Language tensions and unseen languages in a multilingual university: the perspectives of university lecturers

ABSTRACT

Linguistic diversity emerging from international student mobility, in non-anglophone universities, is typically eclipsed by the existing tensions between the national language(s) and English as ‘Lingua franca’. Through a series of semi-structured interviews with university lecturers, this study highlights the tensions surrounding national languages and English and the attention paid to international student languages as resources for learning. Furthermore, using enunciation theory it seeks to show what shapes lecturers’ attitudes to language use at university. It concludes that while there is some evidence that international student languages are recognised in teaching practices, there are also real concerns over maintaining the national language(s). This obscures the role that international student languages could play in teaching and learning.

KEYWORDS:

• Plurilingualism
• higher education
• lecturers
• international students
• enunciation theory

Introduction

The rise of globalisation juxtaposed with a competitive knowledge economy and challenges in funding higher education (HE) are connected with a number of internationalisation strategies in universities. These include university branding, the mobility of staff and students and the recruitment and training of students and scholars (de Wit and Hunter 2017). According to UNESCO (2018 cited in Cheng 2021), the number of international students studying abroad on degree programmes in 2017 was over 5 million and, although there has been a slump owing to the 2020 global pandemic, this number is estimated to reach 8 million in 2025. Changes in the directional flows of students have also been observed. It is no longer the case that students only travel from east to west and south to north; there are increasing numbers moving from west to east and within the east (Cheng 2021). These mobility trends make for increasingly linguistically-diverse university environments, everywhere.

International students arrive in their host country with their own set of plurilingual resources (see Section 2 for definitions), which may comprise a combination of languages, but almost certainly include English since education for international students typically relies on English medium instruction (EMI). Furthermore, these students may enter a multilingual institution that uses both national language(s) and English for teaching and research purposes. In such multilingual institutions, research in relation to language seems to mostly focus on the tensions surrounding EMI and the local language(s) (e.g.: Bolton and Kuteeva 2012; Cots, Llurda, and Garrett 2014; Saarinen 2012). The focus on EMI is understandable given that this means teaching in English rather than the national language(s) which in turn leads to concerns over the position of the national language(s) as one(s) of science. In this situation, international student plurilingualism that could serve as a resource often goes ‘unseen’ by the institution (Kaufhold and Wennerberg 2020).

While the languages that are brought to universities are sometimes celebrated by internationalised universities for branding purposes (Darling and Dervin in press), they are more often invisible to the institution. However, the speakers of these languages are visible to lecturers in the seminar room. Lecturers can be constructed as the face of the institution in that they play an important role in the student experience through teaching and learning and other interactions, such as supervision and pastoral care. Additionally, they communicate with heads of department and faculty deans so they are exposed to a range of opinions on student issues. Subsequently, their perspectives in relation to student issues can potentially be indicative of the institutional mood.

This paper critically reflects on the discourses produced by university lecturers pertaining to the expanded linguistic landscape seen in universities. To meet this research aim, the following questions are addressed:

• What are the tensions between national language(s) and English at internationalised universities?

• Which plurilingual pedagogical approaches do lecturers take in relation to international student languages?

Before the presentation of the data and discussion of the analysis, an overview of the literature that includes the perspectives of lecturers in relation to language tensions and multilingualism and plurilingualism in higher education will be given.

Literature review

Multilingualism, plurilingualism and higher education

In this paper, following the Common European Framework of Languages (CEFR) (Council of Europe 2001) and Beacco and Byram’s (2007) guide to plurilingual education, the terms plurilingualism and multilingualism are used to describe multiple language use at the individual and societal level, respectively. Multilingualism is described as the co-existence of different languages in one nation, but not necessarily reflected in all members of that nation, whereas plurilingualism describes the linguistic repertoires of individual people, which may be different from the official languages of the nation. In the HE context, the students and staff would be described as plurilingual and the institution as multilingual. The differences in linguistic repertoires between official multilingualism and individual plurilingualism may create challenges in relation to the use of languages whereby institutional multilingualism is championed and student plurilingualism often goes unseen.

Research that problematises institutional multilingualism and individual plurilingualism in universities from the perspective of university lecturers, outside of language education, seems to be rather rare (Mazak 2017; Preece and Marshall 2020). However, some data have been gathered from lecturers in relation to multilingualism in non-anglophone universities in the context of EMI programmes. These acknowledge the benefits of EMI, such as facilitating student exchanges, improving graduate employability, recruiting international students and enhancing institutional profiles (Coleman 2006; Doiz, Lasagabaster, and Sierra 2011). There is also the enrichment of knowledge, development of professional skills and the pleasure that can be derived from teaching in a foreign language (Knoerr 2019). Additionally, there are benefits to be gained from using English as an academic ‘Lingua franca’ (EALF) more generally, such as widening the pool of teaching and research materials, facilitating staff mobility (Coleman 2006), communicating scientific knowledge more widely and responding to calls for funding from the EU (Pérez-Llantada 2018). Offering EMI and engaging with EALF leads to clear and tangible benefits. Nevertheless, these benefits are not without corresponding costs.

