Signs of Plurilingualism

Abstract

During the last decade, universities worldwide have gradually become more internationalized. The article contributes theoretically as well as empirically to the field of internationalization in higher education by discussing two plurilingual language strategies that have recently been implemented in Danish higher education. The authors discuss signs of plurilingualism, how they can be conceptualized and why the promotion of plurilingualism seems to be central to Danish universities' internationalization efforts. Furthermore, the authors present a preliminary model that tries to capture the plurilingual countermoves and the quantitative data that have been collected in order to investigate students' language needs and teachers' language needs, competences and practices. These findings suggest a multifaceted picture of language needs among students and language competences, practices and needs among university staff and problematize the perception of English and the national language(s) as sufficient languages for academia.