Article published In:
Journal of English-Medium Instruction: Online-First Articles

The intersection of human capital and linguistic protectionism

Counteracting English-medium instruction in Türkiye

ORCID logo | Kocaeli University
English-medium instruction (EMI) continues to grow in prominence in higher education because of its various advantages for stakeholders regarding improved job prospects, access to current literature, and the internationalisation of universities. Home to a few of the very first EMI higher education institutions (HEIs) worldwide, Türkiye continues to follow this trend. However, despite numerous benefits of EMI in today’s globalised world, certain subject areas surprisingly lack any EMI programmes. Approximately 69.1% of all undergraduate programmes are taught in Turkish-medium instruction, while the majority of the remaining programmes are taught in English. This study aims to establish the reasons why Turkish remains the medium of instruction (MoI) in some subjects. The investigation was conducted using an interdisciplinary approach that incorporates (1) the human capital theory of socioeconomics and (2) the linguistic protectionism of sociolinguistics. In semi-structured interviews, administrative stakeholders indicated that one reason for the lack of interest in pursuing an EMI programme in their subjects is low demand for EMI graduates in particular sectors. The paper also discusses the implications of adopting theories from other fields for EMI. Hence, linguistic protectionism, which accounts for an ideological and political wish to protect Turkish as MoI in this study, was also investigated.
Keywords: linguistic protectionism, administrative stakeholders, English-medium instruction (EMI), EMI policy, human capital theory (HCT), Turkish-medium instruction (TMI)
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Review of literature
    • Linguistic diversity versus Englishisation
    • Human capital theory
    • Linguistic protectionism against EMI
  • Methodology
    • Research context
    • Participants
    • Data collection instruments and procedures
    • Data analysis
  • Findings
    • The descriptives of the TMI-only subjects
    • The interview data from the administrative stakeholders
      • Theme 1: EMI is not a requisite for recruitment in some sectors within the local setting
      • Theme 2: The subject knowledge addresses local issues
      • Theme 3: The medium of instruction should be the standard native language
      • Theme 4: English is not solely for “innocent” purposes
  • Discussion
  • Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 6 January 2025
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jemi.24002.alt
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