The introduction of EMI programmes and the increasing presence of EALF has also brought tensions between English and the national languages. Lecturers report an increase in workload as a result of organising courses in English and there are concerns over the language proficiency of students and staff which are not sufficiently addressed (Doiz, Lasagabaster, and Sierra 2011; Knoerr 2019). This concern also extends to support with publishing academic research in English (Pérez-Llantada 2018). Furthermore, as English is ceasing to be seen as a foreign language, it has acquired a greater social and official role in non-anglophone countries (Coleman 2006). This has led to English being perceived as a threat to national languages as ones of science (Duarte and van der Ploeg 2019; Doiz, Lasagabaster, and Sierra 2011) and to linguistic diversity more generally (Pérez-Llantada 2018). Added to this, there is a suggestion that the emergence of English as a ‘Lingua franca’ has led to less interest in learning languages from both native-English speaking and non-native English-speaking students (Brumfit 2004; Dörnyei, Csizér and Németh 2006 cited in Doiz, Lasagabaster, and Sierra 2011). Moreover, Coleman (2006) points out that where societal language shift is voluntary, the threat to national languages is top-down with formal functions going first. This is why HE is important in debates relating to language tensions.

Concerns over national languages are a major theme in relation to EMI in non-anglophone universities, and these appear to be unresolved in the face of internationalisation that is mostly equated with EMI at institutional level (de Wit 2017). Given this status quo, there is a reluctance for HE institutions to accept a social duty to support linguistic diversity as directed by national or supranational policies (Coleman 2006). Beyond the major European languages, multilingualism is seen as resource for individuals but not for the wider society (Källkvist and Hult 2020; Nikula et al. 2012). Consequently, while EMI programmes attract students from a range of linguistic backgrounds, so offer the potential for plurilingual pedagogical approaches, drawing upon these students’ linguistic resources and unpicking the national language(s) plus English mindset seems problematic.

To exemplify, Earls (2016), in his study situated in three EMI programmes across Germany, found that although the programmes had a great deal of linguistic diversity to include both large and small national languages, English and German strongly dominated as the languages of communication. He found that 84.6% of lecturers were unwilling to deviate from the EMI policy in the classroom and the majority of lecturers preferred to use English with international students outside of the classroom too, with the exception of international lecturers who sometimes used an alternative language with the students they share a language with (e.g. a Spanish-speaking lecturer and student). A similar picture was presented by Duarte and van der Ploeg (2019) in the Dutch context where lecturers were not comfortable deviating from the EMI policy and seldom encouraged interaction in any other language. Despite this, they could identify many advantages to including other languages in the classroom, such as social benefits, overcoming language barriers and broadening academic opportunities. Interestingly, the lecturers made use of their own but were reluctant to make use of the students’ plurilingual repertoires, because of concerns over creating clusters of monolingual activity in the classroom that excluded others and their own inability to understand all of the students’ languages. Overall, Duarte and van der Ploeg conclude that the possibilities for plurilingual pedagogical approaches could be better explored.

While there are constraints in HE, most notably the use of EMI for teaching international students and the prioritisation of the national language(s), implementing practices for the inclusion of other languages are within the capabilities of HE institutions. This is not to suggest a resource-intensive institutionalisation of a range of languages, but the permitting of other languages to be drawn upon in teaching and learning as appropriate and practical. Smith et al.’s (2017, 7) model for translanguaging pedagogy, although designed with schools in mind, offers a useful starting point for this. It suggests three levels of pedagogical engagement: (1) allow, which seeks to normalise the presence of different languages; (2) encourage, which involves giving positive encouragement for the use of different languages; and (3) enable, which suggests more in-depth thought as to how to use different languages to deepen learning. It may be that these three levels are not appropriate for all types of higher education learning but allowing other languages should at least be possible. HE institutions with their growing international student population are important sites for valorising multiple languages.

The research context

The context of the present study is the University of Helsinki (UH), Finland which is a bilingual university with a responsibility for maintaining the two national languages, Finnish and Swedish, (University of Helsinki 2014), but with the option of teaching in other languages. This has led to a trilingual language policy that includes English as an academic ‘Lingua franca’ for internationalisation purposes. Additionally, the UH offers a range of EMI master’s programmes to attract international students. In 2019, they recruited 1,970 international degree programme students and 1,245 exchange students (University of Helsinki 2020) together representing over 90 different languages (T. Kangas, 2020 personal communication). This diverse linguistic landscape, however, appears to go largely unseen. At the university policy level, the focus is on Finnish and English in HE (e.g. Saarinen 2012, 2014; Ylönen 2014) and, at the national level, constitutional bilingualism (Nikula et al. 2012).

