Language and internationalization in Brazilian Higher Education: From policy to practice

Linguagem e Internacionalização no Ensino Superior Brasileiro: Da política à prática

ABSTRACT:

Internationalization (in general) and Englishization (in particular) are processes currently at work in a number of Brazilian universities. This article provides an account of ethnographic research into language policy processes unfolding in one federal university. Firstly, an analysis of the university’s internationalization plan is presented. This documentary analysis is then accompanied by an interpretation of the perspectives of key social actors on how the policy has been implemented in their context. I conclude by highlighting the need for there to be wider engagement between senior management teams and university personnel on different scales relating to the development and implementation of internationalization plans.

KEYWORDS:
Internationalization; Higher Education; Brazil, language policy-making; Englishization

RESUMO:

Internacionalização e Inglesamento (Englishization) são processos em andamento em muitas universidades brasileiras. Este artigo apresenta uma pesquisa etnográfica sobre processos de política linguística em desdobramento em uma universidade federal. Primeiramente, uma análise do plano de internacionalização desta universidade é apresentada. Esta análise documental é, então, acompanhada de uma interpretação das perspectivas de um grupo de atores sociais sobre como o plano está sendo implementado no contexto em que atuam. Concluo ressaltando a necessidade de criação de um maior engajamento entre gestores sêniores e os diversos membros da comunidade universitária para o desenvolvimento e a implementação de planos de internacionalização.

PALAVRAS-CHAVE:
Internationacionalização; Ensino Superior; Brasil; política linguística; Inglesamento

1 Introduction

There is a close link between globalisation, i.e., political, economic and cultural interconnectedness across the world ( Coatsworth, 2004; Papastergiadis, 2000), and the internationalization of Higher Education (HE), i.e., the integration of international and intercultural perspectives and content in its aims, role and activities ( Knight, 2003). In fact, it is difficult to ascertain whether globalisation has led to internationalization in HE, or whether HE internationalization is one of the agents of globalisation ( Menezes de Souza, 2015).

The internationalization of universities has been considered in relation to different strategies that they have adopted for the integration of international and intercultural dimensions into their practices. For example, Maringe (2009) lists changes to the curriculum, the recruitment of international students and staff, staff professionalisation and funding, changes to the curriculum involving content as well as the language in which the content is delivered. The adoption of English for the teaching of academic subjects, in contexts where it is not the local language, is one aspect of Englishization in HE institutions ( Moncada-Comas; Block, 2021). Englishization in HE institutions can also include the use of English academic literacies and ways of writing in the production of knowledge, e.g., the growing trend toward research dissemination in English and pressure to publish research in English-medium journals (see Hultgren, 2014; Hultgren et al., 2014 ; Lanvers; Hultgren, 2018; Lillis; Curry, 2020). As pointed out by Margison (2006), there have been claims that one of the reasons for the underperformance of Brazilian universities within a globally competitive research environment is because Portuguese is the sole official language and English is not widely used, in the country as a whole or in its universities.

This article draws on data from a larger study that investigated the ways in which English language policy initiatives have been unfolding in two federal universities ¹ in Brazil. Here, I focus on the policy adopted by one of these universities and on how it has been interpreted by key social actors, on different scales of university life. I take account of the fact that internationalization involves policies and practices by both institutions and individuals ( Calvo; Alonso, 2020).

In the sections that follow, I first outline the context for current higher education policies in Brazil, at the national and institutional levels. After that, I show how the research that I am drawing on was situated within the field of ethnography of language policy ( e.g., Johnson; Ricento, 2013). Following this, I introduce the research design and I describe the approach to data collection and data analysis. I then provide an analysis of the policy that has been adopted by one of the universities. This documentary analysis is then accompanied by an interpretation of the perspectives of key social actors on how the policy has been implemented in their context. The conclusion points to the need, across universities, for senior management teams to ensure wider engagement with university personnel on all scales of university life, as they develop and implement their internationalization plans.

2 The policy context

As documented by Calvo and Alonso (2020), internationalization in Brazil started in the 20 ^th century with a focus on the outbound mobility of postgraduate students to countries in the Global North and inbound mobility of both undergraduate and postgraduate students from countries in the Global South, especially African ones. Currently, internationalization (in general) and Englishization (in particular) are processes that are unfolding in a number of Brazilian universities. Underpinning these processes are recent government policies, such as Ciências sem Fronteiras (CsF – Science without Borders), Inglês sem Fronteiras (IsF – English without Borders) and CAPES-PrInt. The latter is an internationalization programme which was introduced in 2017 by CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeicoamento de Pessoal de Nivel Superior – Coordinating Body for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel). The CAPES Foundation is a federal government agency under the Ministry of Education which is responsible for quality assurance and the evaluation of higher education institutions in Brazil.

