Chapter 11

Higher education language policies for mobility and inclusion

As a consequence of internationalisation, higher education has become multilingual and, at the same time, one common language, English, has become a sort of lingua franca for research, teaching and even governance. In this chapter, we will analyse how language policies of higher education institutions deal with the trade-off between mobility and inclusion. Language practices in teaching, research, governance and knowledge transfer to society are elements of the language landscape in higher education as multilingual and multicultural learning spaces. In these spaces there is a huge diversity of linguistic repertoires and there is also an uniformisation required by the reduction to a (wanted) common language justified by the need for visibility, parameterisation and comparison with others. On an epistemological level, from a language sciences perspective, we will analyse the concept of language emerging from language practices and used in higher education. Data collection from desk research and case studies will allow us to discuss the various roles given to languages. Despite the relevance of local/national languages, a lingua franca is often promoted. The idea that knowledge is independent of language and discourse is also evident from the data analysed; the aimed-for trade-off between mobility and research is far from being achieved with existing language policies.