The role of English in Finnish universities was not problematised until the 2010s, when it was raised in parliamentary debate, but by then it had silently become a third language in Finnish higher education (Ylönen 2014; Saarinen and Ennser-Kananen 2020). However, since EMI has become central to internationalisation strategies in Finland (Saarinen 2012; Ylönen 2014), the role of English for the moment is unlikely to change. English has also been used as a tool in neo-nationalist debates where it is framed as a threat to the Finnish (Saarinen 2020). This perceived threat has also been communicated publicly by the Finnish Language Board (Suomen Kielen Loutakunta 2018 cited in Saarinen 2020). Unfortunately, with only these two languages in the picture, debates around minority languages in Finland and also the other national language, Swedish, whose role as a national language in Finland creates heated ideological debates, have been obscured (Ylönen 2014; Saarinen 2020). Within such an environment, most other languages that are present in Finnish HE have become invisible (Clarke 2020) and the role of minority languages is ignored (Saarinen 2020).

Because of its multilingual environment and a growing number of plurilingual students, the UH provides an ideal site for examining, through the eyes of lecturers, the language tensions that may emerge between the plurilingual student population and institutional multilingualism. The next section provides information about the participants in the study and the approach taken to analysing their discourses on language use, which involved both coding and categorising, and enunciation theory.

Methodology

Participants and data collection

Semi-structured interviews with university staff, who are involved in teaching, from across the university, were conducted in 2019 to address the research questions (see Section 1). The interview conduct and procedure, following Magnusson and Marecek (2015), involved informal piloting of the interview questions with two colleagues and formal piloting with two members of teaching staff; after which the main interviews were conducted. The participants were recruited through snowball sampling, where one interviewee would suggest a further interviewee(s). This sampling strategy was chosen to get access to participants who may not otherwise have been willing to take time from their busy schedules to be interviewed. A total of 18 interviews, including the formal pilot interviews, were conducted, but following the selection process, only 10 interviews, including one of the pilot interviews, were included in the final data set.

The remaining 10 interviews were selected based on the participants’ type of employment to include permanently-employed lecturers of comparable seniority who would best represent the institution in the sense that they would have experience of attending programme meetings and teaching across a range of modules. The final set of interviews were with lecturers (see Table 1), eight Finnish, one Finnish/Estonian and one Swedish, from the faculties of arts (ART), biological and environmental sciences (BSC) and educational sciences (ED).

Table 1. Participant by faculty and gender; linguistic repertoire (i.e. first language(s) in bold, followed by actively-used languages, followed by passive languages/those learnt but no longer spoken in brackets); and experience of studying, having a post-doc position or teaching abroad.

Participant	Languages	Studied abroad?	Post-doc abroad?	Taught abroad?
ART1 (F)	Finnish, English, Swedish (German, Spanish,)	> 4 years	No	≈ 4 years
ART2 (M)	Finnish, English, French, German, Swedish (Estonian, Italian, Romanian, Russian, Spanish)	≈ 2 years	> 1 year	2 years
ART3 (M)	Finnish, Estonian, English, Hungarian, Mari, North Sámi, Swedish (French, German, Russian)	0.5 years	No	No
ART4 (F)	Finnish, English German, Swedish (Catalan, French, Russian)	≈ 4 years	1 year	≈ 8 years
BSC1 (M)	Finnish, English, Swedish (Spanish)	No	No	No
BSC2 (M)	Swedish, English (Finnish, German)	0.5 years	5 years	≈ 10 years
BSC3 (M)	Finnish, English, Swedish (Russian)	No	6.5 years	No
BS4 (F)	Finnish, English (German, Swedish)	3 years	≈ 1 years	No
ED1 (F)	Finnish, English (French, Spanish, Swedish)	0.25 years	No	≈ 0.5 years
ED2 (F)	Finnish, English, Swedish (Latin, Russian)	No	No	< 0.2 years

The interviewees gave written consent to their interview data being used in the research and were pre-informed of the themes of the interview; namely, the nature of their work and the use of their own and their students’ languages in HE. The interviews followed the question order (see Appendix A) of the interview guide, but they each took a different shape as I pushed for more nuanced accounts which sometimes led to stories and personal, co-constructed reflections on their experiences. The interviews were conducted in English because my level of Finnish is not sufficient for conducting interviews and I do not speak Swedish. The interviews were planned for 45 min, but the duration varied from 32 to 61 min, providing 488 min of data in total. All interviews were audio recorded and transcribed.

Analytical approach

To gain a close familiarity with the interview data, the interviews were transcribed verbatim, along with transcription notation (based on Wood and Kroger 2000 and Marková et al. 2007) to record shades of meaning that can be denoted by, for example, intonation, pausing and laughter. To manage the volume of data, the analysis was divided into two stages. The first stage of the analysis focused on lecturers’ discourses pertaining to the students and their languages; and the second, their own languages and the HE context. This resulted in the identification of 341 excerpts of text that were reduced to 72 descriptive codes and 19 categories. After the process of writing analytic memos for each category, which allows the researcher to draw connections between and see patterns in the codes and categories (Saldaña 2011), a final six categories were selected for the final analysis. These are: English as an academic ‘Lingua franca’, language diversity, learning Finnish, feelings about languages, language as a tool and professional writing.

