Reflections of (Dis)location: What is “Intercultural Communication” in Transnational Higher Education English-Medium Instruction?

Debates around the impact of English-medium instruction (EMI) as part of transnational higher education (TNHE) typically focus on macro-level impacts on host country languages, cultures, and economies. Adopting the methodology of institutional ethnographies, this reflective study narrates how I came...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:RELC journal 2021-08, Vol.52 (2), p.253-269
Main Author: Reynolds, Dudley
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Course Descriptions
Cultural Awareness
Curriculum development
Educational Cooperation
Elective Courses
English (Second Language)
English for academic purposes
Ethnography
Foreign Countries
Higher education
Intercultural Communication
International Cooperation
International Education
Language Attitudes
Language ideologies
Language of Instruction
Marketing
Multicampus Colleges
Second Language Instruction
Second Language Learning
Student Recruitment
Transnationalism
Undergraduate Students
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Summary:Debates around the impact of English-medium instruction (EMI) as part of transnational higher education (TNHE) typically focus on macro-level impacts on host country languages, cultures, and economies. Adopting the methodology of institutional ethnographies, this reflective study narrates how I came to find problematic such totalizing narratives of TNHE. The object of my reflections is an undergraduate English elective course, Communicating in the Global Marketplace, first taught on the main campus in Pittsburgh, USA, of a TNHE institution, which I then participated in “(dis)locating” (Edwards and Usher, 1997) to a branch campus in Qatar. The study illustrates how emic perspectives on course design and delivery open up TNHE as a process of meaning-making. Analysis of course artefacts (course descriptions, reading lists, and assignments) from offerings on both campuses point to opportunities educators in the process of TNHE have to question language ideologies in EMI, consider “imagined communities” (Norton and Pavlenko, 2019) when marketing courses for prospective students, and frame both transnational “encounters” (Vora, 2014) and our understanding of what is “intercultural” in transnational EMI.
ISSN:0033-6882
1745-526X
DOI:10.1177/00336882211017554