Discursive ripple effects in language policy and practice: Multilingualism and English as an academic lingua franca in transnational higher education

Author/Creator ORCID

Date

2021-07-07

Department

Program

Citation of Original Publication

Ou, Wanyu Amy; Gu, Mingyue Michelle and Hult, Francis M. Discursive ripple effects in language policy and practice: Multilingualism and English as an academic lingua franca in transnational higher education. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 44:2 (2021), pp. 154–179. https://benjamins.com/catalog/aral.20096.ou

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Under copyright. Contact the publisher for re-use.

Subjects

Abstract

he advancement of English as an instrument for the internationalization of higher education has foregrounded English as an academic lingua franca (EALF), and the case of China is no exception. This study focuses on the process by which EALF has been interpreted and negotiated across university policies and local practices in China’s internationalized higher education. Drawing upon nexus analysis and multisource data, the study traced the discursive (re)location of EALF across different scales of social activity related to multilingualism at an English-medium transnational university in China. Our analysis illustrates the tension between English and other co-existing languages, as presented in educational language policies and as perceived and practiced by multilingual students in the local communicative context. The findings also show an interactive policymaking process through which students and university administrators opened ideological and implementational spaces that linguistically and semiotically pluralized communicative scenarios at the internationalized university in focus.