Language policies generally seek to establish, regulate, and conform linguistic practices – whether explicit or implicit – that occur within an ‘authorized’ domain. While there are multiple levels (societal, institutional, and interpersonal) at which such policies are enacted (Hornberger & Johnson, Reference Hornberger and Johnson2007), academic institutions are often significant policy arbiters as they serve as crucial switchboards (Blommaert, Reference Blommaert2010; De Costa, Reference De Costa2010) that connect policies at the societal and interpersonal levels. In particular, English medium of instruction (EMI) policies that mandate English as the primary means of academic content delivery have played a pivotal role in enabling universities in countries such as Bangladesh (Rahman & Mehar Singh, Reference Rahman and Mehar Singh2019), China (e.g., Hu, Reference Hu2009; Song, Reference Song2019; Zhang, Reference Zhang2018), Saudi Arabia (Barnawi, Reference Barnawi2018; Phan & Barnawi, Reference Phan and Barnawi2015), and Vietnam (Phan, Reference Phan2018) to establish themselves on the world stage and engage with the global community. Even though several scholars (e.g., Coleman, Reference Coleman2006; Jenkins, Reference Jenkins and Murata2019a; Knight, Reference Knight2013, Reference Knight2016; Macaro et al., Reference Macaro, Curle, Pun, An and Dearden2018) have investigated EMI policies across different contexts, the following central question concerning these policies still persists: in what ways has the implementation of EMI policies transformed the higher education sector, and subsequently affected primary social actors, such as students, teachers, and administrators embedded within these shifting contexts? These concerns, we posit, are amplified by the transnational movements of people and institutions (Duff, Reference Duff2015) and the ever-increasing speed and agility with which TESOL as a field has to respond to the shifting tides of globalization (Barnawi, Reference Barnawi2020). Given this conspicuous gap in an ever-evolving English language policy landscape, we set out to critically review previous works that have examined the implementation of EMI policies within a transnational higher education (TNHE) context. TNHE is characterized by the transformation of higher education across the globe (Knight, Reference Knight2013; Kosmützky & Putty, Reference Kosmützky and Putty2016) as Western-based universities export models – driven by a neoliberal agenda to maximize financial profit – through the establishment of overseas branch campuses. In reviewing works that examine TNHE, we aim to stimulate dialogue on this contemporary phenomenon.
To help us better understand this emerging phenomenon, we first examine the driving forces behind EMI policies, including the operation of the neoliberal ideologies and policies and the internationalization of higher education on a global scale. Next, we explore how EMI has been used as a vehicle to facilitate TNHE expansion. By focusing on TNHE in China as a national case, we contextualize the challenges and concerns that social actors (students, teachers, and administrators) encounter in an EMI-mediated environment as well as the affordances created in such an environment. Lastly, we consider future EMI research directions within the TNHE context.
