Language Ideology and Practices in Higher Education in Saudi Arabia

Universities mainly play an important role in serving the national languages and demonstrating their supremacy in the country and at the same time universities strive to compete with the universities of the world. Between the preservation of the national language and the tendency to internationalize the university, a group of linguistic ideologies is formed, which is expected to be contradictory between some or between ideologies and practices. This paper investigates the linguistic ideology of academics in medical colleges at King Abdulaziz University, because of the important role of ideology in shaping education policies. This paper also investigates the practices of academics, and data was collected through interviews with the aim of revealing language ideologies, while I used a questionnaire to monitor language practices. The results revealed that academics have a pragmatic ideology as a reason for preferring to use English, for example- participating in conferences and publishing scientific papers in English. The results also revealed the existence of positive practices regarding the use of Arabic in communicating with students, and the study revealed the existence of positive practices towards Arabic regarding the use of Arabic references in teaching students and suggesting Arabic references to students if available.