CsF has promoted scientific internationalization through exchange programmes and international mobility ². According to Finardi and Guimarães (2017), CsF is responsible for the internationalization of the small- and medium-sized universities in Brazil, whereas IsF aims mainly at encouraging the learning and use of English and improving the teaching of foreign languages in Brazilian universities ³. Despite the initial focus of IsF on the English language, it has changed to Idiomas sem Fronteiras ⁴ , i.e., Languages without Borders, and presently includes French, German, Japanese and Spanish.

Despite the wide uptake of these two programmes (CsF and IsF), they have now been discontinued ⁵, due to a period of “government cost-cutting and austerity” ( Martinez, 2016, p. 221). These programmes have been replaced by the CAPES-PrInt ⁶ programme. The over-arching theme of this programme is that it creates space for “Internationalization at Home” without the need for costly investments in academic mobility ( Guimarães; Kremer, 2020). Internationalization at Home has been described as “the purposeful integration of international and intercultural dimensions into the formal and informal curriculum […] within domestic learning environments” (Beelen; Jones, 2015, p. 69 apud Guimarães; Kremer, 2020, p. 222).

The CAPES-PrInt programme is now considered to be the main influence, if not the main driver, of the internationalization of public HE institutions in Brazil ( Gimenez, 2020). This programme focuses on the postgraduate level ( Guimarães; Kremer, 2020), where research, doctoral supervision and postgraduate teaching typically come together within the Brazilian higher education system. The aim is to support the implementation and development of strategic plans for internationalization. This can include the funding and development of international academic networks, international mobility of students and staff as well as the transformation of universities into international environments, with research-led teaching and curricula of global relevance and with ample use of languages like English, French and Spanish, as well as Portuguese.

Universities that adopt this type of internationalization have been called “internationally engaged universities” ( Jenkins, 2013). Although a number of Brazilian universities fit this description, Brazil, as a whole, is still in the early stages of implementing English as a Means of Instruction (EMI), a phenomenon which only started to be studied from 2016 on ( Guimarães; Kremer, 2020). Nevertheless, the number of Brazilian public HE institutions offering courses with EMI has grown from 51% in 2016 to 61% in 2018 ( British Council, 2018). The use of EMI in Brazilian universities illustrates some of the impact that globalisation has had on HE institutions, both explicitly through their official documents and implicitly through their practices. Recent policy moves regarding internationalization in public universities in Brazil represents a key moment of institutional change that calls for detailed and focused research in different sites. The wider study on which I draw, in this article, represents a small step in this direction.

3 Language policy research in a higher education context

HE contexts have been described as having four functions: (1.) that of providing sites for teaching at advanced level; (2.) that of building and archiving knowledge; (3.) that of being objects of study and, more recently, (4.) that of serving as international institutions ( Saarinen, 2014). Language also plays an important role, across these four functions. Language Policy and Planning (LPP) research offers a valuable window on the language practices and ideological processes that are bound up with these four functions in contemporary university life. My focus here is on the recent role that language has been playing in the internationalization of one institution in the Brazilian HE context.

Saarinen and Taalas (2017) state that LPP has been used both as a field of study and as an approach to explore the roles that languages play in society. As a field of study, LPP was developed, in the mid-20 ^th century, after the Second World War when nations were being (re)built and when processes of decolonisation were being initiated and new nations were emerging in the Global South ( Spolsky, 2012). Now, in the 21 ^st century, the field of LPP has entered its fourth phase, with the development of the ethnography of language policy ( Johnson, 2013). Ethnography of language policy is a research approach which involves building an account of the agents, contexts and processes involved in LPP in specific social and political contexts ( Hornberger; Johnson, 2007). In the early literature on the ethnography of language policy, two ‘layers’ or ‘levels’ of LPP were identified: macro and micro.

In more recent literature, a three-way distinction between macro, meso and micro policy processes has emerged. Thus, national policies developed by governments, such as the CAPES-PrInt programme, could be seen as emerging on a macro ‘level’. Policies adopted by universities, such as Internationalization Plans, could be seen as developing on a meso ‘level’; while negotiations and actions related to Internationalization Plans, which involve university managers, academics and students ‘on the ground’ could be seen as taking place on a micro ‘level’. However, today, even this three-way distinction seems relatively limited. Ricento and Hornberger’s (1996) ‘onion’ metaphor indexed the fact that LPP processes can unfold on multiple ‘layers’, ‘levels’ of social or institutional life. The main point to be made here is that all the different scales are combined in ethnography of language policy studies, regardless of the number of ‘layers’ or ‘levels’ on which language policy processes are unfolding.