Situating EMI policies in a neoliberal era
According to Tollefson and Tsui (Reference Tollefson, Tsui, Tollefson and Perez-Milans2018), the medium of instruction (MOI) often shapes the sociopolitical reality by (re)distributing power within society. These MOI policy decisions in any degree or form can yield both intended and unintended consequences (Hamid, Nguyen & Baldauf, Reference Hamid, Nguyen and Baldauf2013). In light of this reality, we need to consider what compels countries and their institutions to take up an EMI language policy when English is not the dominant language in society. To better understand their motivation, we situate EMI policies within the broader context of neoliberally-driven TNHE, where English is often the chosen MOI. Before moving forward, it is best we elaborate what neoliberalism is and how this ideology informs the global knowledge economy. Neoliberalism is best categorized as a school of thought that centers around the ‘philosophy of sustaining entrepreneurial and competition-seeking practices under the umbrella of free markets’ (Phan & Barnawi, Reference Phan and Barnawi2015: 546). This economic ideology often constructs an unregulated market – commonly referred to as a free market – as being beneficial to society due to competitive access to goods and services. However, as Codó (Reference Codó, Tollefson and Perez-Milans2018) has argued, these goods and services do not become more readily accessible to everyone; instead, neoliberalism often actually causes greater levels of inequality in the world by restricting the choice of most individuals through the guise of political liberty. This is best illustrated in Piller and Cho's (Reference Piller and Cho2013) study on universities in South Korea that attempted to transform themselves into ‘good’ universities by competing in the global knowledge economy through actively attempting to place themselves in international university rankings (Altbach, Reference Altbach and Altbach2013). This caused universities to implement an English MOI policy as well as other metrics to restrict the academic freedom of both its students and faculty for the sake of international economic and academic competition (Wan & Gao, Reference Wan and Gaoin press). Thus language, in particular English through an English MOI policy, becomes implicated in this neoliberal higher education agenda. As observed by Holborow (Reference Holborow, Block, Gray and Holborow2012: 32), ‘the tensions and the relationship between neoliberalism and applied linguistics . . . is best described in terms of how [a neoliberal] ideology makes its appearance in language’. More often than not, this neoliberal ideology that undergirds higher education is overlooked, and thus warrants further applied linguistic investigation (see also Flubacher & Del Percio, Reference Flubacher and Del Percio2017, for a further discussion of language, education and neoliberalism) because English becomes both the driver and vehicle through which neoliberal impulses are realized. Put differently, the powerful role that English plays in advancing this hidden neoliberal ideology regrettably often goes unnoticed.
As noted, to participate in the competitive global knowledge economy, higher education institutions worldwide often actively adopt neoliberal policies and practices to elevate their international profiles and attract international students and staff (Bamberger, Morris & Yemini, Reference Bamberger, Morris and Yemini2019; Phan & Barnawi, Reference Phan and Barnawi2015). This enterprise is characterized by the spread of EMI in higher education (Piller & Cho, Reference Piller and Cho2013), the pursuit of international university rankings (De Costa, Park & Wee, Reference De Costa, Park and Wee2019), and franchising academic programs to non-English dominant countries (Altbach, Reference Altbach and Altbach2013). The growing emphasis on international rankings of higher education institutions best exemplifies this ideal. Ranking systems such as the Academic Ranking of World Universities, Quacquarelli Symonds Limited (QS) World University Rankings, and the Times Higher Education World University Rankings have been one of the key reasons why universities are beginning to adopt EMI policies from Europe (Coleman, Reference Coleman2006; Macaro et al., Reference Macaro, Hultgren, Kirkpatrick and Lasagabaster2019) to Asia (Kirkpatrick, Reference Kirkpatrick, Fenton-Smith, Humphreys and Walkinshaw2017; Song, Reference Song2019; Zhang, Reference Zhang2018). Placement in these rankings brings prestige and monetary gain to both the universities and the nation hosting the institution; thus, as observed by Altbach (Reference Altbach2012), an institutional interest also becomes a national one. Students – both domestic and international – are implicated in this endeavor to establish ‘world-class’ universities because the ‘best’ students and faculty are sought after in order to conform to evaluative metrics and to secure private and public funding (Codó, Reference Codó, Tollefson and Perez-Milans2018).
The role of English in the internationalization of higher education
As mentioned, a key enabler of the expansion of EMI education is the internationalization of higher education (Macaro et al., Reference Macaro, Curle, Pun, An and Dearden2018). Driven by the impulses of neoliberalization and globalization, many universities worldwide seek to become ‘international’ institutions (Wihlborg & Robson, Reference Wihlborg and Robson2018). According to Knight (Reference Knight2013), the internationalization of higher education entails integrating an international, intercultural, or global dimension into the purpose, functions (primary teaching/learning, research, and service) and delivery of tertiary education. While the internationalization of higher education can take various forms and has been viewed from various perspectives (e.g., Altbach & Knight, Reference Altbach and Knight2007; Phan, Reference Phan2013; Wihlborg & Robson, Reference Wihlborg and Robson2018; Zhang, Reference Zhang2018), the following key features are commonly accepted: (1) the international content of the curriculum; (2) the international mobility of students and scholars; and (3) the international technical assistance and cooperation programs (Ennew & Greenaway, Reference Ennew and Greenaway2012; Knight, Reference Knight2013).
