Research into the internationalisation and Englishisation of higher education is flourishing and covers an increasingly vast range of different geographical contexts as well as academic disciplines (e.g. McKinley & Galloway 2022; Studer & Smit 2021; Tsou & Baker 2021; Wilkinson & Gabriëls 2021). Yet, to date, relevant investigations have largely ignored a discipline which has a long history of attracting international students to highly renowned institutions: music and the performing arts. Though a relatively small country, Austria has long enjoyed its reputation as a global centre of classical music and attracts students from all over the world. While clearly proud of their international student cohorts, initial investigations of the websites of the six officially recognised music universities have revealed that their explicit language policies are brief and underspecified at best and effectively non-existent at worst.
This contribution presents the results of an exploratory study into multilingualism in tertiary-level music education. Focusing on one traditionally and internationally well-known music university in Austria, it investigates the roles English, German and other languages fulfil for teaching and learning music in and across the diverse professional subfields and educational contexts, such as artistic performance (alone or in groups) as well as theoretical subjects. The study uses a mixed-methods approach comprising a survey with 31 bachelor and master students of various specialisations and 12 semi-structured interviews with teachers, students and university management.
The findings and impact of the study are twofold. On the one hand, the stakeholder perspectives on which languages are used how and why identify multilingual practices and policies contingent on educational context, music specialisation and linguistic constellation of participants. While meaning making and knowledge construction are thus understood as developing dynamically and drawing on multilingual and other semiotic resources, the institutional multilingual regime comes with specific roles for German and English, privileging them over other linguistic resources. On the other hand, the analysis of reported educational practices should lead to the identification of the specific multilingual nature of international tertiary-level music education and to what extent the challenges and opportunities presented mark it different from those of other disciplines.
Smit, U., & Studer. P. (eds). 2021. European Journal of Language Policy. Special Issue: English-medium education in internationalised universities: new policy perspectives 13/2.
Wilkinson, R., & Gabriëls, R. (eds). 2021. The Englishization of Higher Education in Europe. Amsterdam University Press.
Tsou, W., & Baker, W. (2021). English-Medium Instruction Translanguaging Practices in Asia. Singapore: Springer Singapore Pte. Limited.
McKinley, J, &. Galloway, N. (eds). 2022. English-medium instruction practices in higher education: international perspectives. Bloomsbury Academic
