ABSTRACT
Since the first grassroots initiatives of the early 1990s, English has widened its use in Austrian higher education (HE) from first foreign language to a firmly established medium of instruction. While this shift away from the long-standing de facto policy of ‘German only’ has taken place relatively matter-of-factly and without attracting much public or political attention, it is certainly here to stay. Not only do most Austrian higher education institutions (HEIs) make use of English as educational medium for some of their programmes and courses (Wächter & Maiworm, 2014), but it has also become an integral element of HE development planning at the national level. Aiming to guide Austrian HEIs along their institutionally appropriate routes towards internationalisation (of whatever kind and understanding), the Ministry of Education encourages HEIs to offer ‘an attractive range of courses [and programmes] taught in a foreign language’ (Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research, 2020, p. 11). Nevertheless, by neither specifying English as the targeted language, nor providing any suggestions for policy implementation, this strategy paper reflects a widely encountered laissez-faire approach to language matters in Austrian politics that implicitly supports German as the default language in all public domains (de Cillia & Vetter, 2013).