In line with the growing reality that English is often the lingua franca in academic and economic domains, Zhang (Reference Zhang2018) illustrated that the implementation of an EMI language policy makes it possible to deliver the three aforementioned features of international higher education in non-English dominant countries (e.g., Rahman & Mehar Singh, Reference Rahman and Mehar Singh2019). The rapid spread of EMI programs in non-English dominant countries has, however, invited criticism from scholars (e.g., Piller & Cho, Reference Piller and Cho2013; Phan, Reference Phan2013; Phan & Barnawi, Reference Phan and Barnawi2015; Zhang, Reference Zhang2018), who have critiqued the consequences of imposing an EMI language policy at the institutional level. First, in adopting an EMI policy to acquire the global recognition and resources, higher education institutions are complicit in propagating the myth that the ‘adoption of a common “corporate” language (mainly English) . . . enables all stakeholders to partake in interaction on equal terms’ (Tange, Reference Tange2012: 289). However, more often than not, it is a privileged inner variety of English (Kachru, Reference Kachru1992) that is deemed to be the central medium of communication; and in reality, not all stakeholders (e.g., students and faculty) have access to this variety of English. If anything, the ratification of this select and exclusive variety of English results in a reinforcement of the hegemonic status of English and could lead to (1) the decline of knowledge production in local languages (Kirkpatrick, Reference Kirkpatrick2011), and (2) the commodification of language education (De Costa et al., Reference De Costa, Park and Wee2019), where EMI education is pursued as a mark of social distinction.
Significantly, neoliberal EMI language policies also result in the university work environment being interrelated with the development of an individual's ability at the workplace to successfully accomplish their assigned job, as seen in Codó's (Reference Codó, Tollefson and Perez-Milans2018: 471) astute observation that ‘contemporary labour is linguistic, and language is contemporary labour’. Thus, faculty and students who do not speak the prized variety of English end up linguistically monitoring themselves and being marginalized because they are often unable to achieve competence in this idealized standard variety.Footnote 1 One case in point is Barnawi (Reference Barnawi2018), who found that universities in Saudi Arabia – in pursuit of the Vision 2030 goal of internationalizing higher education in the country – had implemented an EMI-based curriculum even though teachers did not have the necessary English language proficiency. Instead of providing support, Barnawi found institutions placed the onus on the faculty at these institutions to prepare future ‘ . . . employees [who had] to demonstrate their relevance to the constantly changing job market needs’ (2018: 58). Thus, it is the neoliberal ideologies of competitiveness and instrumentalism, which underpin such policies and strategies, that contribute to the internationalization of higher education and the spread of EMI. It is against this contemporary backdrop that we next examine the transnational nature of higher education.
Transnational higher education (TNHE)
Through the use of EMI policies and the abovementioned neoliberal logic to be competitive domestically and internationally, higher education institutions often engage with international partner institutions (Knight, Reference Knight2016) with a view to exchange students and faculty under the decorum of audit culture (De Costa et al., Reference De Costa, Park and Wee2019). Audit culture is constituted by a set of practices that uses financial auditing principles to serve as a ‘prevalent logic for ensuring economic efficiency and regulatory accountability across multiple domains of society’ (ibid: 390). These partner institutions are also generally committed to establishing an offshore branch campus in a different country, and thus become ‘transnational’ by sending their academic programs, curriculum, brand, and personnel to a foreign country while following these new cultural and neoliberal practices. As recently as February 2020, Dr. Bandula Gunawardane, the new government of Sri Lanka's higher education minister, announced that his government had approved a new push to allow branches of world-class universities to be set up in the country, thereby illustrating how the higher education has taken on a transnational dimension (De Alwis, Reference De Alwis2020). Crucially, such a policy initiative subscribes to a neoliberal ideology of being internationally competitive through the implementation of an EMI policy within these emerging higher education educational contexts. As explained, this policy seeks to bolster the academic prestige of the institution and generate additional overseas tuition revenue for the home institution by enrolling students at these foreign branch campuses (Codó, Reference Codó, Tollefson and Perez-Milans2018). Given this transactional reality, we define transnational higher education (TNHE) as encompassing institutions that deliver distant partner support to an overseas branch campus that enrolls students from a country other than the one in which the awarding institution is based.