Language-in-education policy-making is now seen as “a complex social practice” ( Levinson; Sutton, 2000, p. 1), involving different social actors working on different spheres of institutional life. Hornberger and Johnson (2007) demonstrated why the study of language policy ‘on paper’ ( e.g. analysis of language policy documents) and analysis of the historical and institutional processes underpinning the creation of policies need to be combined with ethnography, so as to avoid giving only a partial account of the ways in which policymaking unfolds. They argue that some account also needs to be taken of the ways in which different social actors ‘on the ground’ understand and engage with policy developments. In this way, a balance between policy power and interpretative agency can be presented ( Johnson, 2013).

Taking this argument further, Johnson (2009) proposes a way of conceptualising language policy implementation. Moving away from the binary distinction between policy formation (on paper) and (top-down) policy implementation, he argues that we should view language policy as complex, intertwining processes of “policy creation, interpretation and appropriation” (p. 142). He also emphasises that “appropriation” can occur in diverse ways, ranging for example, from acceptance and compliance to adaptation or significant recasting of policy prescriptions. As Johnson (2013) argued later, in this way, a clear distinction can be achieved in studies of language policy-making, between policy-making power, policy interpretation by different social actors and agentive responses to policy ( Johnson, 2013).

The terms ‘layer’ and ‘level’ are now used less frequently in the LPP literature. Blommaert ( (2007)) argued that it should be replaced by the notion of “scales”. This is a sociolinguistic construct that takes account of the fluid, situated and dynamic nature of relationships between dimensions of social organizations. As Hult (2010) has put it, scales are interdependent and connected to each other by the people and the discourses that move between them Thus, while language policy processes are situated on a particular TimeSpace scale, they influence and are influenced by processes on other TimeSpace scales ( Souza, 2017).

Since language policy scales are inter-connected, Soler-Carbonell et al. (2017) highlight the circularity which is characteristic of the creation, interpretation and appropriation processes that are involved in language policy-making. Following Soler-Carbonell et al. (2017), I also trace, in this article, the recurring themes in the policy documentation adopted by one of the two Brazilian universities in our study. I contrast the content of the university policy document with the actual lived experiences of policy processes that key social actors in the university shared with us via qualitative interviews, as they participated in our wider study.

4 The Wider Study

The wider research project was based in two federal Brazilian universities which had been awarded CAPES-PrInt funding from 2018 ⁷. Both were campus-based universities in large, metropolitan settings and had 50,000 to 67,000 students.

The main objectives of the project were: (1) to identify policy initiatives taken by the universities in response to the CAPES-PrInt internationalization programme; (2) to build an account of the interpretation and understandings of these initiatives by research participants working on different institutional scales and in different academic disciplines, and (3) to document their lived experiences of these policy processes and institutional debates emerging around them, including debates relating to language; and (4) to provide an account of the ways in which the day to day academic literacy practices were being reshaped, especially their use and production of texts in different languages, on and offline. This part of the research built on a recent study by Tusting et al. (2019) of academics writing in British university settings. This article focuses on the first three of these objectives and the research findings from one university.

4.1 Research design and data collection

The study was organised into two data collection phases. In the first phase, we focused, as a research team, on the first three objectives. We gathered policy-related documents and conducted nine policy-related interviews with social actors who were closely involved in creating, interpreting and appropriating internationalization policies. In the second phase, we focused on the fourth objective conducting nine life-history interviews and techno-linguistic interviews with academics in different disciplines, in a manner similar to the study cited earlier by Tusting et al. (2019).

During both phases of the study, we engaged in participant observation in activities related to internationalization at both universities and we kept field notes. These activities included: (1) a talk given by the Director of International Relations at one university on the challenges of internationalization in post-graduate studies and research today; (2) a round table at the other university on the internationalization of universities: foreign languages, multilingual students, and international cooperation.

The Brazilian academics participating in the study were mostly established researchers, with different disciplinary backgrounds, who had already developed international links and/or engaged in international research collaborations prior to the introduction of the CAPES-PrInt programme. All the policy-related interviews were carried out with university staff who had managerial roles on different scales of their respective institutions. Some of the life history interviews included university staff with managerial roles and some who did not.

4.2 Data analysis

In this article, I report only on the analysis of the data collected for Phase 1 of the study with a focus on developing an overview of the nature and scope of language policy processes underway. For this article, I selected the Internationalization Plan of one of the universities in our study for documentary analysis. In this way, I could explore how the macro (national) level of internationalization was being interpreted at the meso (institutional) level.

I conducted a thematic content analysis of the policy document. I combined a quantitative approach with qualitative approach. The quantifying aspect of the content analysis allowed me to highlight the broad categories in the document (Graneheim; Lundman, 2004 apud Vaismoradi et al., 2013 , p. 402). These categories were used to describe the characteristics of the content of the document. The qualitative aspect of the thematic analysis enabled me to identify, analyse and report on the themes that emerged ( Braun; Clarke, 2006), i.e., the implicit patterns that emerged from the documents (Bloor; Wood, 2006 apud Vaismoradi et al., 2013 , p. 403).