The final analysis drew on enunciation theory (théorie de l’énonciation) that was introduced to me by Prof. Fred Dervin. Enunciation theory asserts that ‘the utterances (…) of a discourse inevitably contain traces of the locutionary activity (…) that produced them, the context in which they were produced, and the subjectivity of the producer’ (Marnette 2005, 19). As such, the theory proposes that all discourse is polyphonic (i.e. numerous viewpoints are conveyed within one utterance) in that it contains a Freudian split subject: the speaking subject, who physically makes the utterance; the locutor, who is responsible for the utterance (i.e. the ‘I’ in the utterance); and the enunciator(s) whose points of view are expressed (Ducrot 1984 cited in Marnette 2005, 21). The locutor and enunciator can be different or the same depending on, for example, whether the utterance is direct or reported speech (Marnette 2005). Using enunciation theory as an analytical approach is appealing for this study because language, and particularly national linguistic identity, can be an emotive and political topic, and with this in mind identifying the different voices that inform the lecturers’ discourses is likely to be interesting.

Enunciation theory began in literary studies where the distinction between these voices can be more easily identifiable; for example, in the context of a play, the speaking subject is the actor, the locutor is the character and the enunciator is the playwright (Ducrot 1984 cited in Marnette 2005, 21). In the context of interview discourse these distinctions are less clear cut, but to exemplify: when the interviewer asks a question that relates to a previous comment made by the interviewee, the interviewer in this scenario is the speaking subject, but the interviewee is the locutor and enunciator as she is the (original) ‘I’ in the question and origin of the viewpoint being repeated. Analysing discourse using this theory seeks to uncover the roots of the thoughts that are conveyed in discourse, and since this study aims to investigate language tensions in a multilingual society/university environment with a growing plurilingual population, through the discourse of lecturers, enunciation theory provides a useful analytical tool.

Enunciation theory involves the analysis of language (or utterance analysis) and focuses on aspects of grammar, such as personal pronouns (e.g. I, you, we, they); verb tenses (e.g. present tense: ‘I say’; and past tense: ‘I said’); modal verbs (e.g. might, could), which often denote hypothetical situations; and adverbs (e.g. actually, hopefully) which can be indicative of attitude. These aspects of language can show the speaking subjects’ subjectivities, in other words, their points of view, ideas and/or attitudes. As such, enunciation theory is not a linguistic analysis, but a theory of subjectivities (Angermuller, Maingueneau, and Wodak 2014). The next section will highlight these elements of language and discuss their significance in relation to the subjectivities of the lecturers in the study. The transcription notation used in the extracts can be found in Appendix B while the words in bold typeface indicate the language used for the enunciation analysis.

Analysis

This section will critically evaluate the talk of the lecturers by drawing upon the six data categories and enunciation theory in order to answer the research questions. These are concerned with the tensions between the institutional multilingualism (i.e. Finnish, Swedish and English), and the inclusion of the students’ plurilingual repertoires in teaching and learning situations. The section begins by analysing discourse in relation to the potential tensions surrounding English with a sub-section entitled, (In)visibility of English. Next, it moves on to the tensions around the national languages, Finnish and Swedish, under the sub-heading, Promoting Finnish and Swedish. Finally, the inclusion of multiple languages is the subject of analysis with the sub-heading, (Not) seeing linguistic diversity.

(In)visibility of English

Although English in itself is not the main focus of this research, it plays a large role in the internationalisation of higher education and, therefore, has consequences for the language dynamics at the UH. All of the lecturers in this study publish their original research in English, which is undoubtedly connected to the university’s government-driven financial incentives to have its lecturers publish in international journals (Kauko and Medvedeva 2016). Publishing in English is also important for potential pay increases, with one of the lecturers, ED1, pointing out that ‘(…) in terms of how (…) publications are evaluated (…) publishing in Finnish is *not very wise*’.

The wisdom of publishing in languages other than English for those participants from the biological and environmental sciences faculty, however, is not a question. For them, English is the central language. For example, in response to a question about the students drawing upon research published in languages other than English, BSC3 explains:

1. (…) in the more scientifically inclined text er it's seldom published in any other language (researcher: yeah) (other) than English (researcher: mh hm) so it's kind of discouraged (researcher: okay) if you really do like a scientific study (researcher: yeah)

Interestingly, BSC3’s use of adverbs in (1) indicates his attitude towards the coupling of authentic academic research and English with ‘really’ implying perhaps that less scientific research may be suitable for other languages. However, he later qualifies his position from the standpoint of sharing information in a common language which from an internationalisation perspective, naturally, makes sense.

• (2) (…) we kind of encourage them [the students] to to use er sources that are available for everybody (researcher: yeah) that’s like common scientific practice that we don't use some some kind of.hh secret inform- hah (researcher: hah) sources of of information (researcher: okay)

Internationalisation is not only linked to English as an academic ‘Lingua franca’ (EALF), but also English medium instruction (EMI). All of the lecturers in this study acknowledge the relationship between EMI and the recruitment of international students (Ylönen 2014). For some, EMI is clearly interchangeable with internationalisation (de Wit 2017); for example, when BSC4 is asked about the numbers of international students on her courses, she replies ‘I don’t even ask that because it’s in English anyway’. English is clearly embedded in the study and research practices of the biological and environmental sciences.