These institutions generally transcend geopolitical, sociocultural and sociopolitical borders through the mobility of their EMI academic programs, personnel, brand, and students (Caruana & Montgomery, Reference Caruana and Montgomery2015; Kosmützky & Putty, Reference Kosmützky and Putty2016; Phan, Reference Phan2018). Admittedly, there are different configurations of TNHE, as detailed in Healey (Reference Healey2017) and Perrin (Reference Perrin, Fenton-Smith, Humphreys and Walkinshaw2017) that include franchising and validation, international branch campuses, corporate programs, online learning and distance education. However, what binds much of the TNHE enterprise together is an EMI language policy that is mediated at an institutional level. And it is to an example in China that we turn next.
TNHE in China
In order to participate competitively in the knowledge economy and achieve national development goals (Li, Reference Li2016), the Chinese government has implemented a series of policies and strategies to promote the internationalization of its higher education sector, including building world-class universities, recruiting international scholars and students, and establishing international partnerships with high-status institutions from the West with a STEM emphasis (Paul & Long, Reference Paul, Long, Chou, Kamola and Pietsch2016).Footnote 2 As a result of this transformative drive, Chinese central and regional governments have (1) adopted an EMI language policy as a key strategy to internationalize its higher education (Zhang, Reference Zhang2018), and (2) encouraged the establishment of several high-level Sino–Foreign cooperative projects (Huang, Reference Huang2016; Perrin, Reference Perrin, Fenton-Smith, Humphreys and Walkinshaw2017) as exemplary TNHE universities. As a key component of the internationalization of the higher education sector in China, the TNHE initiative is commonly known as 中外合作办学 (zhong wai he zuo ban xue), that is, a set of joint higher education provisions cooperatively run by Chinese educational institutions and foreign educational institutions (MOE, 2004). These provisions detail the development of TNHE in China by examining the key policies and regulations at various stages of policy implementation (Han, Reference Han and Collins2017).
The Sino–Foreign cooperation activities evolved from the earlier Sino–Foreign Cooperation programs in the late 1990s to the more recent establishment of Sino–Foreign Cooperation universities in the early 2000s. As noted, TNHE features include the import of international curricula, the implementation of an EMI language policy as well as the presence of international students and faculty. While many scholars (e.g., Han, Reference Han and Collins2017; Hayhoe & Pan, Reference Hayhoe and Pan2015; Huang, Reference Huang2016; Perrin, Reference Perrin, Fenton-Smith, Humphreys and Walkinshaw2017) have paid attention to this emergent phenomenon in China, most of these studies address the historical development and current challenges associated with TNHE at the societal and/or institutional level. Little is still known, however, about the impact of TNHE on the individual social actors in such complex multilingual contexts (Huang, Reference Huang2016). Similarly, Jenkins (Reference Jenkins2014) also highlighted a mismatch between the English practices imposed by the national and institutional policies (i.e., an emphasis on native-like English) and the English as lingua franca (ELF) variety used by individuals (i.e., students, administrators, and faculty from various linguistic backgrounds) in multilingual contexts (see, Wan & Gao, Reference Wan and Gaoin press).