In sum, I examined the document following the steps of a broad-based content analysis. Then, I read the whole policy document and selected the sections to be analysed based on explicit categories that were linked to our research questions. After this, these sections were described and re-examined employing a thematic analysis.

As pointed out by Soler-Carbonell et al. (2017), “[l]anguage policies are not linear and hierarchical continuums that neatly follow the same logic but produce different outcomes depending on the actors and interests that surface in different contexts” (p. 312-313). Therefore, in the wider study, besides examining the written policies of both universities, interviews were conducted with key policy actors on different scales of university life.

In this article, I draw on four of the eighteen interviews conducted with policy actors in the wider study. The analysis of these interviews was qualitative in nature. It had the aim of exploring individuals’ perspectives on the policy-making within their institution as well as gleaning a fuller understanding of how internationalization was being appropriated at the meso level.

The qualitative thematic content analysis of the interviews was applied as follows: The interviews were transcribed and read many times for an initial categorisation of their explicit content. These categories were then re-examined with a view to identifying related themes, such as those detailed in section 5 below.

5 Research findings

The university’s Internationalization Plan (IP) was published in April 2018 to cover the academic years between 2018 and 2022. It was written by staff in the Rector’s office, with support from the Deans of the university’s eight administrative units, i.e., administration, community affairs, international affairs, outreach ( extensão), personnel, postgraduate, research, and undergraduate.

It is a 36-page long document with four sections: (1) Internationalization today, (2) Guidelines for the internationalization, (3) Objectives, actions and timeplan for internationalization, and (4) Perspectives on active management of the internationalization. The IP was primarily written for internal use with a view to internationalizing research and teaching at the university. As indicated above, production of a specific institutional plan for internationalization was a requirement following receipt of a CAPES-PrInt award.

In preparing this article, I selected the section of this document which refers to the postgraduate programmes, the focus area of CAPES-PrInt, as already pointed out above. This particular section is entitled Internationalization of the Postgraduate Programmes (under item 3.3). In addition, I also discuss below item 2.1.1, which covers language policy.

5.1 The Internationalization Plan: Format, objectives and priorities

The university’s position on internationalization of its postgraduate programmes is presented over three pages of the IP (section 3.3) and has two parts. The first part is made up of two short paragraphs. The first paragraph links the aims of the internationalization postgraduate programmes to the guidelines presented in section 2 of the Plan. These guidelines highlight the engagement with national and global issues. The second paragraph emphasizes the university’s commitment to offering its academics an opportunity to experiencing linguistic and cultural diversity ‘at home’, in keeping with the current discourse of national policy-making.

The second part includes a table with five main objectives followed by actions required in relation to these objectives and deadlines for their accomplishment ( i.e., year 2019 for the short term, year 2020 for the medium term, year 2022 for the long term). The five objectives pertain to improving teaching quality, increasing the visibility of the university, increasing the enrollment of international students, enabling the participation of academic staff in international institutions and networks, and increasing internationalization of the postgraduate programmes.

In this section of the IP (section 3.3), English is mentioned only once, and alongside Spanish and French, as the language that can be used in modules offered at the postgraduate level with a view to preparing students better for internationalization. The English language appears to be given priority over other languages, especially, as a resource for postgraduate students to participate in research as well as to communicate with international lecturers working at the university. Finally, mention is also made of the need for the university to offer short language courses to teach Portuguese to international students and to visiting academics.

In sum, three main themes related to language emerge in this section of the university’s IP. They are the prioritization of English, whilst account is taken of research and teaching other languages, such as French and Spanish, and the need for ample provision for the teaching of Portuguese for international students and academic staff from abroad. These themes were also echoed in the language policies section of the document (section 2.1).

5.1.1 The Internationalization Plan: Language policy section

The language policy section ( i.e., section 2.1) is presented over two pages of the IP and has three parts. In the first part, an introductory paragraph justifies the consideration of the adoption of new language policies for the university. After that, a list of actions to be taken following the formulation of the policies is presented. The third and last part makes a link to the section of the document that follows it. This third and last part of the document provides more specific descriptions of how the actions to be taken can contribute to internationalization at home and abroad.

In this section, language is referred to in a much wider range of ways. Terms such as ‘foreign languages’, ‘multilingual’, ‘English as a medium of instruction’ (EMI) and ‘other languages’ are each mentioned twice. Other, more specific terms and phrases are all used once, anticipating greater linguistic diversity on the university campus and, at the same time, institutional links of an international nature. These terms include: ‘languages for inter-comprehension’, ‘second language’, ‘English’ and ‘languages of countries with which the institution has strong partnerships’. In addition to these terms, Portuguese is mentioned twice – once as the ‘language of adoption’ and once as ‘Portuguese for foreigners’. The only languages explicitly named are English and Portuguese.

