Exploring the conceptualisation of linguistic diversity and multilingualism in the construction of (Transnational) European Universities: the case of UNA Europa

ABSTRACT

In an increasing context of internationalisation, the European Commission announced in 2019 the creation of the first seventeen ‘European Universities’ (EUnis), a Pan-European consortium of higher education institutions designed to promote European values, cooperation and identity. Against this backdrop, this paper aims to examine the ways in which these newly created EUnis construct their views of linguistic diversity and multilingualism. The research used as a case study the example of UNA EUROPA, an alliance of eight leading universities with eight different languages. Drawing mainly on content analysis combined with a discourse analysis approach, three data sources – the project proposal for the EU Commission, the UNA EUROPA website documents, and a research interview with one of its representatives – were examined to look into the ways in which languages and multilingualism are conceptualised. Findings reveal that linguistic diversity and multilingualism are given different degrees of visibility in the three sets of data examined and that utilitarian objectives seem to predominate over identity ones. It is expected that these findings will help unveil the ways in which language issues are problematised or not in the agenda of these newly created transnational universities.

KEYWORDS:

• European universities
• language diversity
• multilingualism
• supra-national
• curriculum planning and development
• language policy

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 For more information see https://ec.europa.eu/education/education-in-the-eu/european-education-area/european-universities-initiative_en

2 In order to achieve the ‘seamless mobility’ that this EU policy seeks, ‘pilot alliances have emphasised the use of virtual or blended forms of mobility as a means to meet the target’ (see Gunn 2020, 25).

3 https://ec.europa.eu/education/sites/education/files/document-library-docs/european-universities-factsheet-una-europa.pdf

4 I have borrowed this label from the work by Kuteeva, Kaufhold, and Hynninen (2020, 36) as it describes accurately the current UNA EUROPA reality with regard to multilingualism.

5 The highlighting in the extracts is my doing to underline key ideas.

6 As the University of Helsinki had not joined the alliance when the project proposal was submitted, Finnish was not accounted for in the initial list of UNA EUROPA languages.

7 Please visit https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_1264 for information on the second batch of EUnis funded by the EUin 2020.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades [grant number PID2019-103862RB-100].