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Problematizing Language Policy and Practice in EMI and Transnational Higher Education: Challenges and Possibilities
Edited by Curtis Green-Eneix, Peter I. De Costa and Wendy Li
[Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 44:2] 2021
► pp. 229–252

EMI and the international branch campus

Examining language ideologies, policies, and practices

| Texas A&M University at Qatar
| National Taiwan Normal University
| Texas A&M University

Transnational higher education (TNHE), often based on export models of Western-based universities and driven by neoliberal market economy agendas, has spread across the globe. One example of TNHE is Qatar’s Education City where six prestigious American international branch campuses (IBCs) all administer their degrees through English medium instruction (EMI). While there is a burgeoning amount of research investigating and problematizing issues in EMI higher education institutions, IBCs are a unique EMI setting due to their heavy reliance on importing faculty, staff, curricula and practices from their home campuses. Thus, this study takes an ethnographic case study approach to examine the language planning and policy and linguistic landscape at one IBC in Qatar. Drawing on multiple sources of data, the study reveals both the overt and covert language policies and ideologies of the institution and its various stakeholders, and the extent to which languages other than English are used and accepted.

Keywords: transnational higher education, EMI, ethnography of language planning and policy, translanguaging, Qatar
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Ethnography of language planning and policy (LPP): Theory and methodology
    • 2.1LPP and linguistic landscape (LL)
  • 3.Context of study: Qatar’s zigzagging monolingual language policies
    • 3.1LPP and ideology: EMI programs at IBCs
    • 3.2Research questions
  • 4.Methodology
    • 4.1Setting: Study and faculty demographics
    • 4.2Participants
    • 4.3Research positionality
    • 4.4Data instruments and collection
    • 4.5Data analysis
  • 5.Findings and discussion
    • 5.1Top-down language policy: Curricular demands and English language requirements
    • 5.2Website data
    • 5.3Top-down versus bottom-up language policy: Linguistic landscape analysis
    • 5.4Faculty perspectives on language policy
    • 5.5Classroom practices of the math instructor
    • 5.6Student perspectives on language policy
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 7 July 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/aral.20093.hil
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