English is represented as being of higher value than other languages, not only for being overtly named, but for being the only to be mentioned with reference to the branding of the university. English is the language chosen to showcase the university. On page 24, we see a call for: “ Translation of […] webpages into English, including the postgraduate programmes sites”. Bold font was used in the original text of the document.

Whilst a high value is assigned to English, a caveat is also presented: It is argued that there should be a balance between the selection of languages for university activities. This is illustrated with reference to two types of university activities: Firstly, the submission of dissertations and theses in other languages as appropriate to each specific field, and secondly, the launch of multilingual journals. Most activities of this kind were endorsed provided that a balance between languages could be achieved. In this way, the use of languages other than English could be protected.

The promotion of Portuguese as an Additional Language is also highlighted. For instance, the last sentence in the introductory paragraph for the section makes reference to strengthening Portuguese as ‘the language of adoption’ ⁸. Although the document does not present any definition of this term, it seems that this refers to the teaching of Portuguese to international students attending courses offered by the university.

The creation of institutional policies and the production of policy texts generally involves a number of social actors, and in university settings, it is mostly members of the senior management of the university who meet from time to time in relevant committees to engage in these policy processes. And, as Källkvist and Hult (2016) have shown, different committee members bring different discourses to university committee meetings and take different stances on the policy processes that are unfolding over time. The final document that is produced constitutes an attempt to accommodate different interests and viewpoints. Moreover, as mentioned earlier, recent theory-building and empirical work in the field of language policy has shown that we also need to take account of the ways in which policy documents are interpreted and then appropriated by different social actors who are positioned on different scales ( e.g., within a university hierarchy).

5.2 The views and interpretations of members of staff with different managerial roles

In this section, I draw on four policy-related interviews conducted in the university where this IP was adopted. I show how some aspects of this plan, and the processes involved in developing it, were interpreted by different individuals with managerial roles, on different scales, within the university hierarchy. I also show how they took different stances on these aspects of policy and on the policy-making process itself. Throughout this section, fictitious names are used to respect confidentiality. All four interviews were carried out in Portuguese, so excerpts from the interviews are presented in Portuguese, along with an English translation as footnotes.

5.2.1 Edgar Horta

Edgar Horta joined the university in 2002. He was appointed to the post of Vice-Rector for the period between November 2016 and November 2020 with internationalization being one of his specific tasks.

In this interview, he confirmed the importance of the IP in the internationalization process of the university: “a primeira (coisa) que nós fizemos foi […] desenvolver […] um plano estratégico de internacionalização” (lines 11-12) ⁹. Thus, it appears that the senior management group of the university, under his leadership, had seen the formulation of their IP as the first priority in responding to the CAPES-PrInt programme of the Federal Government.

When this interview was being carried out with Edgar in 2019, attention had turned to promoting the visibility of the university within the global higher education market. This was an issue that he mentioned a number of times during this interview. As he put it later, “um dos grandes objetivos […] é construir […] a universidade em inglês […] pelo menos uma vitrine em inglês” (lines 44-47) ¹⁰. By vitrine (window), he meant the university portal, which was actually launched in English on 30 ^th April 2020. Although there were plans to have versions of the university’s portal in Spanish and French, a higher status was clearly given to English over other languages in Edgar ’s account:

“é fundamental preparar melhor nossos docentes e estudantes para construir ciência […] em outra língua, especialmente, obviamente, em inglês, ou seja, conseguir que os tipos de texto, os tipos de processos de construção de ciência possam ser também realizados em língua inglesa. Às vezes para uma área específica o francês é muito importante, para outra o espanhol é mais importante. De uma forma transversal, o inglês é muito importante.” (lines 238-260, bold added by the author) ¹¹

In this statement, he does however concede that the use of other languages, such as French or Spanish, can be more appropriate, in some disciplines, in some areas of research, in some bodies of literature, or within some international networks.

Portuguese was discussed with specific regard to enhancing provision for teaching the language to visiting scholars and students from outside Brazil, so as to enable them to participate in the day-to-day activities of the university as well as in everyday social contexts. Emphasising the importance of welcoming international scholars to the university, Edgar pointed out that 18 leading international scholars were coming to the university in the first round of funding related to this dimension of the CAPES-PrInt programme and that specific provision was being developed for this cohort.

In Edgar’s view, “não tem internacionalização sem um domínio das línguas” (line 97) ¹². He adds that it works both ways, i.e. Brazilian academics’ knowledge of other languages as much as foreign academics’ knowledge of Portuguese. His was a vision of a university with multilingual resources, where there was a balance between the use of English and the use of other languages by Brazilians and where visiting scholars were encouraged to learn Portuguese and where some teaching took place in languages other than Portuguese.