The picture is somewhat different for those participants from the arts and education faculties who, while writing most of their research in English, also publish in Finnish (see next section) although, according to ART2, English remains the primary language for original research. His position in relation to EMI as being essential for internationalisation, however, contests the role of English:

• (3) ART2 (…) so there are many different kinds of international students (researcher: yeah) of course most of them are function in English but er English and international are not it’s there's no equal sign between them

ART2’s resistance to English, intensified by the use of the present tense to assert his views as factual, is framed pragmatically with the use of ‘of course’ to concede the necessity of EMI for recruiting a wider range of international students. Later in the interview, the concerns underlying his position, which relate to tensions between the national languages and English, come into focus:

• (4) ART2 (…) I'm um always a bit concerned about diversity in the sense that er things don't become English only and then if er erm you know promoting Finnish and Swedish and supporting them in the er in the community (researcher: yeah) is not about protecting Finnish and Swedish from a nationalist perspective (researcher: yeah) it’s promoting diversity because you know diversity grows locally (researcher: yeah) and er we have to have er divers di- in order to have global diversity we have to have er erm different languages in different places and not not promoting er er an international monoculture of English (…)

In (4) ART2 is in dialogue with two enunciators or voices (Marnette 2005) to assert his own subjectivities: he is distancing himself from the Finnish neo-nationalist discourses (Saarinen 2020) and aligning himself with the more inclusive multilingual language ecology discourses (Wendel 2005) indicated by the phrases ‘diversity grows locally’ and ‘monoculture of English’. Interestingly, diversity here refers to three languages: English, Finnish and Swedish and not the actual linguistic diversity of the student body, suggesting that despite his own rich plurilingual profile (see Table 1), for ART2, institutionally, only three languages matter while the others go unseen.

This section has drawn upon four of the interviews to highlight some of the tensions surrounding English. These include the pressure to publish in English; the centrality of English for research and teaching in the biological and environmental sciences; and threat of English to the national languages, which also arises in other contexts (Bolton and Kuteeva 2012; Doiz, Lasagabaster, and Sierra 2011; Pérez-Llantada 2018). Moreover, BS3 and BS4’s comments in particular indicate how English has become the third language (Ylönen 2014; Saarinen and Ennser-Kananen 2020) at the UH for both research and teaching purposes. Interestingly, this is constructed as problematic by ED1 and ART2 but not by BSC3 and BS4 suggesting a disciplinary divide.

Promoting Finnish and Swedish

The disciplinary divide that exists in the data in relation to English is also present in the lecturers’ discourses pertaining to the use of Finnish and Swedish. While all of the lecturers use Finnish for teaching and administrative purposes, only the participants from the arts and education faculties actively write academic research in Finnish. The rationale for this relates to both the need to write for a particular audience, with those in the biological sciences writing solely for an international audience, and a responsibility to uphold the national languages, especially Finnish, as languages of science. As ED1 explains:

• (5) (…) most of it [her writing] has been in English. (.) but currently actually the article that I am now (<.1) *trying to write* ( ) er it it is in Finnish and it's been um: (.1) yes yeah well I'd say the past years, actually it's been er kind of (.1) bit more also Finnish (…) because er I don’t know maybe it's not pressure but I also wanted to publish something in Finnish? to: (<.1) have something also to: (.1) share with th- th- the Finnish context colleagues and an expert working at the field so um I’m personally also knowing that (.) article journals in some of the international (.1) my some of my English articles in some of the international journals are not it’s not very easily accessible to: (.) for example (.) to some of those who I think that the research is relevant such as people who work in early (XXX) education or work as primary teachers (…)

While ED1 highlights herself (e.g. I, my, personally) in (5) as the instigator of her desire to write in Finnish, she is also in dialogue with different voices, namely other experts in her field and her students, that provide her with the extrinsic motivation to publish in Finnish. Her use of ‘currently’ suggests that this is a new development in her publishing career, perhaps evoked by claims of the Finnish language being under threat (Suomen Kielen Loutakunta 2018 in Saarinen 2020), and the use of ‘actually’ indicates a sense of unexpectedness to this development given her comments about it not being very wise to publish in Finnish (see Section 4.1). The desire to meet the needs of Finnish students by writing in Finnish is echoed by ART2 who further adds that ‘(…) I think it is important to give Finnish also (…) as a language of science and (…) when you're writing more popularised stuff then (…) it's of course important to use Finnish there (…)’. To summarise, writing in Finnish ensures that research produced in Finland reaches a wider domestic audience and Finnish is valorised as a language of science.

