PhD research: Rethinking the “E” in EMI. The interplay between English as a medium of instruction and students’ multilingual repertoires in university classrooms

Date
October 2019 to September 2025
Countries
Category
Keywords
Academic English
lingua franca
transnational medium
academic education
Institutions
University of the Western Cape (South Africa)
Research fields
Languages and Literatures

In today’s world, tertiary education institutions around the globe tend to foster and stimulate international professional and academic ambitions in their students, whilst purposefully aiming to equip these students with the cross-disciplinary skillset needed to put these abstract ambitions into transnational practice. One of the ways in which institutions frequently invest in the aim of internationalization is by implementing so- called English-as-a-Medium-of-Instruction (EMI) practices in a wide variety of the courses that are on offer in the different programs of the institution’s curriculum. In order to paint a more complete picture of the effects of the adoption of English as a scientific lingua franca and transnational medium of instruction in academic education, the field of EMI studies has to develop and shape a heightened sense of awareness to context-specificity. The focus of this sociolinguistic research project is rethinking the "E" in EMI (English as a Medium of Instruction) in Flemish tertiary education. The goal is to investigate the potential interactional and attitudinal impact of translanguaging in English-medium higher education settings in Flanders through an in-depth study of common pedagogical practices.