Moreover, he clearly saw the presence of international visiting scholars as a key dimension of the university’s internationalization plan. In his words, “como elemento que aumenta a qualidade do nosso objetivo finalístico, nossa pesquisa, nossa extensão, nossa inovação tecnológica, nosso ensino” (lines 119-120) ¹³.

In concluding, Edgar Horta emphasised that the university had already developed ideas for internationalization prior to 2017, but the CAPES-PrInt programme had obliged the senior management team to prepare a formal plan and, in the university-wide discussions that followed, they had learned a good deal about the activities of the scholars and research groups based at the university and about the wider impact of their research. One consequence was the identification of directions for interdisciplinary collaboration which had been developed.

5.2.2 Sara Gomes

Sara Gomes joined the university in 1996. She was the Director of the university’s International Relations Office between November 2016 and November 2018. She had already stepped down from this managerial role by the time our project was carried out.

In this interview, Sara was asked how the team had embarked on the task of developing an institutional policy on internationalization in response to CAPES-PrInt. She was also asked whether this policy process had been primarily top-down in nature or whether there had been some opportunities for bottom-up input. In her response, she indicated that they had begun with a survey of existing research groups, with a view to identifying forms of collaboration that were international in nature and those that were not.

When asked about the criteria set out in the CAPES-PrInt programme for ranking research output – criteria such as assigning higher value to publications in English, Sara expressed her own viewpoint quite emphatically. This openness about her own views may well have been due to the fact that when this interview took place, her term of office as Director of International Relations had come to an end, and so she was speaking as an independent academic.

Na minha opinião, o grande problema do CAPES-PrInt é ele não criar diálogos, ele criar um programa de excelência e ponto, porque você pode criar um programa de excelência, eu entendo que é necessário, mas você pode criar um programa de excelência que tem também uma força de alavancar outros. (lines 311-305) ¹⁴

She then went on to place the question of university ranking and research assessment in a wider context, making reference to the work of a recently established international language planning body called: Política e Planejamento Linguístico para Ciência e Educação Superior – PPLICES [Language Policy and Planning for Science and Higher Education]. As she explained, PPLICES has been founded by academics in Latin American universities under the leadership of Enrique Rainer Hamel, an anthropological linguist based in Mexico. The aims of PPLICES are to develop a common regional evaluation system as well as a system for the sharing of knowledge produced regionally. Sara indicated that the founders of this body felt that a fairer system of evaluation is needed, one that takes account of regional issues and the intercomprehension between the varieties of Spanish and Portuguese spoken in Latin America. She described the aims of the group as follows: “tentar criar um sistema de avaliação comum regional que seja mais justo e que leve mais em consideração as especificidades de cada área” (lines 30-32) ¹⁵.

Later in the interview, she returned to the question of how excellence in research should be defined. She expressed the view that there was a clear divergence between the criteria used by CAPES-PrInt and by bodies such as PPLICES. CAPES-PrInt’s focus on the use of English in publications and on orientation to leading international journals has considerable consequences for some groups of Brazilian scholars. As we see below, some research that is particularly pertinent to Brazil and to the Amazon region does not get high ranking since the researchers publish largely in Portuguese. The example she gave was a research group called Federal do Amazonas: “Vamos pegar o examplo da Federal do Amazonas, que produz excelentes pesquisas sobre dengue, Zika virus […] inclusive com o conhecimento tradicional, local […] Eles são invisibilizados por que eles não escrevem em inglês” (lines 322-326) ¹⁶.

Sara Gomes saw this contrast between the criteria of excellence employed by CAPES-PrInt and other bodies such as PPLICES as posing a major challenge for academics and university administrations in countries such as Brazil, since university administrators in leading universities have to ‘look both ways’. As she put it:

ao mesmo tempo que existe um movimento […] para a internacionalização mais sustentável, com países do sul […] as universidades, vamos dizer 30 universidades brasileiras […] que tem uma força nos ranqueamentos […] precisam se dobrar também ao critérios de internacionalização que a CAPES também adota. (lines 291-296) ¹⁷

She also noted that the vast majority of Brazilian universities are excluded from the CAPES-PrInt process and that this was an issue of inequality.

5.2.3 Rosa Neto

Rosa Neto joined the participating university in 2006. She had been the Director of the Institute of Letters since November 2016. This is the largest institute at this university with about 200 lecturers.

She raised two key points. The first related to the need, within any internationalization programme in Brazil, for a focus on South-South relationships between university research groups. She made a generally positive evaluation of the emphasis that the university’s Internationalization Plan (IP) placed on building links with other universities in the Global South, and she pointed out that her department had a number of South-South research links, especially in Latin America.

Secondly, she welcomed the emphasis, in the university’s IP, on maintaining a balance between the use of Portuguese, the teaching of Portuguese as an Additional Language, the use of English and the use of other languages, such as Spanish and French. She also mentioned that one practical consequence of this vision for the university was that, in the Institute of Letters, a course had been created by the Translation lecturers on how to use a specific form of software to develop corpora of technical terms in English, Spanish and French linked to different fields of research.

