Multilingualism at Danish universities equal to English? The Implications for other foreign languages and linguistic poverty

ID: 173
Paper Presentation
Topics: Language policy and the economics of the workplace, Language policy and globalization
Keywords: Key words: Danish Universities, multilingualism, language policy, foreign languages, globaliztation,
Multilingualism at Danish universities equal to English? The Implications for other foreign languages and linguistic poverty.
Rita Cancino Troncoso
Aalborg University, Denmark, Denmark; rcancino@cgs.aau.dk

Since 2003, with the new Danish University Act and the strengthening of internationalisation, Danish Universities have changed rapidly with a massive transition to English as language of instruction in many study programmes. Studies taught in English attract a large amount of both Danish and international students. Currently more than 500 degree programmes and 1000 courses are taught entirely in English. Furthermore, many foreign scientists are employed at the Danish universities. Most Danish universities present themselves as ‘international’, ‘multicultural’ and ‘multilingual’, without including other foreign languages than English in their language policies (Cancino, 2011).

The Danish Government has recommended the parallel language policy at the universities in order to avoid loss of domain, but “the attempt to please international scientists is creating a one-sided, and unsustainable, focus on speaking and writing in English” say Danish staff at Copenhagen University. The Danish universities have a ‘culture-bearing mission’ to continue to ensure Danish as a language used in academia, but English as medium of instruction is equal to globalisation, internationalisation, foreign students and revenue (Phillipson, 2010).

This issue forms the background of the presentation, in which it will be discussed how the extended use of English at Danish Universities contributes to linguistic poverty and lack of other foreign languages. The presentation will be centered around the study of language policies from 8 Danish universities.

References:
Cancino Rita(2011): Language Policy, Language Planning and Language Teaching at Danish Universities. In Cancino, Rita; Dam, Lotte; Jæger, Kirsten (eds.): Policies, Principles, Practices.
Phillipson, Robert (2010): The EU and languages: diversity in what unity. In Kjær,Anne Lise/Adamo, Silvio (eds.) Linguistic diversity and European democracy.