One notable exception is Ou and Gu's (Reference Ou and Gu2018) study, which focused on a TNHE university in China where English was adopted as the medium of instruction and international communication. Drawing on interview and observation data from a two-year ethnographic project, this study explored the complex relationships between Chinese students and other language users in intercultural communication, and how such relationships impacted Chinese students’ identities, behaviors, and attitudes. Notably, Ou and Gu highlighted the asymmetrical power relationship between Chinese students and their native-English-speaking peers in conversations, which resulted in Chinese students having to position themselves as vulnerable ESL learners. This, in turn, led to a social separation between these two groups of students on campus. Such self-positioning drove the Chinese students to identify with other Asian non-native-English-speaking peers, namely, the Korean students on campus with whom they developed an in-group membership. These findings underscore multilingual students’ awareness of unequal power issues involved in the relationship between language and norms. Crucially, Ou and Gu's findings also underline how the TNHE setting can be a key space for fostering reciprocal intercultural communication. When afforded opportunities, Chinese students were observed to mobilize their multilingual and cultural resources to socialize their international peers into the Chinese linguistic and cultural community. In doing so, Chinese students were able to transform their vulnerable ESL learner identities and recast themselves as agentive individuals with linguistic and cultural repertoires that can be deployed to foster communication with others in a multilingual and multicultural setting. Because of these encouraging findings, Ou and Gu propose that TNHE universities promote equitable intercultural communication and make the development of critical intercultural awareness an explicit curricular goal.
Future directions
English as a lingua franca (ELF) perspective
Following Ou and Gu's (Reference Ou and Gu2018) study, and in line with Jenkins and Mauranen's (Reference Jenkins and Mauranen2019) recent work on linguistic diversity on the EMI campus, we need to acknowledge that many of the students and faculty at TNHE universities are multilinguals for whom English is an additional rather than a first language. However, despite the inherently multilingual nature of TNHE universities, institutional policies that adopt and implement EMI language policies are often grounded in native speakerist ideologies (Kirkpatrick, Reference Kirkpatrick2014) that favor the use of inner-circle native speaker English in the classroom. Such language policies have failed to take into consideration the multilingual resources available to teachers and students to unpack academic content and develop intercultural awareness.
As mentioned, at the individual level, students at TNHE universities and EMI classrooms were found to be deeply influenced by a native speakerist ideology, and thus positioned themselves as vulnerable English language learners (Ou & Gu, Reference Ou and Gu2018). These students also felt ‘ashamed of’ and ‘embarrassed by’ their accented English (Murata & Iino, Reference Murata, Iino, Jenkins, Baker and Dewey2017: 407). In response to the impact of native-speakerism-based norms and practices on students’ learning in an EMI context, Murata and Iino (Reference Murata, Iino, Jenkins, Baker and Dewey2017) and Jenkins (Reference Jenkins and Gao2019b) have called for a further investigation of the ELF realities that characterize EMI programs. Echoing their call, we propose that future studies adopt an ELF perspective to (1) examine the interactions in EMI classrooms in TNHE settings, and (2) develop pedagogical strategies to promote students’ awareness with a view to foster a greater ownership of English (Kemaloglu-Er & Bayyurt, Reference Kemaloglu-Er, Bayyurt, Sifakis and Tsantila2018). Additionally, in the TNHE context where multilingual practices are the norm, future research should explore the affordances that a TNHE learning environment can bring to students and teachers in order to develop their critical intercultural awareness, and subsequently disrupt a native-speakerist ideology (Piller, Reference Piller2017). It is on these individual social actors that we focus next.
