Imagining higher education as a multilingual space

The articles in this volume arise out of a colloquium at the International Conference on Language Issues in English-medium Universities held at the University of Hong Kong, June 2008 (Preece and Martin 2008). The colloquium aimed to promote debate on issues related to language and identity among bi/multilingual ‘home’ or ‘domestic’1 students in English-medium universities, with a particular focus on minority ethnic students from non-traditional backgrounds. Our concern in the colloquium was the lack of understanding regarding the linguistic diversity that these students bring into higher education and the ways in which this is contributing to their exclusion and marginalisation in English-medium institutions. The studies in this volume indicate that there is a mismatch between the monolingual ethos and the ideology of English-medium tertiary education and the needs and identities of multilingual students. Drawing on Heller’s (1995, 375) work on ‘monolingualised’ spaces,2 the research reported here illustrates how English-medium colleges and universities often adopt blinkered and atomistic approaches to the linguistic diversity in their midst. Focusing on cases in the United Kingdom and Canada, the papers illustrate how the linguistic repertoires of multilingual students are all too often ignored or treated as problematic, particularly when students use non-prestigious varieties of English and languages that have little status within English-dominant settings (cf. Heath 1983). The data suggest that English-medium institutions continue to operate with the assumption that academic language is neutral and ‘taken as a given’ (Bowl 2003, 139). These are little evidence of the critical approaches to the use of standard English, the use of linguistic diversity as a resource or the adoption of ‘language-as-right’ (Ruiz 1984) or ‘linguistic human rights’ (Kontra et al. 1999) in relation to the student body. The myopic attitude to linguistic diversity means that when the issue of ‘language’ does appear on the agenda, it comes with a ‘problem’ label (Ruiz 1984). There is a common perception in the sector that the student body has become populated with remedial language users (Davies, Swinburne, and Williams 2006, Preece 2009). In efforts to solve this perceived educational deficit, home students are often required to take academic writing classes, which are often similar to the English language provision designed for international students. English language and literacy tests are also used as gate-keeping devices to regulate access to and progression in the sector (Preece, Marshall, Simpson and Cooke, this volume). On entering tertiary education, many home students find they are required to take an English language programme that is separated from their main subject of study. There is a need to critique just how useful and relevant such provision is for home students, particularly as this provision invariably carries the stigma associated with ‘remedial’ English. As Alan Wall (2006) comments, no learners, particularly aspiring and actual university students, want to be regarded as ‘remedial’. This volume seeks to challenge the notion of language remediation in relation to multilingual home students, promote discussion of pluralist and