When it comes to international students’ skills in Finnish, again there may be a disciplinary divide. ART1 suggests that learning the national language would be in the students’ interest, reporting that she is ‘sure the international students (..) face (…) rejection (…) if they're not able to function in Finnish and Swedish when they have to interact with the administration’; a situation that ART4 refers to as ‘(…) little fights here hah and there in order to get your access to information (…)’; however, BSC1 considers learning Finnish to be a hindrance to the students’ degree studies:

• (6) (…) some (…) [the students] want to study the Finnish language which is which is that’s something I do not encourage because it's difficult as you probably know it’s very time consuming and have to do so much everything else that er that y- y- you won:der if somebody could (<.1) pass a couple of Finnish courses (…)

In (6), BSC1 is the speaking subject and the locutor (e.g. I), but the presence of polyphony (Ducrot 1984 cited in Marnette 2005) is clear as he repeats the popular discourse of Finnish being too difficult to learn while, at the same time, attempting to co-construct this discourse with me the interviewer (e.g. you) as a learner of Finnish. ART2 describes the construction of Finnish as being very difficult to learn as a misunderstanding and ‘a myth’; and ART4 describes it as ‘rumours’. Consequently, both would consider this an unhelpful discourse that adds to the reluctance of international students and staff to learn Finnish.

ART3 states that one of the reasons why language is important is that it ‘(…) is one of those major tools you need to contact other people and to understand what is happening around you’. That English is sufficient for understanding the biological sciences context may explain why Finnish seems to be deemed by some of those lecturers as a lesser priority. For the other participants, however, the importance of learning Finnish is understood differently. They stress the difficulties that international students face when trying to gain employment in Finland if they do not develop sufficient skills in Finnish. Reflecting on the social reality for most Finns being generally monolingual in that Swedish is spoken by only 6% of the population (Nikula et al. 2012), ART4, in (7) stresses with the use of ‘only’ that learning Swedish over Finnish for reasons of migration, as some students do, is not enough to be successful in Finland:

• (7) (…) I love the fact that they now have a Finnish passport and they are Finnish hah but er but at the same time they have to realise that with Swedish it’s such a minority language that only Swedish doesn’t give you much more er kind of work life chances (researcher: yeah yeah)

This section uses the comments from six of the participants to build a picture of the tensions surrounding the national languages. The main focus of their comments is Finnish which reflects the minority position of Swedish in Finland (Nikula et al. 2012); for example, nobody mentioned writing academic papers in Swedish in order to support it as a language of science.

In relation to the students learning the national languages, while there is a suggestion of a lack of engagement with the national language in Duarte and van der Ploeg’s (2019) study, this does seem to be more of a Finnish phenomenon, perhaps propagated by the discourses surrounding Finnish as a difficult language to learn.

(Not) seeing linguistic diversity

One of the reasons for conducting this research is to investigate how and whether lecturers incorporate the linguistic repertoires of their international students into teaching and learning practices. Although the number of international students in classes can be low, this seems to be a reasonable study aim given that all of the lecturers in this study actively speak at least two languages and have good knowledge of at least one further language (see Table 1) and so would perhaps be open to the idea of multiple language use in HE.

As with the findings from other studies (e.g. Doiz, Lasagabaster, and Sierra 2011; Knoerr 2019), all of the participants report positive feelings about the professional and social advantages of speaking more than one language. Nevertheless, it seems that their main concern, communicated either implicitly or explicitly, is to support the institutional bilingualism and EALF, which overlooks international students’ plurilingual repertoires. For example, in response to a question about the inclusion of international students’ languages, apart from the major European languages, ED2 asserts that:

• (8) (…) for me (…) [there] are three languages what we have in our university but then when we think (…) it is agreeable [acceptable] (…) people [that] know (…) other languages (…) they er free to use also their own language (…)

This position seems to be fairly typical of the lecturers in this study with the exception of BSC2 (who is the only foreign national in the data set), who explains that he ‘(…) took beginner’s courses in Finnish (…) but (…) didn't really develop it further (…) due to time constraints and then the fact that Swedish is an official language in Finland’; and ART3, who states that Finnish, Swedish and English have great importance at the UH and for students’ careers, but also believes that ‘when you know more languages (…) your possibilities [to] understand different people (…) and get along with them is supported in a very special way (…)’. Since ART3 has a vast linguistic repertoire (see Table 1) that includes several minority languages, this seems to signify a practised belief in the inclusion of a wider variety of languages in the educational context. In general, however, it seems that the policy discourses that favour Finnish multilingualism, which includes the national languages and major European languages (Nikula et al. 2012), appear to have filtered through into some of the lecturers’ discourses in connection with the international students’ linguistic repertoires. Interestingly, it is also reflected in their own linguistic repertoires.

