The Monolingual Campus and the Bilingual Campus: Ideological Debates on the Management of Language Diversity at Two Dutch Universities

Abstract

Rooted in a neo-liberal market approach that associates a monetary value to graduate students' numbers, since 2010 Dutch universities have had to adapt, adopt and implement language policy measures making them go global, based on the motto ‘the more international, the better’. Dutch higher education institutions, students and employees have then found themselves projected either in mandatory bilingual environments (Dutch English) or monolingual environments (English only). With the above backdrop in mind, our study first examines the discourse practices contained in language diversity policies that have been issued, authored and authorized by two universities, a technical one and a non-technical one both located in the North Brabant region. From there, we explore the discourse practices issued against anglicisation of higher education championed by institutional bodies to safeguard the status of Dutch language as opposed to those voices from sociolinguistics who stand in favour of multilingualism. The discourse analysis of the recent political, mediatic and public debates about English-Dutch bilingualism or English-only monolingualism in higher education has led to a tumultuous language policing U-turn. Such a turn has culminated with two measures: (1) consisting of reinstating the Dutch language as the language of higher education asking and (2) having universities to justify why an English language-based educational pathway should be kept in place. Contrary to common rhetoric that portrays the Netherlands as a tolerant Country toward any form of diversity, the examined discourses issued at the governmental level seem to favour a Dutch-only language approach, that while legitimate, results based on Herderian notions of: national belonging, safeguarding the indigenous student population while stressing the need to integrate the foreign ‘other’ through learning Dutch either before arrival or during their higher education pathway.