Conflicting Attitudes about the Place of Estonian at the University of Tartu: Interpreting Survey Data on Local and International Staff

Abstract

During the last decade, the universities in Estonia have internationalized their staff and student body to such an extent that the language environment in academia has undergone considerable changes. To react to the internationalization and Anglicisation of higher education and protect the use of Estonian in academia, the University of Tartu renewed its language policy in 2020 and commissioned a survey in 2021 to gain a better understanding of the implementation of the policy and its academic staff members’ attitudes towards the policy. This paper is based on the survey results. The survey was conducted by the authors in 2021 and 2022 and examines the attitudes of the local and international academic staff on acquiring Estonian and using it as the working language of the university. The results show a major difference in the attitudes of the local and international staff members. The local staff is in favour of language policies intended to advance the acquisition and use of Estonian in academia, whereas the international staff is generally interested only in acquiring introductory Estonian skills. Their motivation to continue learning Estonian is low since English is used as the common language of communication and work at the university. Based on the results, the authors present recommendations for designing inclusive institutional language policy and flexible forms of learning Estonian.