Disciplinary Differences in the Use of English in Higher Education
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Disciplinary differences in the use of English in higher education: reflections on recent language policy developments Author(s): Maria Kuteeva and John Airey Source: Higher Education , May 2014, Vol. 67, No. 5 (May 2014), pp. 533-549 Published by: Springer Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43648673 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Springer is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Higher Education This content downloaded from 86.59.13.237 on Fri, 11 Jun 2021 08:36:41 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms High Educ (2014) 67:533-549 DOI 10. 1 007/s 10734-0 1 3-9660-6 Disciplinary differences in the use of English in higher education: reflections on recent language policy developments Maria Kuteeva * John Airey Published online: 4 September 2013 © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013 Abstract In post-Bologna Europe, there has been a noticeable increase in English- medium instruction. In this article we take the case of Sweden as an illustrative example of the wider disciplinary issues involved in changing the teaching language in this way. By 2008 the use of English in Swedish higher education had risen to such an extent that it had to be regulated at the governmental level and through university language policies. Such policies have attempted to provide generalised pragmatic guidelines for language use across educational programmes. In this paper we argue that such general policies fail to take into consideration fundamental disciplinary differences and their potential impact on language use. We present a theoretical argument about the knowledge structures of dis- ciplines, relating these to the disciplinary literacy goals of educational programmes. We then illustrate our argument using data from an extensive survey carried out at a major Swedish university. We conclude that the disciplinary variation in the use of English can be seen as a product of different knowledge-making practices and educational goals. This conclusion problematises "one-size-fits-all" language policies which only deal with gen- eral features of language use and do not allow for discipline-specific adjustments. Keywords Disciplinary differences • Disciplinary literacy • Disciplinary knowledge structures • Teaching in English • Language choice • Language policies • Parallel language use M. Kuteeva (El) Department of English, Centre for Academic English, Stockholm University, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] J. Airey Physics Education Research Group, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden Springer This content downloaded from 86.59.13.237 on Fri, 11 Jun 2021 08:36:41 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 534 High Educ (2014) 67:533-549 Introduction In post-Bologna Europe, there has been a noticeable increase in the teaching of university courses through the medium of English. This trend has been particularly strong in the north of Europe, with research singling out the Netherlands and the Nordic countries as having the highest percentages of graduate and undergraduate courses taught in English (Wächter and Maiworm 2008). Although the internationalisation driving this increase is perceived as a desirable goal (cf. Nilsson 1 999), the use of English in the Nordic countries has now risen to the extent that it has had to be regulated at the governmental level (e.g. Nordic Council of Ministers 2007; Swedish Government 2009). Sweden provides an illustrative example of this trend (Kuteeva 201 1 ), and it is here that warning voices have been raised about the marginalisation of Swedish as an academic language (e.g. Gunnarsson and Öhman 1997; Gunnarsson 2001; Teleman 1992). In response to this perceived threat, universities in Sweden have been directed to produce documents outlining their language policies in an attempt to provide pragmatic guidelines for the handling of English and Swedish across educational programmes (Swedish National Agency for Higher Education 2008). However, as a recent study of academisation and marketisation in Swedish higher education has shown, such decrees 'from above' are not always compatible with the actual practices and ideals prevailing in different disciplinary and professional areas (Ek et al. 201 1). We argue that the recent language policies in Swedish higher education may not sufficiently take into consideration fundamental differences in dis- ciplinary practices and their potential impact on language use. Although the impact of disciplinary differences on teaching and learning has been widely discussed in educational research (e.g. Becher 1989; Becher and Trowler 2001; Lindblom-Ylännea et al. 2006; Neumann 2001 ; Neumann and Becher 2002), little research has explored this issue in relation to English-medium instruction in Europe. In this respect, Airey (2009, 2010) has pointed out that in many countries the development of academic literacy (Lea and Street 1998) actually involves two or more languages - the local lan- guage^) and English - illustrating how the balance between these disciplinary languages is contested and intimately related to the acquisition of disciplinary knowledge. In this paper we use the case of Swedish higher education to illustrate our argument that general language policies may fail to take into consideration the potential impact of funda- mental disciplinary differences. To do this we first map out the current linguistic landscape in Swedish higher education. Then, in order to account for differences in the use of English as an academic language, we apply insights from Bernstein's (1996, 1999, 2000) notion of disci- plinary knowledge structures that are predominantly horizontal or hierarchical. Drawing on a recent report by the Swedish Language Council (Salo 2010) and our own data, we argue that disciplinary variation in English language use is not arbitrary, but rather can be seen as a product of the different knowledge structures of the disciplines. Next, we analyse different disciplinary literacy goals of educational programmes (Airey 201 1 ), before finally illustrating our theoretical arguments using specific examples from a range of disciplines representing so- called pure hard, pure soft, applied hard, and applied soft sciences (Becher 1989). In light of our findings, we problematize university- wide language policies, which recommend parallel use of Swedish and English without allowing for discipline-specific adjustments. English language policies and practices in Swedish higher education As is the case in other European countries, higher education in Scandinavia has experi- enced a number of substantial changes resulting from the Bologna process (2010). One of â Springer This content downloaded from 86.59.13.237 on Fri, 11 Jun 2021 08:36:41 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms High Educ (2014) 67:533-549 535 Fig. 1 English-language PhD dissertations in 16 subject categories (by the Royal Swedish Library). Percentage of the total number in the respective subject category (adapted from Salo 2010, p. 24) the main changes has been an increase in the use of English in an attempt to attract the best international students (cf. Coleman 2006). English has been widely used as a language of research and scholarly publication in Scandinavian universities since the 1950s (Salo 2010), but its official status had become the subject of a heated debate by the late 1990s and culminated in the introduction of the Language Act (Swedish Government 2009), which established Swedish as the country's official language. The Swedish Language Council (Salo 2010) documents the increasing use of English in Sweden in some academic disciplines, particularly in the natural and exact sciences. In terms of teaching, just over 20 % of all courses and programmes now use English as a medium of instruction. However, even on courses where English is not the official medium of instruction, a high proportion of textbooks are in English. At postgraduate level English is much more prevalent: here approximately 65 % of Master's and other postgraduate programmes are taught through English. Moreover, around 87 % of all dissertations at Swedish universities are currently written in English. Interestingly, the increasing use of English in Swedish higher education is not evenly distributed across disciplines. For example, in the sciences the proportion of dissertations written in the English language is as high as 94 %, the same figure in the social sciences is 65 %, and in the humanities this figure falls to 37 % (Salo 2010, p. 7). As mentioned above, the report indicates that the frequency with which English is used to write dissertations varies greatly according to discipline (see Fig. 1). The academic subjects where English is used more frequently as a language of dissertations are, in decreasing order, science, mathematics, medicine, engineering, philosophy and psychol- ogy, economics, social sciences and linguistics. Those subjects with less than 50 per cent of dissertations written in English are (again in decreasing order): archaeology, literary