Language and Learning in the International University: From English Uniformity to Diversity and Hybridity: 21 (Languages for Intercultural Communication and Education) - Hardcover

This excellent volume critically examines the linguistic and cultural challenges faced by today's internationalized universities from sociolinguistic, ethnographic, conversation- and culture-analytical perspectives. Given the ever-growing use of English as a means of instruction in many universities across the world, the papers in this volume manage to dispel the illusion of uniformity, revealing instead a healthy diversity of language learning and communication practices in many different settings. -- Juliane House, Universitat Hamburg, Germany Internationalization in higher education increasingly involves not only mobility toward the English inner circle, but also among the outer- and expanding-circle countries. This volume makes an important contribution toward answering the questions about language, ideology and intercultural contact which this trend raises. The twelve chapters examine salient issues across varied geographical contexts from a range of analytical perspectives. This book will be of interest to educators grappling with the complex implications of internationalization. -- Diane Pecorari, School of Education, Culture & Communication, Malardalen University, Sweden

This book views the international university as a microcosm of a world where internationalization does not equate with across-the-board use of English, but rather with the practice of linguistic and cultural diversity, even in the face of Anglophone dominance. The globalization-localization continuum manifests itself in every university trying to adopt internationalization strategies. The many cases of language and learning issues presented in this book, from universities representing different parts of the world, are all manifestations of a multidimensional space encompassing local vs. global, diversification vs. Anglicization. The internationalization of universities represents a new cultural and linguistic hybridity with the potential to develop new forms of identities unfettered by traditional 'us-and-them' binary thinking, and a new open-mindedness about the roles of self and others, resulting in new patterns of communicative (educational and social) practices.