Rosa also spoke at some length, in this interview, about the actual process of policy-making around internationalization taking place at the university. She indicated that she welcomed the fact that the university’s top management team had adopted a relatively inclusive approach. The International Affairs Office had committed itself to inviting Heads of Departments to meetings with the visiting representatives of universities in other countries. This new arrangement has raised awareness of the need to consider how the departments represented themselves within a global arena. As a consequence, written information about the work being developed by the Institute of Letters had been produced in English. In the past, this type of information had only been available in Portuguese since the main target audience for the staff at the Institute had been their own students.

When asked about the views of the policy process expressed by her staff, Rosa indicated that not all members had positive views about the ways in which policy initiatives were being developed at the university. For example, members of the Linguistics Postgraduate Programme had been unhappy about the fact that they had not been invited to participate in the process of writing the university’s IP. However, she explained that, in fact, members of this programme “contribuí[ram] na elaboração do documento, mas indiretamente, nós não tivemos contato com a gestora do CAPES-PrInt, [nem] mesmo com a Comissão de Internacionalização […]” (lines 394-409) ¹⁸. Using ‘nós’ (we) in describing the relationship she had with her colleagues in the Institute, she indexed her own positioning (and that of her colleagues in the Institute) within the middle ranks of university management, at some distance from the day-to-day decision-making about policy.

When asked to evaluate the impact of the university’s IP and the CAPES-PrInt programme on the Institute of Letters, Rosa remarked that it was too early to assess the knowledge and awareness that her staff had of the nature and extent of the policy initiatives being taken with regard to internationalization in the university and it was thus too early to witness any change in the activities in her Institute. In her own words, “Ainda não trouxeram mudança no nível das unidades acadêmicas […] a gente ainda não conhece o suficiente pra pensar” (lines 319-341) ¹⁹, “Eu acho que ela (mudança) vai começar a ser sentida quando os projetos forem aprovados no edital (CAPES-PrInt) e as pessoas começarem a trabalhar integradamente […]” (lines 420-428) ²⁰.

In sum, Rosa Neto was well informed about the ways in which university policy was being created at senior management level, in response to CAPES-PrInt. This was due to her role as Director of the Institute. While she was able to interpret and understand the different initiatives being taken by the university, these policy processes were being interpreted in different ways by the staff in different departments within the Institute. Like Sara Gomes, she felt that there needed to be more opportunities for bottom-up engagement with policy initiatives and with the drafting of policy documents. She also argued that a bottom-up approach would enhance active appropriation of policy initiatives among staff in different academic units across the university.

5.2.4 Gilberto Maia

Gilberto Maia was coordinating the university’s Language Centre in 2019. This was a large-scale community outreach programme ( atividade de extensão). He was also chairing the Language Policies for Internationalization Committee and, thus, was responsible for a translation project which constituted one of the Committee’s main activities.

Gilberto pointed out that the choice of English, French and Spanish as the languages for the translations was based on the human resources they had available. The translation projects were carried out by students enrolled in the Translation Degree Programmes offered by the university. The translation activities had begun with course outlines and details of teaching activities at the university. By the time this interview took place, those participating in the translation project had completed the translation of all the course outlines. The translation of the outlines into Spanish and French was still underway.

As in the interview with Rosa Neto, some of the discussions turned to the management of the policy-making processes in the university. Gilberto noted that there had been limited consultation with those in lower ranking managerial positions within the university regarding the nature and scope of activities to be undertaken following particular policy initiatives set out in the IP. Gilberto gave the following account of this problem:

Quando nós fomos para [a Assessoria de Assuntos Internacionais] nos [passaram] a demanda de que a Universidade precisava que as ementas estivessem traduzidas, não é, porque o aluno entra e não consegue saber o que é que vai ser dado naquela disciplina, para fins de equivalência de estudos em outros lugares. E aí nós assumimos. Mas a ideia não era começar pelas ementas mas começar pelo site […] Então como nos foi dada uma demanda em um primeiro momento, nós falamos “tá, vamos terminar com essa demanda” e o quê é que a gente percebeu, nós do projeto, que as ementas não eram o principal objeto, mas vamos terminá-las. (lines 77-103) ²¹

In this part of the interview, Gilberto indexes, in his narrative, his positioning within a lower managerial rank at the university, through the use of an ‘us/them’ distinction in his narrative, and he aligns himself with colleagues running the translation project, referring to them as “nós” and “a gente” (we). His account provides a brief insight into his perception of the policy processes at work around translation as being primarily top-down in nature. As he recounts it, those carrying out the actual translation had to simply carry out the demands of senior management in the International Affairs Committee. On this occasion, at least, it appears that there had been no room for a bottom-up exchange of views about priorities with the members of the International Affairs Committee.

