The place of English in the Russian higher education landscape

Abstract

The dissemination of English and the role it plays in Russian higher education are connected with its internationalization – a process that has been gaining momentum over recent decades spurred by a number of top-down and bottom-up initiatives. The role of English in university teaching and research is illustrated by the analysis of open access data on two leading Russian universities and the findings of a survey of teaching staff’s perceptions of English in academia. The views of some other stakeholders have been collected from the existing publications on the topic. The term Englishization is inappropriate to describe the Russian context because the use of English in Russian academia is not as far-reaching as the term implies.