Invited session: Institutional language policies: aims, approaches and challenges.

This invited session aims to discuss the ways in which universities are shaping their institutional language policies within their particular local, regional/national and international contexts. The session aims to address the considerations between these policy choices, and the ways in which our institutional language policies support our institutional visions and strategies.

For instance, is English as an institutional language or as a medium of instruction merely a means for universities to demonstrate their internationalisation; or is it a means to realise something else? And how do our language policies change our universities and cities?

The session also aims to reflect on the role of national policy discourses and language policies in higher education, such as (sub)national policies on home language instruction and regulations on teaching language(s). Where (sub)national language policies exist, do we see tensions between (sub)national and institutional language policies? And how is the European multilingual perspective working out?

Speakers will address dilemmas and challenges that universities face in developing and implementing their language policies, and how the institutions deal with them. Are there any good policy practices we can identify (and if so, why can these be qualified as good)?

With speakers from Germany, Spain, Finland and the Netherlands, this session takes an international comparative perspective to understand the different language policy discourses and approaches.