2: The Treatment of Language in Relation to Learning in Higher Education

Language and education are inextricably linked, irrespective of the variety, code or mode. Without sufficient proficiency in both language and literacies (including numeracy and oracy), the transformative potential of education is critically impeded. However, despite the absolutely fundamental relationship between the two, the role of language in facilitating, scaffolding, assessing and evaluating learning is often taken for granted, particularly in monolingual contexts, and especially in Anglophone countries such as the United Kingdom and Australia (Mazak & Carroll, 2017; Piller, 2016). As this chapter will outline, where discussions of language and literacies do exist, these are often in relation to international students, and, to a lesser extent, domestic Language Background Other Than English (LBOTE) students, or in the niche area of focus on students’ academic literacies (also known, we argue problematically, as ‘study skills’).