Language Policy in Higher Education

F. Xavier Vila is an associate professor in the Department of Catalan Philology and Director of the University Centre for Sociolinguistics and Communication at the Universitat de Barcelona. He has published widely in the areas of sociolinguistics, demolinguistics and language policy, including Survival and Development of Language Communities: Prospects and Challenges (Multilingual Matters, 2013).

Vanessa Bretxa is a researcher in the sociology of language at the University Centre for Sociolinguistics and Communication at the Universitat de Barcelona and a part-time lecturer in the Department of Linguistics at the same university. She is also the co-editor of the academic journal Language, Society and Communication.

F. Xavier Vila is an associate professor in the Department of Catalan Philology and Director of the University Centre for Sociolinguistics and Communication at the Universitat de Barcelona. He has published widely in the areas of sociolinguistics, demolinguistics and language policy, including Survival and Development of Language Communities: Prospects and Challenges (Multilingual Matters, 2013).

Vanessa Bretxa is a researcher in the sociology of language at the University Centre for Sociolinguistics and Communication at the Universitat de Barcelona and a part-time lecturer in the Department of Linguistics at the same university. She is also the co-editor of the academic journal Language, Society and Communication.

This book focuses on languages under pressure from globalization to lose their prestige status at universities. While major languages remain strong, medium-sized ones are close to succumbing to the global champion, English. This volume lucidly combines theory with meticulous case studies to reveal insights opening up new research perspectives and applications.

Xabier Arzoz, University of the Basque Country, Spain:

This book seeks to fill a gap in the study of higher education language policies. It is a well-researched, well-documented, and thoughtful comparative consideration of the challenge of internationalisation for ‘linguae academicae’ other than English. Vila and Bretxa’s edited volume will definitively help decision-makers, language activists and scholars to understand the complexities and to identify the opportunities for universities under the current process of internationalisation, and to reduce the anxieties it sometimes produces.