Abstract
As a result of the internationalization of universities, English is increasingly becoming the lingua franca of academic communication. However, limiting all academic discourse to the English language implies a great loss for other language cultures since knowledge and language are inseparably linked. For this reason, it is of great importance to implement appropriate measures in order to preserve other important academic languages (e.g. German, Italian). This paper argues that multilingual academic competence can be promoted through an integrated comparative approach to teaching academic language(s). This will be illustrated by presenting the results of a teaching project which aimed at familiarizing Italian students with typical linguistic structures of German and Italian academic lectures. The teaching module focused, in particular, on typical features of spoken and written academic discourse, drawing on Koch & Oesterreicher's (2007) distinction between conceptually oral and conceptually written forms of communication. The present study aims to contribute to an approach which fosters cross-linguistic knowledge and awareness of the characteristics of spoken academic language, which is a central component of multilingual academic competence.