Íslenska og enska í íslensku háskólastarfi

Abstract

The article describes the relationship between the use of English and Icelandic in Icelandic universities and academia. While Iceland’s seven universities and colleges specialize in different fields of science and technology, they all have to meet both domestic demands for research, teaching, various service and dissemination of knowledge in Iceland, and also, at the same time, to recruit international faculty, participate in international academic cooperation, and provide study offers for non-Icelandic students. According to Icelandic law, Icelandic is the “language of schools at all levels”, which is a provision that holds for universities and colleges. Presently, six out of seven Icelandic universities and colleges have issued their language policies. All these policies provide that Icelandic is the main language of the institutions, and the policies all emphasize Icelandic terminologies. Obviously, however, English must play a key role along with Icelandic, due to a number of external factors.

At present, approximately 6% of students and faculty at Icelandic higher education institutions are non-Icelandic citizens, and English is partly the language of instruction. The proportion of individual classes taught in English ranges from 0% to 23%, depending on the nature of the institutions and the studies that they offer. It also depends on levels of study (English is less frequent as language of instruction in undergraduate studies, and more frequent in graduate studies, on the whole). Academic staff are strongly encouraged to publish their research results in international fora. About 80% of academic publications of faculty members at the two largest universities in Iceland (i.e., at the University of Iceland, and Reykjavik University) are in English. However, the language of writing differs considerably from one field to another; about half of academic publications are in English in the social sciences, education sciences, and humaniora, while the figure is about 97% in engineering, and natural sciences. Presently, doctoral dissertations in the medical sciences, engineering, and natural sciences are exclusively written in English.