Resumen de Language policy and planning: challenges for Latin American universities

Rainer Enrique Hamel, Elisa Álvarez López, Tatiana Pereira Carvalhal

• This article starts with an overview of the sociolinguistic situation in Latin America as a context for language policy and planning (LPP) decisions in the academic field. Then it gives a brief overview of the language policy challenges faced by universities to cope with neoliberal internationalisation. A conceptualisation of the domain as a sociological (Bourdieu) and communicational (Gumperz) field is sketched to interpret LPP activities in a comprehensive framework. Next the text turns to the micro-level to give a more detailed account of two specific universities, Unidad Profesional Interdisciplinaria en Ingeniería y Tecnologías Avanzadas (UPIITA), a technology unit in the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN) in Mexico City, and the University of Latin American Integration (UNILA) in southern Brazil. The analysis of both universities reveals the emergence of exceptional plurilingual LPP frameworks: The Mexican UPIITA fosters the learning of more than one foreign language to cope with research and study abroad activities. The Brazilian UNILA integrates students from all over South American through teaching in Portuguese and Spanish as equal languages of instruction. English and other international languages come third as access languages to the international academia. Finally, the article relates its findings to the more general picture of university LPP in Latin America.