L’uso delle lingue nelle università italiane oggi

Since the universities started to use the vernacular language instead of Latin, the medium of communication in Academic teaching and research in Italy has been the Italian language. Recently, however, due to the so called Euopean “internazionalization strategies” in higher education, the English language has being increasingly introduced, both in the field of “hard sciences” and, although less, in the human sciences. The use of English instead of Italian should facilitate international students mobility, enhance the international profile of the institution and strengthen the role of Italy in the global knowledge society. Some higher education institutions have even developed their own internationalisation strategies, e.g. by adopting English as the only language for teaching and research. As a matter of fact, the Ministry of Education has officially recommended to introduce academic courses in English and to publish scientific research in foreign languages which, however, have been reduce to English only. This paper describes the Ialian government policies and approaches to internazionalization with regard to the use of languages; the impact of the use of English instead of Italian on scholarly peer review and university assessment methods; the reactions to the spread of English at the expense of Italian and other foreign languages as teaching and publishing language in Italian universities. Data about the number of courses in English offered by the Italian universities are also included.