students who are weak in English seem to prefer ESP courses that concentrate on their language skills so as to enable them subsequently to attend EMI courses (Arnó-Macià and Mancho-Barés 2015).

While internationalisation is perceived as a desirable outcome, on the practical level, the use of English in academic settings outside the Anglophone world also brings new challenges for students and lecturers. There is even the risk of diminished education quality when a lecturer does not teach in his/her native language. Therefore, English should be used in academic settings after careful consideration of the consequences of such practices. Indeed, in many cases, both lecturers and students tend to overestimate their proficiency in English. Where students have an adequate language competence, the learning outcomes of the EMI courses are comparable to those reached in courses taught in the local language. Only minor differences have been detected in the students’ behaviour: little breakdown in communication, similar understanding of content provided adequate time is given. However, some limitations have been found too: students tend to speak more slowly and pause more often in English, some experience difficulty in simultaneously following a lecture and taking notes, and there is a smaller number of questions asked and answered during lectures in English (Airey 2012). Some scholars have pointed out a more limited participation in discussions when these are carried out in English:

Most seminars at my department in Sweden are held in English. Although I think most of my colleagues speak good English, it is clear that it lowers the intellectual level compared to scientific discussions in Swedish. When it comes to teaching at the undergraduate level, that is even more clear. The students (and teachers) spend more time trying to understand or find the words. That implies that less effort can be put into actually discussing scientific problems in depth. (Researcher, Faculty of Science, quoted in Kuteeva 2014: 339)

In some countries, in order to facilitate the learning of specialised contents in a foreign language, Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) programmes have been implemented. CLIL has become more and more popular in Europe since the 1990s. This approach relies on the combined teaching of specialised subjects and a foreign language, with the aim of attaining a good competence in both (Dalton-Puffer 2007, Ruiz de Zarobe et al. 2011). This double objective requires the dual integrative focus on content and language on the part of the content specialist or both the content specialist and the foreign language teacher working as a team (Dalton-Puffer et al. 2010). The integration of the two main elements of the course may be effected at various levels depending on local conditions, with greater or lesser importance assigned to content compared to language, under the sole responsibility of the specialist instructor or through the collaboration of subject-matter and language specialists.

At university level the CLIL approach has sometimes been considered unsuitable since language learning goals are not specifically mentioned in the objectives of specialised courses. Moreover, content lecturers fear that adapting content to English lower-proficiency learners may result in a “watering down of the content” (Crandall and Kaufman 2002: 3). The goal that one should learn the English language at the same time as one learns a specialised discipline is the exception rather than the norm there. The foreign language competence is considered a prerequisite rather than a learning objective.

While many European countries are rushing to increase the use of English in their higher education systems, in some countries (especially in the North of Europe) the general attitude towards this trend has become more critical. In these countries, there is great concern toward the high proportion of English language use and the need to guarantee the adoption of the local language for specialised purposes. In his presentation of the debate over this issue in Sweden, Salö (2010) reports that many Swedish universities have implemented new language policies aiming at regulating the use of academic English while guaranteeing the survival of academic Swedish. As both languages are considered important, the solution proposed is parallel language use (Josephson 2005). This new policy is meant to guarantee the students’ right to receive education in their native language and to protect the national language from the ‘threat’ of English (Bolton and Kuteeva 2012). However, even this policy has often proved to be ineffective. As Kuteeva (2014: 333) asserts,

the full implications of parallel language use and its practical applications remain unclear, and to this day it largely remains an unoperationalised political slogan […]. Ideally, both languages should be used by students and teachers alike for various academic purposes, but this rarely happens in practice.

Also in Norway the increasing use of English in higher education is seen as a threat. Brock-Utne (2001), for example, mentions five elements that contribute to this threat: the increasing use of English words in Norwegian academic, bureaucratic or technological discourse; the increase in the sale of academic literature in English vs stagnation in the sale of academic literature in Norwegian; the recruitment of teaching staff who do not speak Norwegian; the growth in Master’s degree courses taught in English; and finally, the financial rewards for publishing in English.

Moreover, where English is largely used at Master’s levels, scholars have complained of a reduction in the availability of local terminology at higher levels with a greater recourse to code mixing (Airey 2011). This is also due to the fact that less and less specialised literature originally written in English is translated into other native languages. Referring to the Norwegian situation, Brock-Utne (2001: 228) asserts that this is “a development which shows that the market for required texts written in Norwegian and to be used in Norwegian higher education is clearly shrinking. Academic literature written in English replaces academic literature written in Norwegian at a high pace”.

4 Conclusion

As shown by the analysis presented here, the use of English as a lingua franca of research and teaching has determined important consequences on the situation of foreign language learning in the academic context. The findings reported here reflect the considerable challenges and opportunities that confront scholars and students seeking to achieve a delicate balance between their willingness to adhere to the mother-tongue norms and conventions and their own individual competences and identity traits. Such factors have been found to interact, producing complex realities giving rise to textual realisations characterised by hybridising forms deriving from interlinguistic and intercultural clashes.

The present analysis of the globalising trends in higher education shows that although the use of English in academic settings outside the Anglophone world offers greater opportunities in terms of a wider international preparation, it also brings new challenges for both students and lecturers. The studies reported here reflect the considerable issues that confront not only academics but also education policy-makers seeking to achieve a delicate balance between their willingness to integrate more fully in a globalised context and the need to protect their national language for specialised and academic purposes. As a consequence, such opposing trends have provoked animated discussions concerning not merely linguistic or pedagogic issues, but also more general problems of political and educational relevance at a wide national level.