Organising language at the international university: three principles of linguistic organisation

Abstract

Drawing on interview data from five Danish research sites, the article asks what processes of internationalisation mean for the way universities organise and are organised by language. Following an initial reflection on the nature of a global knowledge market, the discussion centres on the idea of ‘linguistic organisation’, as this has been interpreted within the sector of higher education. A distinction is made between the idea of ‘organisation’, which suggests a managerial decision about language usage, and ‘organising’, which describes the way individual actor's linguistic practice shapes an organisation. The analysis presents three prototypes of linguistic organisation, which have been named Single Course, Parallel Languages and English Only. Single Course describes an institutional environment where English is used for specific programmes or courses, but Danish remains the principal teaching language. Parallel Language refers to an organisation where parallel programmes are run in both Danish and English. Finally, the third prototype of linguistic organisation, English Only, is characterised by the adoption of English as the default teaching medium for entire programmes or disciplines, which often comes as the result of a long-term strategic commitment to international education.

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