ABSTRACT
This chapter explores overt and covert orientations to English and multilingualism in a UK university that considers itself international. We elicited these orientations from management (via policy documents and website information), and from staff and students in semi-structured interviews, as well as via classroom observations and linguistic landscaping. Our particular interest was in the extent to which the linguistic reality on campus, i.e. the extensive use of English as a lingua franca and of the languages of the institution’s large numbers of international students and staff was reflected in its top–down language requirements. Our findings, particularly in respect of our document and linguistic landscaping datasets, indicate that the university in question, no doubt like most UK universities, lags behind the other institutions participating in the project in its negative approach to the use of languages other than English and strong attachment to “standard” native English. However, there was cause for limited optimism in the perspectives of some staff and students.