While making explicit reference to his positioning (and that of his colleagues) within the university hierarchy, he asserts the value of the contribution that they make to internationalization efforts, and specifically, to the development of multilingual resources within the university through the practical activities associated with the teaching different languages.

Gilberto also had a fundamental critique of the role of the CAPES-PrInt programme in higher education in Brazil. In his words: “O projeto CAPES-PrInt […] privilegia as universidades que já tem certa internacionalização e não dá para quem não tem, [...] para aquelas que precisam internacionalizar crescerem. Então, ele mantém o status quo das que têm” (lines 153-157). ²²

6 Discussion and conclusion

In this article, I drew on data from the first phase of a study which looked into the internationalization policies adopted by two HE institutions in Brazil, and into the processes involved in policy implementation. Here, I focused on one of these institutions and provided an analysis of the links between internationalization and the use of the English language on different scales of LPP. As the study was situated within the tradition of ethnography of language policy ( Johnson; Ricento, 2013), in addition to examining a key policy document, I analysed the views of different policy actors on the policy initiatives being discussed and acted upon. The specific policy document that I analysed was the university’s Internationalization Plan. This document was chosen because of its considerable relevance: It set out the university’s response the Internationalization Programme (PrInt) launched by the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel in Brazil (CAPES) in 2017.

The Institutional Plan (IP) of this university represented efforts to comply with CAPES-PrInt requirements, As indicated earlier, the CAPES-PrInt programme has as one of its aims to transform universities in Brazil into international environments where foreign languages are used alongside Portuguese, especially English. As I have shown, a number of initiatives are mentioned in this document in relation to internationalization and language policy. As a consequence of this IP, some actions have been taken since its publication in 2018. For instance, English has been prioritised as being the first language to be used for the design of a new digital portal with the aim of giving more visibility to the university. Additionally, a short description of the university’s modules ( ementas) has been translated into English. Along the same lines, the Institute of Letters now produces flyers and booklets about its activities in English. Moreover, the Translation Department has designed a course for the use of software to develop corpora of technical terms for translating into English as well as into Spanish and French. With a view to improving the university’s academic networks and the use of foreign languages in their module delivery, International Visiting Professors have been recruited. A Portuguese for Foreigners course has also been developed for these Visiting Professors.

The main issue raised by the social actors participating in our wider study related to the inequality caused by internationalization (in general) and CAPES-PrInt Englishization requirements (in particular). Despite the mention of South-South partnerships and the protection of other languages in the university’s IP, the interviewees raised the issue that, in practice, greater value was being given to the use of the English language and to partnerships with universities in English-speaking countries – by policymakers, academics and students.

Another issue reported related to the LPP process itself. It was acknowledged that there had been a change to a more inclusive approach by senior management personnel with regard to internationalization. However, it was felt that much of the decision-making about implementation strategies was still confined to senior management circles. The lack of involvement of social actors on different scales of university life in policy-making can limit the impact of the planned policies. In fact, from the interviews conducted in the wider study, it was clear that the actions taken at the university in question have not yet had any widely visible impact on how lecturers delivered their lectures or on how researchers planned, carried out or disseminated their research projects.

Our wider study was conducted towards the beginning of CAPES-PrInt. Therefore, the implementation of this new policy was still in its first stages. It will be interesting to return to the field in a few years’ time to see how the language landscape of these Brazilian universities has (or has not) changed. Moreover, it was a small-scale study and, thus, it would be beneficial to complement it with large scale comparative research. The policy processes related to internationalization unfolding in large federal universities, with CAPES-PrInt funding, such as the two universities where our project was based, need to be compared with those processes that are at work in other federal or state universities, or private universities, in other regions of Brazil. For example, account needs to be taken of the different conditions in different regions of Brazil and of the differences emerging between those universities that have received CAPES-PrInt funding and those that have not.

In the meantime, it is clear that the senior management teams of Brazilian universities need to consider ways in which social actors on all scales of university life can effectively participate in the language policy-making processes at work ‘on the ground’ at their institutions, in the context of internationalization. It is only by involving social actors ‘on the ground’ that policies can effectively be translated into day-to-day practices.

Acknowledgements

The author is thankful to the funders of the wider study on which this article is based. They are the British Council, Brazil through the UK-Brazil Collaboration Call, with matched funding from the International Relations Office, University of Birmingham, from the Instituto de Letras, Universidade de Brasília and from CEALE (Centro de Alfabetização, Leitura e Escrita), Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais. She is very grateful to the participants who kindly contributed to the study reported in this article. She would also like to thank her colleague, Marilyn Martin-Jones, for her very useful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

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Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  26 Feb 2024
• Date of issue
  2023

History

• Received
  08 June 2022
• Accepted
  22 Jan 2023