Language Without Borders (English) Program: A Study on English Language Ideologies

ABSTRACT This paper presents the synthesis of a study on the English language ideologies (ELI) underlying the Federal Program entitled “Languages without Borders-English” (LwBE). The investigation draws on texts from the legal, educational, and journalistic spheres about the enactment of the Program. Using NVivo 11 software, these texts were stored and categorized in the light of the Policy Cycle Approach and Critical Discourse Analysis. The overlapping of six ELI - standard language, English language as a commodity, native-speakerism, instrumentalist, global language and linguistic imperialism - is conceived as a common trait of LwBE in discourses, displaying tensions between the ratification and the questioning of English hegemony in the language policy engendered by the Program, within the context of the internationalization of Brazilian higher education.