Abstract
The increase in the use of English within higher education, most obviously in the form of English Medium Instruction (EMI), puts English in contact – and potentially also in competition – with local languages in many institutions around the world. This chapter reports on how English interacts with two indigenous languages in a somewhat unique sociolinguistic context: the trilingual Free University of Bozen-Bolzano (unibz), which, since its creation in 1997, has offered teaching in three languages, English, German (a majority language locally, but a minority language nationally) and Italian (the national language). Through the use of a university-wide survey, this chapter explores how the languages policies at unibz – which place English as one of three equal linguistic partners, rather than treating it as a special case – help to create balance between the three languages in what is a complex sociolinguistic environment. Furthermore, it explores how attitudes to English at unibz nonetheless vary, both according to the nature of the attitude measured and also to demographic variables. While the overall picture to emerge is positive, it is nonetheless nuanced, showing how different stakeholders react to the presence of English in different, sometimes surprising ways.