Silence, Power, and Language Policy in Higher Education

Universities like to imagine themselves as neutral spaces: places where knowledge circulates freely, where ideas are evaluated on their merits, and where language is simply a transparent medium for teaching, learning, and administration. Language policy, when it is acknowledged at all, is often treated as a technical matter: an administrative necessity rather than a political choice.

In a recent article I co-authored with Eleni Motsiou, we argue that this apparent neutrality is deeply misleading. Using a Greek university as a case study, we show that language policy is always at work in higher education, even when it is not explicitly articulated. And more often than not, what passes for neutrality functions as a mechanism for reproducing existing hierarchies of language, power, and legitimacy.

This post sketches the core ideas of that article and reflects more broadly on what an intentional language policy in higher education might look like.

Universities as linguistic ecosystems

A useful starting point is to think of universities not just as organisations, but as linguistic ecosystems. They are sites where multiple languages, varieties, registers, and semiotic resources come into contact: students’ home languages, disciplinary discourses, administrative genres, academic English, local and national languages, and so on.

In principle, almost any university could be multilingual. In practice, however, language contact in higher education is usually the product of asymmetrical power relations. Certain languages are treated as natural, legitimate, and unmarked; others are tolerated only in specific spaces; and many are rendered invisible altogether.

In the Greek context, this asymmetry is acutely visible. Standard Modern Greek functions as the taken-for-granted default of instruction and administration. Its dominance is so complete that it rarely even needs to appear in policy documents (a state that political theory calls hegemony). Alongside it, English operates as a global lingua academica: omnipresent in academic literature, research evaluation, internationalisation strategies, and increasingly in the linguistic landscape of the university itself.

What matters here is not simply that Greek and English are dominant, but how their dominance is sustained: often without explicit debate, justification, or reflection.

The invisibility of linguistic diversity

One of the paradoxes we highlight is that Greek universities exist within a society that is far more linguistically diverse than official narratives suggest. Greece is often described as linguistically homogeneous, yet it is home to a wide range of heritage, minority, and regional languages, as well as the linguistic repertoires of migrants, refugees, and international students.

Very little of this diversity is visible on campus.

At the University of Thessaly, languages other than Greek and English appear only in tightly circumscribed spaces: elective foreign language courses, Erasmus support classes, or specific departmental initiatives. Heritage and minority languages (including some that are very present in the region, such as Romanesh and Aromanian) are largely absent as objects of study, resources for learning, or elements of the university’s public linguistic identity.

This absence is not accidental. It reflects a broader ideological pattern in which Standard Modern Greek appears as neutral and unifying, while other linguistic forms are viewed as irrelevant, inconvenient, or politically sensitive. The result is a linguistic ecology that looks orderly and coherent, but achieves this coherence through erasure.

Normative and contingent language policy

To make sense of what sustains this situation, we draw on intentional dynamics theory, which views social activity as emerging from configurations of structures, practices, and agentive choices.

From this perspective, two patterns are especially salient in university language policy.

The first is normative dynamics. These are shaped by legislation, institutional tradition, and authority: how things have always been done, and how they are assumed to be done. In Greece, normative dynamics strongly support the hegemonic position of Standard Modern Greek. They define what counts as legitimate language use without ever having to argue for it.

The second pattern is contingent dynamics, which dominate the teaching of foreign languages. Here, provision is shaped by ad hoc decisions: staff availability, departmental priorities, funding opportunities, or marketing considerations. This creates flexibility, but it also discourages strategic thinking. Crucially, it allows English to expand its dominance as the default “foreign language, while other languages remain marginal and precarious.

Taken together, these two dynamics stabilise the existing order. They give the appearance of pragmatism and efficiency, while quietly protecting the linguistic status quo.

Why “neutrality” is not neutral

One of the central claims of our article is that uncritical neutrality can function as a form of symbolic violence. When we view language as natural or self-evident, the social and historical processes that produced its dominance disappear from view. So do the costs borne by speakers of other languages.

In language policy, uncritical neutrality can function
as a form of symbolic violence

This matters not only for questions of representation, but also for epistemic justice. Language shapes whose knowledge counts, whose voices are heard, and whose experiences are rendered intelligible within the academy. When we systematically marginalise linguistic diversity, so too are the perspectives that come with it.

In this sense, language policy is not peripheral to the mission of the university. It is part of what universities do in the world.

Towards a more intentional language policy

If the problem is not the absence of a language policy but the dominance of unreflective ones, then the response cannot simply be to “add more languages” in an ad hoc way. What is needed is purposeful action.

In the article, we sketch some possible directions rather than a fixed blueprint. Among them:

• Reimagining existing Foreign Language Centres as Language Centres with a broader mandate: coordinating language education, supporting curriculum design, and developing expertise in teaching less widely used languages.
• Using needs analysis to plan language provision more strategically, rather than leaving it to contingency.
• Extending provision beyond English and high-prestige European languages to include heritage languages, non-standard varieties, and languages present in the local community.
• Rethinking the teaching of Greek itself, not only as a default medium of instruction, but as a language that can be taught, supported, and internationalised in more intentional ways.

None of these steps is revolutionary on its own. But taken together, they signal a shift from maintaining stability to actively shaping the linguistic ecology of the university.

Language policy as world-making

Ultimately, the argument we make is a simple one. Universities are not passive reflections of society; they are institutions of world-making. Through their policies —explicit and implicit— they help define what is normal, legitimate, and possible.

Language policy is one of the quieter ways in which this happens. Precisely because it so often goes unremarked, it deserves closer attention.

If higher education is serious about inclusion, justice, and critical engagement with its own practices, then it cannot afford to treat language as neutral background noise. Silence, in this case, is already a choice.

And it is one worth questioning.