As we have seen in Section 4.1., internationalisation and international students are frequently viewed through EMI, and English-only policies are typically adhered to. For example, when asked about the use of other languages in the classroom BSC3 comments that ‘(…) I think it's quite clear that [when] we are (…) in a class then [the] language is English (…)’. Despite such dominant discourses, when pushed to reflect on their practices, the lecturers revealed how they might use the students’ languages on their courses; for example:

• (9) Researcher: (…) would you ever: encourage those students to use th:eir (.) their first languages to help them in the ◦learning process is that something that◦ (<.1) might happen

  BSC1: the- well: (<.1) in cases when for example we have two or three Chinese students in the same class then (<.1) >er < yeah ◦>er<◦ that's an encouraging factor you can you can talk about this and in your own language (researcher: ◦◦right◦◦) (.1) and that usually seems to help really (<.1) cos (researcher: ◦yeah◦) out of three students for example one one understands some things better than the two other and and and er you know so that seems to help them a lot

In (9), the question I posed uses modality (e.g. might happen) that makes the situation described hypothetical but, in BSC1’s response, ‘usually’ indicates his actual experience of allowing students to use their languages. BSC4 and ART1 also describe the students using their own languages as acceptable or emerging naturally, respectively. As these comments indicate, many lecturers in this study, when pressed to reflect, were able to provide minor examples of the allowing other languages in the classroom.

During the interview, my dialogue with the model for translanguaging pedagogy (see section 2) emerged in the data (e.g. 9 and 10) when I asked the lecturers to reflect on how they include the students’ languages in their teaching. Interestingly, in (9), BSC1 repeats the word ‘encourage’ but describes the act of allowing languages in the classroom. To conclude, the examples of the use of other languages in the classroom indicates moves towards a more linguistically inclusive environment but this still seems to be incidental rather than part of a planned pedagogy. Moreover, this, unlike other aspects of this study, appears not to be divided by discipline with lecturers from different faculties acknowledging the potential usefulness of other languages in learning situations.

When it comes to using academic materials, however, the disciplinary divide emerges again. This is to be expected given the central place of English in the biological sciences. When asked about encouraging the students to use materials in Mandarin, BSC1 explains that ‘(…) we're not that familiar with (…) Chinese material (…) biology so they are (.) yeah they are allowed to use it (.) but () because we have no idea (<.1) of the standard of the material that so we cannot really encourage (<.1) (researcher: hmm:) that (researcher: okay) it can be really poor or outdated (…) it's not forbidden but it's not really encouraged’. Having a lack of familiarity with and trust of potential sources in other languages seems to be a common reason to not encourage their use in this faculty as we have also seen in BSC3’s comments in (2).

Comments from those from the arts faculty suggest a greater scope for including other languages in teaching and learning. In the interview data among the arts lecturers, it seems that not only are other languages allowed, they are also encouraged:

• (10) ART1: (…) with the Chinese students and that's what I do with the master’s thesis that I encourage them to collect data in in (<.1) the language that they know:so he interviewed in Chinese and transcribed in Chinese and provided both the Chinese and English translation. °of the interview data° (.) I do that um::and (.1):I s- sometimes students use in their essays they use (.1) article:s other than in published in Finnish or English (researcher: mh hm) °I (.1) don't encourage them to do that? but they do that and I (.) forget to encourage that (…)

As with (9), ART1 in (10) also uses my language by repeating the word ‘encourage’ and, rather than using ‘we’ to indicate a common practice on her degree programme, she uses ‘I’ perhaps to show that she is alone in this practice. However, looking at the faculty more broadly, it seems she is not alone as ART2 explains that in the field of comparative linguistics ‘(…) we study diversity [where we] will look at different languages and then you know sources can be in different languages’. In addition, both ART2 and ART3 offer the students the opportunity to write their assignment in any language they can read beyond the official languages and English. ART3 takes a further step by enabling learning through the provision of texts in different languages ‘(…) because not everybody will be able to read Finnish or English texts (…) [so] I sometimes give some texts in some other language it could be German or Russian which are quite widely used in ethnographic studies’. Given that to be admitted to the university students need to be proficient in Finnish and/or English, the situation ART3 describes would be rare and confined to his or very similar disciplines.

Although international students’ languages generally appear to go unseen, there is some evidence of the use of different languages within the learning context among most of the participants in this study. However, it is in the Faculty of Arts where students are more likely to be encouraged to use their plurilingual skills. Exceptionally, and perhaps rarely, there is also evidence of enabling (Smith et al. 2017) students’ learning (i.e. providing learning materials in the students’ rather than the institution’s languages). The incorporation of international students’ languages by lecturers is, somewhat unsurprisingly, a question of discipline. It is further limited by the teachers’ perception that languages unknown to them cannot be included in the learning process, leading to plurilingual approaches being viewed rather narrowly (Knoerr 2019).

Discussion and conclusion

The aim of this study was to critically analyse the discourses of lecturers in relation to the expanded linguistic landscapes that are a common feature of today’s internationalised universities. To achieve this, research questions pertaining to (1) the tensions between national languages and English; and (2) the inclusion of the languages brought to the university by international students though plurilingual pedagogical approaches, were posed.