Voices from the field
In their systematic review of the TNHE literature, Kosmützky and Putty (Reference Kosmützky and Putty2016: 16–17) summarized six commonly studied themes, namely: (1) overview and trends; (2) quality assurance and regulation; (3) teaching and learning; (4) institutional and management perspectives; (5) governance and policy; and (6) student choice and student mobility. Kosmützky and Putty also highlighted that more emphasis has been placed on the development of programs and institutions, rather than on learning and teaching at the local context as well as on student mobility. Of the few studies that have focused on the social actors (e.g., students and teachers) in TNHE contexts, much of the research adopted survey-based methodologies to explore students’/teachers’ attitudes, beliefs, and decision-making regarding the learning and teaching in the TNHE universities (e.g., Chen & Zimitat, Reference Chen and Zimitat2006; Dunn & Wallace, Reference Dunn and Wallace2006; Heffernan et al., Reference Heffernan, Morrison, Basu and Sweeney2010; Li & Bray, Reference Li and Bray2007; Wilkins, Balakrishnan & Huisman, Reference Wilkins, Balakrishnan and Huisman2012). As insightful as these findings may be, little is still known about the pedagogical practices that are enacted in the EMI classroom. In other words, we know little about teachers’ and students’ practices of meaning-making and meaning-negotiating in the classroom, as well as multilingual students’ English learning trajectories at TNHE universities. Moving forward, we argue that more in-depth ethnographic studies are needed to delve into the linguistic ecology (Han, De Costa & Cui, Reference Han, De Costa and Cui2019) of TNHE universities. We also recommend that more work be done to investigate how the EMI language policies in the TNHE context have influenced teachers’ and students’ teaching and learning.
Finally, as pointed out by Kosmützky and Putty (Reference Kosmützky and Putty2016: 22), many current studies adopt an uncritical stance towards the TNHE phenomenon, treating such a development as characterized by ‘successes of transnational ventures’. However, such work generally has neither challenged the hidden ideologies (e.g., the commodification of English and its purported promise of delivering upward mobility for its learners), as discussed earlier. Nor has such work critically examined the systemic inequities, such as the role of one's socioeconomic status (e.g., Kuchah, Reference Kuchah2018) in neoliberally oriented knowledge economies (e.g., Piller & Cho, Reference Piller and Cho2013). After all, ‘unequal structures of the knowledge economy’ (Altbach, Reference Altbach, Forest and Altbach2007: 22) still tilt in favor of western-based powerful universities and academic systems that dominate knowledge production and distribution, leaving peripheral non-Western countries dependent on them as knowledge arbiters. In addition, given the prestigious status assigned to English in academia, scholars are also increasingly under great pressure to publish their work in English-medium journals, which exacerbates the unequal distribution and production of knowledge in the local communities (Curry & Lillis, Reference Curry and Lillis2017; Lillis & Curry, Reference Lillis and Curry2010). To address this conspicuous gap, and in line with the critical stance advocated in language policy research (e.g., Codó, Reference Codó, Tollefson and Perez-Milans2018; De Costa et al., Reference De Costa, Park and Wee2019), we call for more studies to take a critical lens in examining the ideologies and norms (e.g., monolingualism, native-speakerism, white supremacy) that underpin the everyday linguistic practices of individuals at academic institutions. Equally important is the need to explore ways of supporting and empowering multilingual TNHE students and teachers at these EMI campuses so that they can eventually critically reflect on their linguistic practices and enact transformative practices in their learning and teaching of the English language.
PETER I. DE COSTA is an Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Languages and the Department of Teacher Education at Michigan State University. His research areas include World Englishes, second language acquisition (SLA), language policy, as well as emotions, identity, ideology and ethics in educational linguistics. He also studies social (in)justice issues. He is the co-editor of TESOL Quarterly. Email: pdecosta@msu.edu
CURTIS A. GREEN-ENEIX is a Ph.D. student in the Second Language Studies program at Michigan State University. Before coming to Michigan State, he attained his MA in TESOL at the University of Arizona and his BA Boise State University. His research interests include teacher development, teacher and student identity (re)construction, power dynamics in the classroom, critical discourse analysis, as well as social class, mobility and education. Email: greenen5@msu.edu
WENDY LI is a Ph.D. candidate in the Second Language Studies program at Michigan State University. She joined the program in fall 2015. Before coming to the United States, she taught English as a foreign language in different educational institutions in China for more than two years. Her research interests include identity development of language learners and teachers, multilingual students' language socialization, and English-medium instruction. She holds an M.A. in TESOL from Lancaster University, UK. Email: liwenji2@msu.edu
