Introduction: Language Policy and the Internationalisation of Higher Education in Catalonia

In recent years, universities have increasingly attracted the attention of applied linguists, allowing them to investigate important sociolinguistic phenomena. From the point of view of language policy in particular, universities are attractive research sites because of their double-sided nature: on the one hand, they continue to be seen as flagship national institutions, expected to be (and sometimes legally required to be) locally relevant and nationally important research organisations; on the other hand, they are increasingly asked to engage globally in the field of education, making them players in an international market. These two different aims produce a set of tensions, ambiguities, and anxieties that universities and their primary stakeholders experience in terms that are intensely sociolinguistic in nature, particularly where the universities are located in non-anglophone contexts. Our book explores these tensions and ambiguities, using empirical material from the Catalan higher education system. This first introductory chapter succinctly presents the main goals of the book and its general outline, together with an overview of the central arguments to be developed in it.