EMI and its sociolinguistic entanglement with local languages

Abstract

Abstract Against the backdrop of inter-institutional competition and transnational ambitions, the prevalence of English-medium instruction (EMI) programs in higher education and their relative distribution across various national, regional, and institutional contexts is rapidly growing. When studying the increasingly globalized phenomenon of EMI, there is a tendency to adopt macro-pedagogical perspectives, with comparatively little attention being devoted to disciplinary differences which may warrant intra-institutional differentiation through situationally adaptable approaches to EMI policy and implementation strategies. The present study attempts to further enhance and nuance our understanding of the influence of disciplinary knowledge structures and literacies on lecturers’ and students’ linguistic needs in EMI courses. This article reports on linguistic ethnographic fieldwork at a Belgian higher education institution in which graduate students in international bio-science engineering and industrial design engineering programs were observed during the 2021–2022 academic year. Differences in disciplinary knowledge structures and literacies are explored through means of survey, interview, and classroom observation data. Results corroborate earlier findings on the interplay between disciplinary knowledge structures and attitudes towards EMI. Additionally, the data illustrate how the active inclusion of local languages alongside English can be considered disciplinarily relevant in certain programs.