Scientific research and languages in Portuguese Higher Education Institutions

Abstract This paper reports on a study that looked at Portuguese public universities setting out to identify and discuss institutional stakeholders’ social representations concerning the use of languages in scientific research and the development of institutional language policies within this area of higher education activity. In order to do so, institutional stakeholders responsible for research activities at six Portuguese public universities completed a questionnaire and participated in in-depth interviews. The findings indicate there are common tendencies regarding the identified social representations that point, mainly, to a tension between, on one hand, the existence of reported practices that centre on “English-mainly” research language policies, reflecting the current monolingual scenario of global science and, on the other hand, the need for a more plurilingual science and the privileging of Portuguese as a science language.