‘English spread’ at the interface of national and institutional EMI policies in China

With the expansion of English medium instruction (EMI) in universities around the world, China is witnessing an increasing emergence of EMI. Although EMI research in China has investigated instructional challenges as well as some policy issues at institutional levels, considering recent arguments for critical views of EMI, there is extensive space in this context for exploring ideological underpinnings of EMI policies. In this study, we examine ideological orientations towards the embrace of English underlying these policies at the national level and in cooperative transnational programs in Chinese universities. A collection of 17 official national documents and the policies of 52 cooperative programs at universities around the country are analyzed through qualitative content analysis and thematic analysis, respectively. The emerging themes (teaching materials, English proficiency, teaching language, university culture) indicate that despite some overlaps, the policies at the two levels are largely reflecting distinct ideological orientations: a nationalist position versus an Englishization approach. We discuss the interface of these different policy directions based on a theoretical perspective of the neocolonial politics of English.