The lecturers’ discourses echoed findings from previous studies. For example, many of lecturers were positive about teaching in English (Doiz, Lasagabaster, and Sierra 2011; Knoerr 2019). Some of the lecturers also mentioned how their teaching had improved with the extra care needed to teach in another language (Knoerr 2019); others mentioned the specific example of how using English enabled peer editing on their courses. However, despite the benefits of EMI and EALF, there is some anxiety over the threat of English to the national languages (as with Bolton and Kuteeva 2012; Doiz, Lasagabaster, and Sierra 2011; Pérez-Llantada 2018); certainly, as a language of research and, to a lesser extent, as one for teaching. This has created some language tensions but, in this study, these emerged along disciplinary lines.

As with the science faculties elsewhere (e.g. Bolton and Kuteeva 2012), English is the unquestioned central language of the Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences. Among the participants, no one had ever written a research paper in Finnish or Swedish, and this was not seen as problematic. In contrast, in the Faculty of Arts and Faculty of Educational Sciences, although English is the dominant language for original research, there is a sense of responsibility for upholding the national languages which has materialised in some popular, student-focused and nationally-relevant work being published in Finnish (but seemingly not Swedish). These lecturers’ discourses imitated those found in Finnish policy documents in relation to the prioritisation of Finnish constitutional bilingualism (Nikula et al. 2012), the threat to Finnish from English (Saarinen 2020) and the development of Finnish and EALF in HE (e.g. Saarinen 2012, 2014; Ylönen 2014), indicating that these could be directly or indirectly the enunciators (Marnette 2005) that shape their subjectivities.

A further tension around the three languages concerns the reluctance of international students and staff to learn Finnish. For some in the biosciences, Finnish is structured as more of a distraction from the students’ work, while for those in the arts and education faculties, not learning Finnish is considered a barrier to communication with the administrative staff, gainful employment and effective citizenship. It is important to acknowledge that both this and the presence of EMI and EALF are real concerns and that it is only in Finland that Finnish will be maintained as language (of science). At the same time, adopting the stance that English is a predatory disruptor of local language maintenance may serve as a way to reinforce the previous monolingual ideological order (Adejunmobi 2004 cited in Saarinen and Ennser-Kananen 2020, 125), which is unhelpful to potential plurilingual initiatives.

The disciplinary divide that emerged among the research participants in relation to the use of English was less marked in their discourses on the use of plurilingual pedagogical approaches. Following Smith et al.’s (2017) framework for translanguaging pedagogy, the analysis showed that many of lecturers, regardless of their discipline, allowed other languages in their classrooms for the purpose of understanding course content. However, it was only among the Faculty of Arts that international students were encouraged and/or enabled as plurilingual learners. While these instances of plurilingual pedagogy were more often incidental than planned, they nonetheless show a willingness to allow other languages in the classroom, suggesting that institutionally there is an openness to plurilingual approaches. Interestingly, this willingness was only associated with those who have significant experience of studying or teaching abroad (see Table 1). A follow-up study to further investigate this finding would be worthwhile as would observation of lecturers’ potential plurilingual approaches in situ.

The benefits of taking plurilingual approaches in EMI contexts have been identified by lecturers as overcoming language barriers and broadening academic and social opportunities (Duarte and van der Ploeg 2019). Additionally, such approaches provide the opportunity to critique and evaluate a wider range of academic materials in different languages and from different academic traditions and to foster an environment where different languages are valorised and where no language is considered unsuitable for academic contexts, no matter how small a role it plays. As previously stated, this does not mean a resource-intensive institutionalisation of different languages, but the permitting of other languages to be drawn upon in teaching and learning as appropriate and practical.

To create an educational environment that is more inclusive of different languages, one of the most effective tools would be policy. This would mean university ranking indices that include a plurilingual element, university language policies that recommend plurilingual approaches to teaching and learning, and institutional policies that reward research published in the local language on an equal footing to international research. This could alleviate the anxieties over the threat to national languages from English and leave space for discussion pertaining to the plurilingual approaches.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the lecturers who very generously gave their time to participate in this study, the anonymous reviewers who made some useful observations and Prof. Josep Maria Cots for providing me with feedback on an early draft of this article. Most of all, I would like to thank Prof. Fred Dervin for his continued support and guidance during the writing of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Appendices

Appendix A: interview questions

1. I know that you are Professor/Coordinator/Dean of XXXX, could you tell me more about what your job involves?

2. I would also like to know how you use different languages in your everyday working life.

3. Could you now tell me about how you have developed your own linguistic repertoire?

4. What do you see as the main challenges that international students face during their university studies?

5. I would like to know about what kinds of (teaching/supervision/communication) strategies that you use to accommodate international students.

6. Finally, could you tell me what you think about having international students as part of the student body?

Appendix B: transcription notation

Table

!	Animated or emphatic tone
*words*	Words that are said while laughing
hah	Laughter
(…)	Text omitted from transcription
[word]	Non-verbal communication or word added for clarity by the writer
word	Indicates emphasis
,	Continuing intonation
?	Rising inflection
.hh	audible inbreath
word:	extension of the syllable sound
(.)	very short pause
(.1)	pause timed to the second
(XXX)	speech that cannot be deciphered
°word°	quieter than surrounding talk